Haiku – Bashō (1644-1694)

Winter solitude—

in a world of one color

the sound of wind.

~ ~ ~

Robert Hass (editor), The Essential Haiku: Versions of Bashō, Buson and Issa, New York: HarperCollins Publishers, Inc., 1994, pg. 33.

Haiku – Buson (1716-1783)

Cold moon—

the gateless temple’s

endless sky.

Stephen Addiss, Fumiko Yamamoto and Akira Yamamoto (translators), Haiku: An Anthology of Japanese Poems, Boston: Shambhala, 2009, pg. 83.

Thoreau on haiku: Unwritten poetry

I’ve been slowly making my way through Thoreau’s Journals (a 700-page abridged edition, edited by John R. Stilgoe, which I highly recommend) and I’ve come across a few passages that could almost be taken as lessons in haiku (writing, reading and experience).  I will occasionally post some snippets from Thoreau’s Journals with this in mind, occasionally juxtaposing this with a haiku poet as an illustration or parallel thought.

The following is from an entry dated 26 June 1840:

The best poetry has never been written, for when it might have been, the poet forgot it, and when it was too late remembered it; or when it might have been, the poet remembered it, and when it was too late forgot it.

It is often said that haiku, certainly in the tradition of Bashō, is concentrated in the present moment.  As Bashō himself once said,

One must first of all concentrate one’s thoughts on an object.  Once one’s mind achieves a state of concentration and the space between oneself and the object has disappeared, the essential nature of the object can be perceived.  Then express it immediately.  If one ponders it, it will vanish from the mind.

It is from this approach to poetry that R.H. Blyth wrote that haiku is “the expression of a temporary enlightenment, in which we see into the life of things.”  What Thoreau is saying is that we are often not attentive enough to the world around us, we are not present enough.  The act of writing haiku is not merely wordplay, but being present to the world, right here, right now.  This is easier said than done—we are too much caught up in words which, rather than being a way of expressing our experience, actually filters our experience.  Haiku may be made of words, but the seed is in wordless silence—in being present.

A haiku is the expression of a temporary enlightenment,
in which we see into the life of things.

Another new year haiku

I failed to mention that another one of my new year haiku has been kindly published, with a Japanese translation by Hidenori Hiruta at the Akita International Haiku Network, amongst other wonderful haiku from all over the world in celebration of the new year.

Snow and ice

Just a couple photos I took after getting off work this morning…

Much snow and ice is not too common where I currently live (in Arkansas).  What I noticed last night and today as I was walking to and from work is the not just the sights, but the sounds of such weather, especially the brittle creak-creaking of icy branches.

Footprints in the snow

For those who are getting there share of snow in the northern hemisphere… Claude Debussy’s chilling “Des pas sur la neige” (“Footprints in the snow”) as performed by Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli:

Haiku – 27 January 2010

“A man’s work is nothing but this slow trek to rediscover through the detours of art, those two or three great and simple images in whose presence his heart first opened.” ~ Albert Camus

I’ve noticed in many of my haiku that I am often drawn to simple images of light, shadow, and silhouette.  There are also other certain basic images that have stuck in my memory and I find them resonating behind those same images as I experience them today (when I say “image,” of course, I mean not only an impression in the visual sense, but engaging all five senses).

In a few more weeks, I will turn forty.  Perhaps because I am older now, I am more sensitive to these images and the deep resonance they have with me.  I think, in my more introspective moments, I still can recall the world in this state of original innocence, a beauty beyond the concept of beauty, the Unsayable.

One of my very earliest memories I have was when I was four years old.  I was, for many years, an only child.  Me and my mother and father lived in Concord, California, not far from Oakland.  My father was in the U.S. Navy at the time.  I can still recall the early, chilly mornings when my mother would take dad to the dock and drop him off and he would board his ship.

On the way back home, I remember sitting quietly in the back seat of our orange (or was it beige?) Chevy Vega looking up at the sky as the sun finally began to rise.  We would be driving along the highway, with little or no traffic.  There was a long stretch of tall trees, pines of some sort, I believe.  The sun would flicker behind the trees.  For some reason, I was spellbound by this interplay of light and shadow.

child’s play:

behind the pines

the sun wavers

Sumner Beach / Valentin Silvestrov

This is a video made up of images from Sumner Beach, with music by Ukrainian composer Valentin Silvestrov. The photos in this video were taken from my September 2009 trip (except the next-to-last image, which is from March 2007, at Taylor’s Mistake).

I love Silvestrov’s Postlude No. 3 for cello and piano… it is so fragile that it sounds like its simply drifting apart.  It doesn’t exactly end: it simply dissolves away into silence.

Meet my cat, Issa

Goes out,

comes back—

the loves of a cat.

~ Issa

(translated by Robert Hass)

This is my cat, Issa, named after the haiku poet Kobayashi Issa.  I got him from one of my neighbours here at the apartment complex where I live last May.  He’s grown quite a bit since then.  This afternoon I take him to the vet to get him neutered.

Haiku – Issa (1763-1827)

In the wintry grove,

Echoes

Of long, long ago.

A crucial aspect of haiku is its connection with nature—more specifically, the rhythms of nature: the seasons.  Its peculiar how changing the season in a haiku dramatically alters the tone of the poem.  Try changing this haiku by Issa to any other season, and it loses its emotional resonance.

~ ~ ~

R.H. Blyth, Haiku: Volume Four (Autumn – Winter), Hokuseido Press, 1952, pg. 352.