Ikkyu: Crow With No Mouth: 15th Century Zen Master (Paperback)

by Stephen Berg (Author)

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Product Details

Paperback: 80 pages
Publisher: Copper Canyon Press; Reprint edition (Sep 1 2000)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1556591527
ISBN-13: 978-1556591525
Product Dimensions: 20 x 13.6 x 0.8 cm
Shipping Weight: 82 g

Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (1 customer review)

Amazon.ca Sales Rank: #3,689 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)
Popular in these categories:
#4 in Books > Literature & Fiction > Poetry > Ancient, Classical & Medieval
#23 in Books > History > Asia

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Product Description

When Zen master Ikkyu Sojun (1394-1481) was appointed headmaster of the great temple at Kyoto, he lasted nine days before denouncing the rampant hypocrisy he saw among the monks there. He in turn invited them to look for him in the sake parlors of the Pleasure Quarters. A Zen monk-poet-calligrapher-musician, he dared to write about the joys of erotic love, along with more traditional Zen themes. He was an eccentric and genius who dared to defy authority and despised corruption. Although he lived during times plagued by war, famine, rioting, and religious upheaval, his writing and music prevailed, influencing Japanese culture to this day.

Stephen Berg is the Editor and founder of American Poetry Review.

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About the Author

Stephen Berg, founding editor of American Poetry Review, is the author of two dozen books of poetry and translations. He is a professor of English at the University of the Arts in Philadelphia.

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	59% buy the item featured on this page: Ikkyu: Crow With No Mouth: 15th Century Zen Master 5.0 out of 5 stars (1) CDN$ 12.41
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5.0 out of 5 stars Something to crow about., Feb 19 2001

By	G. Merritt (Boulder, CO) - See all my reviews (TOP 100 REVIEWER) (REAL NAME)

"Only one koan matters," Ikkyu writes, "you" (p. 67). "Believe in the man facing you now" (p. 21). While meditating on a boat when he was 27, Ikkyu Sojun--also known as "Crazy Cloud" (1394-1482), was enlightened when he heard a crow call (p. 9). As a Zen Master, he was considered sort of an eccentric rake (p. 13), and he never pretended to be much else. He loved sake. He loved women. "The crow's caw was ok," he writes (p. 58), but "a woman is enlightenment" (p. 64). Ikkyu scandalized his Zen community, and his poetry will offend many readers today as well. "Look me up if you want to," he writes, "in the bar whorehouse fish market" (p. 40).

These poems are "frank, naked, sincere" (p. 15), and full of vivid imagery of "erotic renewal" (p. 13). It's enough to say for purposes of this review, Ikkyu lives "in a shack on the edge of whorehouse row" (p. 40). These are the poems of a poet who is "all there" (p. 15), and fully present on his "long pure beautiful road of pain/ and the beauty of death and no pain" (p. 24), whether he is watching his four-year-old daughter dance--"I can't break free of her" (p. 60), watching the "snow moon tangled among black flowers" (p. 39), or "shuttling between whorehouse and bar" (p. 47). Question "flattery success money," he writes (p. 22). "This city these people where I live still are impossible" (p. 30). "Sing until you have no throat then words come by themselves" (p. 55).

I'm not qualified to comment on Stephen Berg's translation of Ikkyu's poems, but I can tell you this book is certainly something to crow about!

G. Merritt

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