25 YEARS OF "PRIJATELJ", THE FIRST SLOVENIAN HAIKU MAGAZINE

It is now 25 years as I founded the first Slovenian haiku magazine Prijatelj (Friend, 友 Tomo in Japanese). It was hand-made publication, done in the way as Japanese magazin Azami, from Osaka, edited by my late friend Ikkoku Santo. It was still time of splitting Yugoslavia, the wars caused by nationalists-communist coalition were not yet finished but Prijatelj succeed to link poets from all warring sides and also to link Balkans' haiku poets with the world haiku scene. From 1996 to 1998 I published 7 issues with about 37 authors in each issue. In sum it was published 747 haiku, 29 articles, 10 renga poems (collective linked form) and about 100 haiga (drawings and aquarelles mostly).
At the time I was living in a small town Tolmin (western Slovenia, in the foots of Julian Alps by Soča river) without any personal document (like ID, or Passport) being one of 25.000 Slovenian Yugoslavs "erased" from official records (administrative ethnic cleansing). I "enjoyed" such "status" of living without papers 17 years. Prijatelj helped me much to stay alive, with some social function. It was very beginning of the haiku movement in Slovenia. After the last Prijatelj was issued, next year (1999), Jim Kacian and I started editing Knots, an anthology of Southeastern haiku poetry which was also one of great turning points in world's haiku movement, with the influence in connecting ex-Yugoslav poets. In that way Prijatelj was predecessor also of World Haiku Association founded in 2000 in Tolmin. I served as the very first WHA director about a year... Modest magazine with enormous impact. Unfortunately, it is mostly forgotten in today Slovenia.





Four issues of Prijatelj

IF YOU ARE HAIRY, haiku from the edge (1)

Dimitar Anakiev and Maribor's public toilets muralists
IF YOU ARE HAIRY
(Haiku from the social margin or LGTB beyond the gentrification)



Hello my darling!
Free fucking in the ass or
blow job for all?
*
If you are hairy
stop for a while
cocks are waiting.
*
Public toilet
graffiti "Blow job" – in the hottest
day of the year.
*



Ejaculation with
blow job – my pleasure is
making people happy.
*
“Steal or die” -
if they catch you: sex
and food are gratis.
*
I am young and hairy,
already 18 years old – do with me
what you want.
*
Blow job, licking – ass,
balls – kissing and fucking –
only if you are hairy.
*


I adore all kinds of dicks:
blow job, fucking, jerking,
all this and more – gratis.
*
My name is Ella,
I love hairy and shaved –
I am a gifted boy.
*
Hey, salesman,
stop for a while – for a small money
you can suck my dick.
*
I work with asses and dicks -
you will never forget
my fucking.
*
If you have bigger dick
then fuck me – If my dick is bigger
I will fuck you.
*

GAZA, 21 haiku by David Rodrigues

1.
through walls
steel butterflies
in Gaza

2.
all the Earth
leans towards the Sea
in Gaza

3.
a piece of steel
embedded in the olive tree
in Gaza

4.
hands
smash stones
in Gaza

5.
only missiles
seen intelligent
in Gaza

6.
lips
are in hurry
in Gaza

7.
eyes on the ground
a couple of lovers
in Gaza

8.
palm trees -
dates covered with dust
in Gaza

9.
olive eyes
smile at the sunflowers
in Gaza

10.
written on the wall
God and the question-mark
in Gaza

11.
Full Moon -
like a spyglass
in Gaza

12.
which God
choose the people
in Gaza

13.
a new shoe
lost on the street
in Gaza

14.
you do not look up
to see the sky
in Gaza

15.
children already know
that it's better not see
in Gaza

16.
sparrows sleep
on the naked limbs of the trees
in Gaza

17.
silence
is warning
in Gaza

18.
there's no space for wishes
between the stones of the wall
in Gaza

19.
this women doesn't know
to whom she's crying
in Gaza

20.
Spring
only the fig trees didn't flourish
in Gaza

21.
weather forecast -
someone can read the future
in Gaza


Haiku by David Rodrigues (Portugal)
from the book Gaza, 2009

AMERICAN MOSQUITOES ARE NOT XENOPHOBIC?

This conversation happened recently on Facebook:


Dimitar Anakiev:

This morning I got a letter from a leading American haiku poet and editor. In this letter he suggests me to change the title of my haiku collection Xenophobic Mosquitoes because, as he said, "mosquitoes cannot be xenophobic"... What do you think about the state of poetry in the USA?


Adis Imamovic Pixi:

Mosquito flying,
Diving, taking blood
Horisont is red


Colin Stewart Jones:

My own experience with midges in Scotland and people who go to countries where there are mosquitoes suggests that all biting flies prefer to attack visitors because their blood is different in the hotter climate. This means that biting flies discriminate. Xenophobic is a very clever synonym to describe this selective dining.


Kim Goldberg:

He sounds like a literal-minded nit-picker. Not the mind of a poet.


Dimitar Anakiev:

It is hard to add something but for these who learn from us (I face such objections two decades and I suppose all other poets... That is a disqualification of personification, which is one of the most frequent kind of metaphor in haiku because it comes from identification of poet with subject i.e. from empathy) let me remind you on famous Zhuang Zhou reply from his (mythological) discussion with Confucius where he answered similar objective statement about fishes with: "How do you know when you are not fish"? In this case "How do you know about mosquitoes when you are not a mosquito"? This Zhuang Zhou answer is classical defense of poetic mind, defense of poetry against flat rationalism. Only the identification can speak in the name of things, so only poets. Cold rational mind is killer of poetry. Such "poets" create formalist approach to "poetry". So yes, Kim Goldberg, not a poetic mind. But unfortunately more than two decades he shapes the haiku in US and present day situation in the haiku of US is result of his work - which is very different compared with the situation related to beat generation.


Marta Stothers:

xenophobic twit
can't discern the difference
between bugs and art


Dimitar Anakiev:

Exactly Marta! In fact what are "bugs" in reality in art they become symbols. But it is hard to understand even for leading poets and editors.


Samo Dekleva:

Change the title to Mosquitos Allergic to Foreign Blood?

5G

Tribute to Kim Goldberg fighting against 5G corporate interests in Nanaimo, Canada:

Fifth generation
without corporate interests:
the litter of my cats
- - - Dimitar Anakiev, 7/7/2019

Visual haiku (art work): Nataša Berk

XENOPHOBIC MOSQUITOES visualised

Haiku: Dimitar Anakiev
Visual haiku: Nataša Berk



Only 13 years old
she gave birth, now pregnant
with anemia




I lost 16 kilos
in two months, now I take
antidepressants




Escaping from war,
escaping from poverty
into an asylum center




Rejected asylum-seeker
broken, like the broken nose
of his wife




It's called 'jungle'
but only I, my brothers
and sisters live there




Instead of dreams
my family comes to my mind
every night




The smile on her face
reappears: talking about
shurba from Herat




A tattoo from Kabul
speaks seven languages
to survive




Pakistan's tribal wars
I lost both of my legs
and my arms




In the waves of the sea
I lost my family to become
welder again




Traveling three months
by land, sea and air we come
into your country




Legs injured
by Taliban, soul wounded
by bureaucracy




I seek medicine
boredom is killing me
and my family




"The same for citizens..."
but they need more support,
more rights to live




Arab vs. Afghan
fight
in an asylum center




Sweat body
in convulsions: without heroin
Afghan youth




Help me, doctor!
In Cameroon they beat
homosexuals




Scar on the leg,
wounds in the heart,
I am from Morocco




Asylum-seekers
with an illness on the heart
but no medicine




I changed religion,
then I changed my homeland,
my Iran




Xenophobic mosquitoes
biting all asylum-seekers: black and white,
men and women

HAIKU TO THE KING OF BOSNIA

Haiku and haiga by Dimitar Anakiev


Please, King of Bosnia
declare humanitarian crisis,
save the refugees.
- - - Dimitar Anakiev, 6/10/19