{"id":69857,"date":"2025-09-04T12:40:37","date_gmt":"2025-09-04T16:40:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/?p=69857"},"modified":"2025-09-21T20:32:56","modified_gmt":"2025-09-22T00:32:56","slug":"one-strike-poems-malcolm-ritchies-mountain-on-top-of-a-mountain","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/2025\/09\/one-strike-poems-malcolm-ritchies-mountain-on-top-of-a-mountain.html","title":{"rendered":"One-Strike Poems<\/em><\/font>
Malcolm Ritchie’s Mountain on Top of a Mountain<\/strong><\/em>"},"content":{"rendered":"
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<\/a>
Purchase here<\/a>.<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

Here is a magnificent book of short poems so rich in images, so clear and yet mysterious, so generous in feeling that, to steal a thought from a Donald Hall essay about Dylan Thomas, “form and shape and honey-in-the-mouth make small monuments of English literature.” <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Malcolm Ritchie, a former Zen monk, writes in an introduction that his “short-form poems” are often mistakenly described as haiku. He points out that haiku are related to “a very different cultural and historical mind-set,” while these poems are derived from an interest in “the chants and prayers of indigenous peoples” and, yes, “graffiti on the walls of the various cities” he’s lived in or visited<\/strong>. Here are a few examples.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

these poems are the evaporations
of myself
condensing<\/font><\/strong>

unseen within a shrouding cloud
snow discretely visits the mountain<\/strong><\/font>

I'm tangled in you
like the hare in the moon<\/font><\/strong><\/center>
up in the hills at this age now
even my stick takes a rest<\/font><\/strong><\/pre>\n\n\n\n
And then there are Ritchie\u2019s quick-sketch drawings, which illustrate the topical sections breaks of the collection such as \u201cBirds,\u201d \u201cTrees and Plants,\u201d \u201cBeasts,\u201d \u201cBugs,\u201d \u201cHuman Condition,\u201d \u201cLove\/Sex,\u201d and \u201cTime.\u201d Here is one:<\/strong><\/font><\/p>\n\n\n\n
HUMAN CONDITION<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n
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“Human Condition” \u00a9 by Malcolm Ritchie<\/em> (Click the image to enlarge.)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Here is a magnificent book of short poems so rich in images, so clear and yet mysterious, so generous in feeling that, to steal a thought from a Donald Hall essay about Dylan Thomas, “form and shape and honey-in-the-mouth make small monuments of English literature.” <\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":69888,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[19,18,4,23,17],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-69857","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-art","8":"category-literature","9":"category-main","10":"category-news","11":"category-political-culture","12":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/Mountain-on-Top-of-a-Mountain-cover420.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pbvgEs-iaJ","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/69857","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=69857"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/69857\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":70271,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/69857\/revisions\/70271"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/69888"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=69857"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=69857"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=69857"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}