Apocryphal koans, barbaric haikus and other zen poetry are the three sections in which the project «apocryphal zen», on which I’m working since about two years, is divided.
Zen literature, both the traditional one of koans and gathas and the one which was strongly influenced by Zen, as the writing of haikus, has surely signed an important step of my travelling along the way of poetry, and so in my inner search and in my attitude towards everything else. Writing «apocryphal» texts to be put next to the original ones in my inner reading, was an automatic reflex for me, a personal urgency; posting them here I hope they can, I won’t say help someone else in his search, but maybe take him near to this nonsensical universe which is Zen, just because I know how much it could give everyone of us.
So the project «apocryphal zen» was born, though Zen literature is all but holy writing or canon to subvert: on the contrary… The title is then the result of a kind of self-irony, which is to find in the texts, and which comes just from the awareness of the absolute absurdity of a pretended apocryphal Zen, but also from the awareness, as a consequence, of its right to be.
I don’t feel particularly to add something about Zen literature: the ignorant reader will be always regarded as a precious guest, who I’m never going to treat with paternalist didactic; on the other side, for the reader who is already bumped into the crooked ways of Zen – he lucky – it will be more than less necessary to remind him to forget. I’ve added and am still going to add – it’s true – something about the single sections – koans, haiku and other zen poetry – but that’s nothing I consider necessary to get introduced in the reading. Pure empting.
Since a little bit, the collaboration with the musician and dear friend of mine Giuseppe Rizzo from Palermo has become a central role in the development of the project. All was born in a completely casual and spontaneous way through his reading of the text which was then single, and which is now the first case of the apocryphal koans, posted here on the blog two days ago. He took inspiration for a piece which he called steel flower and which you can listen to on his homepage. For a long time nothing has followed this extemporary episode, until we had the idea, that it would be maybe interesting, in this multimedia epoch – of crossing the ways, as I say – to put music next to the texts, without necessarily setting univocal links between a precise text and a precise musical track, aware that inspiration cannot be forced and that the trap of “wanting to illustrate” is always a threat.
What the final place of the product of this project will be, is not yet clear, but surely we are very curious to see its feedback online.
Originally posted in Italian on January 29, 2008 at 14:10
So the project «apocryphal zen» was born, though Zen literature is all but holy writing or canon to subvert: on the contrary… The title is then the result of a kind of self-irony, which is to find in the texts, and which comes just from the awareness of the absolute absurdity of a pretended apocryphal Zen, but also from the awareness, as a consequence, of its right to be.
I don’t feel particularly to add something about Zen literature: the ignorant reader will be always regarded as a precious guest, who I’m never going to treat with paternalist didactic; on the other side, for the reader who is already bumped into the crooked ways of Zen – he lucky – it will be more than less necessary to remind him to forget. I’ve added and am still going to add – it’s true – something about the single sections – koans, haiku and other zen poetry – but that’s nothing I consider necessary to get introduced in the reading. Pure empting.
Since a little bit, the collaboration with the musician and dear friend of mine Giuseppe Rizzo from Palermo has become a central role in the development of the project. All was born in a completely casual and spontaneous way through his reading of the text which was then single, and which is now the first case of the apocryphal koans, posted here on the blog two days ago. He took inspiration for a piece which he called steel flower and which you can listen to on his homepage. For a long time nothing has followed this extemporary episode, until we had the idea, that it would be maybe interesting, in this multimedia epoch – of crossing the ways, as I say – to put music next to the texts, without necessarily setting univocal links between a precise text and a precise musical track, aware that inspiration cannot be forced and that the trap of “wanting to illustrate” is always a threat.
What the final place of the product of this project will be, is not yet clear, but surely we are very curious to see its feedback online.
Originally posted in Italian on January 29, 2008 at 14:10
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