THE THREE ARTS OF MINE, haibun

Dimitar Anakiev

THE THREE ARTS OF MINE, haibun
(written at the request of Carmen Sterba)

My name is Dimitar Anakiev, I am a MD, poet and filmmmaker. That means I am involved in three arts. Among them, according to Hippocrates, medicine is the most noble. I work in an Emergency Unit at Slovenian/Croatian hilly border in the south. We save human lives every day, that is our job. Recently we rescued a shepherd with severe myocardial infarction and transported him by helicopter to the hospital. He survived. One day he visited me in my infirmary and put big piece of cheese on my desk.

A shepherd,
gives me his heart
a piece of cottage cheese

I started studying Japanese haiku in the 80' during my medical studies. For nearly 20 years I have been writing haiku by imitating Japanese poems. Later I was able to develop my personal style, to express my life and my culture. Probably my first original poems appeared around 2000 when I hosted a conference of World Haiku Association in Tolmin, Slovenia.

A child inside me
is swinging through the mist
over the deep water

In my filmmaking I tried to face historic changes in Eastern Europe that influenced strongly my life. In 2006 I got Slovenian national award for my documentary film. But soon I recognized that haiku is also a tool for facing history. I wrote numerous engaged haiku. Recently I published my first collection of engaged poems. It is named Hiroshima Day. It is dedicated to Fukushima nuclear disaster. Poems are originally written in English, then translated into Japanese by my friend Haruka Shima.

Name for a bomb
and name for a plant
Hiroshima & Fukushima

Radovljica, September 19, 2015

http://www.amazon.com/Hiroshima-Day-Dimitar-Anakiev/dp/1516975758/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1442649816&sr=8-1&keywords=Hiroshima+Day%2C+Dimitar+Anakiev