Slide Show Zen Poetry of Awakening Waka History & Structure
Celebrating PoemCity
Waka: Zen Poetry of Awakening
PRESENTED BY: REALIZATIONAL PRACTICE STUDIES
April 10th 6:30-8:00 P.M.
Kellogg-Hubbard Library, Hayes Room
135 Main St, Montpelier, VT 05602
Facilitators: Kagayaki Karen Morris and Seiso Paul Cooper
In this introduction to the form, history, and practice of waka (5-7-5-7-7), the precursor of haiku (5-7-5) as conveyors of spiritual awakening in Zen Buddhism, transmitted Zen Buddhist teachers, Seiso Paul Cooper and Kagayaki Karen Morris, both award-winning poets and authors, will present the waka of 12th C. Japanese Buddhist poets from the golden age of Japan’s enlightenment poetry. An introduction to the practice of Zazen (Zen meditation), as the core practice and foundational teaching of the Zen Buddhist tradition, will be given, followed by a brief practice period. The Zazen experience will serve as the jumping off point for writing our own waka, noting the function of the form to awaken the poet to the connectedness of internal insight and aesthetic experiences of the surrounding world.
Karen Morris is the author of Nothing Happened Last Night (2024, Finishing Line Press). She received The Gradiva Award for Poetry (NAAP, 2015) for her full-length collection CATACLYSM and Other Arrangements (Three Stones Press, PA). Her poems have appeared in numerous journals including, Women’s Quarterly Journal, New York Quarterly, Chiron Review, SWWIM Every Day, Writers Resist, and Paterson Literary Review. She is a psychoanalyst in private practice in Montpelier, and cofounder, lay transmitted teacher for Two Rivers Zen Community, an online practice community. http://www.tworiverszen.org
Seiso Chugai Paul Cooper: Formally transmitted teacher in the Soto branch of Zen; a member of the American Zen Teachers Association; Co-founder, Realizational Practice Studies Group, Montpelier, Member Vermont Association for Psychoanalytic Studies; Award-winning author: Solitary Moon: New Waka, and Still Standing: Three Stones Haiku. He has taught both haiku and waka extensively. He currently organizes, facilitates, and leads silent retreats in the formal Soto Zen style at retreat centers and online. https://realizationalstudies.com
Barre Zen Meditation Center Kokyoji, (Eternal Mirror Temple) 