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Jacks Or Better

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Jacks Or Better by Pat Nolan printable pdf

Pat Nolan’s Jacks Or Better is one in a series of travel journals modelled on Basho’s kikō (travel diaries) in which the Japanese poet recorded his travels to meet others engaged in the practice of haikai no renga (linked verse). In Jacks Or Better, Nolan travels by train from the Bay Area to New Orleans to meet up with the poet Andrei Codrescu, and then on to Lakeland, Florida to visit with his parents. Travel journals of this type usually consist of a narrative interspersed with haiku-like poems resembling the prose/poetry form of haibun. Nolan’s other excursions at the behest of the muse include The Cloudy Road To The East (Transfer), Exile’s Return (Exquisite Corpse), Bolinas And Beyond (Exquisite Corpse, later published as Ah Bolinas! in a limited edition by Not My Hat Press), and Irony Road (Milk Magazine).

Limited Edition: Jacks Or Better

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Jacks Or Better

by Pat Nolan

Jacks Or Better is a travel journal (kikobun) in the tradition of Basho’s Narrow Roads To Far Off Places.  The narrow road followed in this journal is the iron road, from San Francisco to rural Florida with stops in New Orleans and Baton Rouge.  It is a poet’s journey expressed as haibun in which descriptive or expressionistic prose is capped by a haiku-like poem that continues the thread, elucidates it, or offers a disparate juxtaposition.  Published by Egret Moon Press in 2011 in a limited edition of 36 copies. 38 pages hand-bound with Japanese stitching between grey repurposed paper covers, 7×7.25 inches (18x19cm).

 

jobfcvrfrom Jacks Or Better 

Although this is my first trip to New Orleans, I’ve taken trains across country before and have always found that if you’re on a schedule they are the last place to be.  But if you’re not in a hurry, they enforce a leisurely pace that is fast becoming antique. My final destination is Florida where I will visit with my parents.  The first leg will take most of three days. This trip is ostensibly about the anatomy of a friendship and the relationship between generations.  I will visit with Andrei Codrescu in New Orleans and lecture to his MA classes at Louisiana State University. 

Baton Rouge
“only place in America named
         after a dog’s dick”

 

 To view a pdf facsimile click JACKS OR BETTER 2011