Sincerely Yours

With so much talk these days about the pervasiveness of fake news and disinformation, any prospect of encountering sincerity would seem to be naive, at best. Yet, Uejima Onitsura, a younger contemporary of Basho, the father of Japanese haiku poetry, emphasized 400 years ago the central importance of makoto or sincerity in this brief art form. In light of the overemphasis on artifice and the surreal in contemporary Enlglish-language literature and poetry, sincerity appears more urgently needed than ever. Aligned with virtue, truth and trustworthiness, let sincerity be our touchstone and guiding star, personally, interpersonally, poetically.