A Short History of the Ku
by Silas Goldean
Although it's almost impossible to specify the genesis of most poetic forms, such is not the case with the birth of ku. In the late 1600's, rag-tag groups of spiritual/political dissidents, having survived centuries of Christian and state persecution, gathered their various remnants in a remote stretch of the Caucus Mountains between the Black and Caspian seas, gradually settling into farming and fishing communes practicing what one member described as "interdependent self-sufficiency." These remnant groups of animists, pantheists, and other self-described "pagans," along with underground alchemists, anarchists, sundry polytheists, honest agnostics, the more radical fringes of Taoists and Buddhists, and a miscellany of generally left-leaning zanies, soon described that while their various farms and fishing boats provided for their collective physical sustenance, sustaining the spirit required a different institution. To that end, they established what came to be called the Mystery Schools, small academies where the groups' assorted beliefs, practices, and traditions were not only kept alive, but refreshed and refined by the hybrid vigor which often obtains in conditions of fertile proximity.
The pantheist branch of the Mystery Schools soon produced a brilliant young teacher named Sopheah Lux, also known as the "Wild Woman of the Hebrides" because of her "extraordinarily free" upbringing on the islands off Scotland . . .
To get the rest of the story, attend Jim Dodge's ku workshop at the Ku*Kuroo** 2014 on April 5th at the RCC Medford Campus Black Box Theater at 10AM.
The pantheist branch of the Mystery Schools soon produced a brilliant young teacher named Sopheah Lux, also known as the "Wild Woman of the Hebrides" because of her "extraordinarily free" upbringing on the islands off Scotland . . .
To get the rest of the story, attend Jim Dodge's ku workshop at the Ku*Kuroo** 2014 on April 5th at the RCC Medford Campus Black Box Theater at 10AM.
* Ku - 7 syllable "poems" requiring titles longer than the poem itself. - Sopheah Lux, "The Wild Woman of the Hebrides"