LIFE OF A POET ~ TONI SPENCER ( KANZEN SAKURA)

This week, my friends, we are pleased to bring you an interview with Toni Spencer, who blogs at  kanzen sakura. Toni has a very interesting story, being a Southern belle with a love of all things Japanese. Pull your chairs up close. As this is the South, there is the scent of magnolias in the air, and we are on a wide covered porch, sipping sweet tea.

                                                                    

Sherry: Toni, you have one of the most interesting “About” pages I’ve ever read. Yay! Lots of directions to go in. First of all, would you explain a little about the meaning of the name of your blog, the fusion of Southern and the East?

Toni: I am a southern woman, born and bred in the South.  I love the Japanese culture and country.  The South part is posts about growing up me,  people I’ve met, Old Family recipes, Southern recipes, retro recipes,  food history.  The East part is Japanese poetic types, poems derived from Japanese concepts and aesthetics, Japanese recipes, prose about things Japanese (trips, incidents, a long relationship with a Japanese man – a modern “Samurai”.  The relationship ended years ago, but the effects and lessons learned from that still permeate my life.

Pink Sakura

Sherry: A beautiful love story scented with cherry blossoms. How lovely. I gather you fell in love with Japan as a child. Would you tell us a bit about this lifelong love, and your travels to Japan?

Toni: I have traveled to various cities while I was single, for both business and pleasure.  I consider the temple and Zen garden at Ryoanji (peaceful dragon) my heart home.  Recently I wrote a haibun about it.

Ryoanji Temple Pond

photo by John Lander

asiaimages.net

Peaceful Dragon

Friendship is always a sweet responsibility, never an opportunity. Khalil Gibran

A cold, wet day in Kyoto. I did not want to be here but since I was, I decided to go to Ryoanji, a few blocks from the hotel where I was booked. Because it was cold winter rain, I took a taxi instead of walking. The taxi driver was happy I was American. I sat in the back seat for the few moments it took. Several times I caught his eye in the rear view mirror, he always smiled. When I got out of the taxi handing him money, he waved it away. “American. Stranger. Cold.”..I could not in honor leave money after that. I bowed deeply to him as he drove off. I hoped he would look in his mirror and see.

I was alone on the viewing platform overlooking the dry garden. I stood looking in silent awe. On top of the wall was a row of sparrows. All fluffed out, eyes bright with curiosity, they watched this Western stranger move from one end of the platform to the other until I felt “right” and sat down. A few moments later, a young man came in and sat down close by. I glanced in curiosity and he smiled,. We sat there for an hour or so breathing in the perfume of the past, breathing out the steamy breath of the present. The breaths mingled with the cold air and became absorbed. The sparrows became restless, the air turned sweet. I knew that smell – snow! Soon snow flakes joined the rain. I sensed the young man was looking at me. He pointed up and around the garden – hatsuyuki – first snow, he said and sweetly smiled at the sky. It was time to go. Stiffly I began to rise and he put out his hand to help me. We walked in silence to the parking lot where I would summon another taxi. He motioned me to follow him and without fear, I did. With gentle courtesy he opened his car and brought out a thermos. He handed me the cap and poured hot tea into it. I sipped quickly, thawing. A taxi pulled in the lot, trolling. He hailed the taxi for me and put me in speaking to the driver. I gave the driver my hotel and was taken there. I paid him and went inside. I headed for a hot shower and room service. I blessed my new friends who gave without asking.

First snow and sparrows –
Strangers become friends beside
The peaceful dragon.

Sherry: You describe the place of your heart so beautifully, Toni. You wrote your first poem at age six – a haiku, no less!  Would you like to tell us the story about it?

Toni: Smiles.  It is a rather long telling but here is the link, if anyone is interested.  It is a rather funny tale.  Years later when I began to study Japanese poetry forms, I realized the poem was not a haiku but rather, a senryu – the unidentical twin to haiku.  But I still call it one as it was how I think of it.  The haiku is:

rain rain rain rain rain
ducks like rain but I do not –
rain rain rain rain rain. 

Sherry: It is a wonderful story, and it sounds like you were a remarkably precocious child. Tell us a bit about your childhood?

Kanzen

Toni: I grew up, the only child in a home of adults and teenagers, in the home built by my great grandfather’s father.  We were multi-generational,  ranging from my great-grandfather to me.  Relatives from the country were frequently visiting and staying for a few days. 

I was spoiled but not in the typical sense of being spoiled.  I was not given any “thing” because I wanted it.  Rather, because we were a family of odd folk – eccentric, not crazy because of being an “old” family – my precocity was encouraged.

 I realized at one point when I was just learning to write, that I could sign my name upside down, backwards, and both.  I began to write other words in that manner.  When I began formal schooling, which I hated, my first grade teacher sent a sample of that writing along with a note to my parents expressing “great concern”.  My mother returned the sample and the note with her response written on the note:  “Unless Toni misbehaves, don’t bother us with this sort of nonsense.”  All of my family members were avid readers, musical, my father rivaled my grandmother with his excellent cooking, we had a large kitchen garden which was often a playground for me. 

My next favorite was the small library.  I don’t know if they influenced my writing, but they did encourage me.  I discovered Emily Dickinson, TS Eliot, and JD Salinger when I was 12.  They were the ones who influenced my writing/poetry.  And then I discovered Basho!  Happy day! 

Sherry: You have the makings of a Southern novel here. So interesting! 

Would you like to bring us up to date? What does your life look like today?    

 

Toni: I share my daily life with my husband.  We met on the internet.  Later bloomers, we married for the first time at a later time in life. One of the few things in which I listened to my wise mother was to marry a man 10 years younger.  My three remaining blood relatives – my mother and her two younger sisters – currently live in Tennessee.  My mother has Alzheimers.  I talk to her via phone several times daily and hope to plan a visit to her soon.  No critters. I had to put my cat down a couple of weeks ago and that was heartbreaking.

Looking for my granny

Sherry: Oh, I’m sorry, Toni. It is so hard to lose these beloved creatures. And it must be hard to lose your mother the way you are losing her, too. 

Toni: SamCat was rescued from a shelter. He lived the first four years of his life in a kennel and the last four with me. He was a smart, sweet, loving boy. He would always lie between my keyboard and the 'puter monitor while I wrote. His ashes are now in their container on my table while I write. I miss him dreadfully. I wrote a  haibun for him.

Family Pictures

I have a huge extended family in the “real world” and in the blogosphere.  In my blog, I often refer to them as “strangers who became family”.  I live in Virginia in a plain little brick rancher on the verge of a woods. I was taught fighting forms with a katana years ago, but because I am so short (4’10”), I cannot properly pull a katana from its sheath so I use instead the shorter sword, wakizashi,  which is about 8 inches shorter.  Her name is 南風 Minamikaze – South Wind.

 I practice my forms in all kinds of weather as a type of meditation.  I jokingly call myself onnabugeisha which means, female samurai.  I say that my life is guided by the 10 Commandments and the principles of Bushido.

Snowy Branches

Sherry: An intriguing combination. Write that memoir! I’ll buy it! I read you have gone back to school to study pharmacy. How is that going?

Toni: I am still studying.  I have changed hats frequently in my life as circumstances dictate.  At this point, I may decide  not to continue.  I am retired as of a year ago, and enjoying concentrating on my husband, family, poetry, cooking. 

Sherry: We wait so long for that luxury, don’t we? Would you like to choose a few of your poems and tell us a bit about each one?

Toni: I write mainly Japanese poetry forms.  The haiku are traditional, for which I am a stickler.  They have no titles.  1)  is a haiku I wrote this summer to express the grief myself and two other friends felt over the sudden death of a friend from COPD.

Aware Cho

summer night is long –
dew falls but fades at morning –
grasses remember.

Sherry: How moving and beautiful. Sometimes, the simplest words carry the strongest emotion. You are moving through your losses with grace, Toni.

Toni: 2) is  a poem for the prompt of enjambment –

Autumn Light

 Autumn is Fall(ing) to sleep

Autumn is fall(ing) to sleep and
the creek at the foot of the hill is not
the gurgling child it was. Slower now
and grey around the edges. Stones left
behind from summer flooding dusty
and sad at being left behind. The frogs
have vanished and dragonflies
with-drawn to their secret blue cave in
the sky. Autumn is fall(ing) to sleep
withered sere leaves drift aimlessly
in the occasional breeze. Hum(ming) birds
have flown farther south to the land of eternal
jewels – treasures of another age –
placed carefully
in a museum of warmth and sun.
One night soon the stars will freeze in
the blackness of winter. Frosted morning grass
will crunch under my feet as I won(wan)der
shoulders hunched hands in my pockets
knowing going on without you is like
trying to thread a needle with one hand
with frozen fingers. Autumn is fall(ing) to sleep.

This poetic device was difficult to me until I wrote a tanka and then disjointed it.  I was extremely pleased, and intend to use this in the future.

Sherry: How lovely. I especially love your description of the creek as “not the gurgling child it was”. And your closing lines – the going on without the beloved, expressed so poignantly.

Green Forest

Toni:  3) is a haibun:

 Gold Day  

The afternoon he left was a golden roux of fading autumn sunlight, spicy oak leaves – bright yellow, still holding on to the tree, not yet ready to fall, and bitter salt tears – like the oak leaves – refusing to fall, refusing to join the earlier faded maple leaves on the lawn. Under the trees, quiet and still, I allow the knowledge of his leaving to permeate my being. I am still breathing. My heart is still beating. The sky is still ethereal blue with purest white autumn clouds wafting their way to the end of the horizon. Starlings lift from the telephone wires to follow the clouds. I realize, I will continue on my way – leaves will change color and fall, snow will cover the sepia winter landscape, cherry blossoms will bud, bloom, and fade, trees will leaf in explosions of green, leaves will change color and fall. Seasons and things will pass. Inside, my soul says “Oh!”  I sit as the gold day ends.

early leaf burning –
its incense drifts to heaven
autumn’s voice whispers.

Blossom

I like this one because it is about when my relationship ended.  I think it is a lovely haibun,  and like many of my poems, the Japanese aesthetics of mujo, mono no aware, wabi sabi, chinmoku – often are the themes: transience, pathos at the passing of things, beauty in imperfection, silence.  Don’t get me started.  A friend and I often talked about these things from east coast to west, for 8 hours at a time or until our phone batteries died.

Snow

Sherry: It is breathtakingly lovely, Toni, the more so because of the awareness of the narrator of all that is passing, all that is to come. Absolutely gorgeous writing! I can see why you love the Japanese forms. The understated nature of the poems renders the material even more poignant. I am intrigued.

How did you come to the world of blogging, and how has it impacted your work?

Toni: A friend told me she had started blogging about food and sent me the link.  I read for a few months and thought, I can do that!  So I did.  My blog has evolved from being food-related to poetry.  I had stopped writing poetry and then, I began again.  I frequently walk around with poems in my head until I decide to write them down.  I am not one who feels I “have” to write/post every day.  If a prompt intrigues me, I will write.  If a poem wants to be written down, I write it.  I have a few followers and people with whom I am comfortable sharing my poems.  I don’t care if I am published.  I write for me and how it satisfies me.

Sherry: I feel the same way! I am more than happy that some people stop by to read my poems.  What keeps you busy when you aren’t writing?

Peaches

Toni: Reading reading reading, cooking,  and in the summer and fall I can and freeze fresh produce, make jams, jellies, pickles.  I cook.  I take long walks and since I am insomniac, frequently walk about at night.  I have several poems written while walking in the rain or snow.  I continue to study Japanese culture and poetry and, my other pet interest, Victorian culture! I love reading historic mysteries – I watch for details that are correct or obscure.  I enjoy researching different foods, especially antique recipes.  I am a dull person!

 Sherry: I think not! People always tell me they are dull and have nothing to say. Then they knock my socks off with their interesting lives, as you have done. Is there anything you'd like to share that I didn't ask about?

Toni: I wrote J.D. Salinger on my birthday in November, having read Raise High the Roofbeam, Carpenters. It resonated with me in a way no novel ever had.  I wrote to him of one section where Seymour was talking of how when he touched people, they left scars on his hands.  I didn't know where to reach Mr. Salinger so I sent to his publisher and asked that he get it. Amazingly, they forwarded it to him.  This letter from him was the result.  So reclusive was he, that he rarely corresponded.  For our 5th anniversary, my husband had it framed archively so the air would not get to it.  Of course, the letter had moved about with me in its envelope for years! 

Sherry: What a lovely story! This has been a wonderful visit. Thank you! In closing, is there anything you’d like to say to Poets United?

Toni: Thank you to all of you for gracious welcome to this wonderful and creative community.  Your comments and kindnesses mean a lot to me.  It brings to mind my blogging about the “kindness of un-strangers” and strangers who become friends who become family.  A most impressive and talented group of poets!

Sherry: We are happy you are among us, Toni. Thank you for this visit, and for allowing us to get to know you better. We look forward to reading many more of your beautiful poems.

Poets are some of the most interesting people around, are we not? I love reading the stories of the person behind the pen (or the screen). Always unique, always surprising. Do come back and see who we talk to next. Who knows? It might be you!