Charles Trumbull - A Five-Balloon Morning: Small Press Friday

Charles Trumbull is a poet of quiet, deep emotion. His haiku are ripples on the pond; the source invisible, yet of paramount importance.

A Five-Balloon Morning has a subtitle, New Mexico Haiku, and, though that sets the scene, it is in no sense strictly regional or limiting. In fact, as regular readers of haiku might attest, the more particular the focus, the greater the potential for a more universal theme - in the hands of the right poet, that is. 

Charles Trumbull is the right poet.  

raking into piles
leaves from a tree
I climbed as a boy

The great haiku poets, Bashō coming to mind here, can include an entire lifetime, or lifetimes in one three line verse. And that's what we have here. 


                                        first Christmas
                                     without my mother
                                   without my childhood


Time and memory intertwine again, with tone and subject that certainly is reminiscent of another of the great masters.

hometown visit
fine sand in the doorways
of vacant storefronts

I seem to be focusing on time here, but rather let's say the poet is. There is a sense not just of the past in these lines, but of the future, the reclaiming back of things as they were. Certainly thoughts such as these are never far away in a desert clime.

wild asters
brilliant in the field
after the fire

Nature again takes center stage - the wild joy of the first two lines is suddenly muted at the cause. Yet, still, the wild asters are brilliant and need we worry why?

wind-twisted juniper
at the precipice
you take my hand

This is a ku of balance, wherein the dual-hinge door of the second line swings both ways, perfectly. Certainly, the wind of the first line, even if not at the moment present, might conjure the caution in the third, at a pre or subconscious level.

in the dark corner
where the crucifix hung
a white shadow

There is something, always, about shadows - doppelgangers of sorts, and in this case the 'shadow' is white, and is a 'shadow' of something no longer there, something which perhaps no longer exists.

Yet something that persists.

There is a separate section in this collection entitled Trinity, which is about a visitation to the Trinity site in the desert where the first atomic bomb was detonated. Here are three ku from that powerful collection within a collection which grabbed 
me and held on:

Trinity site
in the guard's vehicle
fuzzy dice

The allusion to Einstein's remark about God and dice immediately leaps to mind and the reverberations take that mind to many a dark place.

we drive through the gate
feeling very American -
weeds through asphalt

The juxtaposition between feeling and reality here is more than the sum of its parts. Perhaps there is an implicit comparison between the weeds and the humans, perhaps not. 

What we do know is that they have both sprung up in a post-apocalyptic reality. 

squabbling children-
the grasshopper
hops away

Such a simple poem, such a complex world. Like how various animals are portrayed in horror movies - horses, dogs, cats - the grasshopper has its say.

This fine collection of contemporary haiku comes from Red Mountain Press. Trumbull has composed a set of poems that in some ways are like whispers, just barely heard, until we learn how to focus in on the sound. It isn't so much the volume of the sound as it is the locale.

It comes from within. 

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As a bit of a bonus to the work above, what follows is a video from the Haiku Foundation of Charles reading some haiku. This video is part of an ongoing series entitled The Haiku Foundation Readings and may be found in the Haiku Foundation Video Archive.

    -------

this world of ours--
so fast the bonfires
burn out

Issa
translated by David G. Lanoue

best,

Don

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Between the Chimes: Charles Trumbull

Wise, gentle, funny, and humble: that's some tall order in one poetry collection and #23 in the Hexagram Series from King's Road Press, Charles Trumbull's Between the Chimes, fits the bill..   Though a brief chapbook, at 14 pages with 32 poems, it displays all the qualities mentioned and is, indeed, very fine as a result.

Trumbull deals in everyday things, with an easy, often self-deprecating humor, reminiscent of Master Issa himself.  Like Issa, some of the poems are plainly what they are; others resonate far beyond their apparent subject.  Here's one with all those elements:

thinking deeply
about my principles—
a wave collapses

The poet's revelation is right on the page: the wave crashes, being as deeply philosophical as will ever be necessary in this life, snapping the poet to attention.   The spirit of haiku comes from a deep, meditative-like attention to things and, when that attention wanders, frequently, if we are lucky, nature calls us back.

There is a haiku about baseball, a subject I formally hated for poetry (until straightened out by Ed Markowski), two about graveyards, and another about elections.   Election Day, it seems to me is a "holiday" which often is captured wonderfully in haiku - somebody should think about a small collection of election poems someday, if it hasn't been already done.

line drive to center
all faces turn toward
the sunflower field

This poem is exactly why I was wrong about baseball and haiku.  What a beautiful little piece, drawing us into the nature element of the national past time and making sure that people know exactly what they are like.  For some reason, probably obvious, I thought about the delicious tennis scene in Alfred Hitchcock's Strangers on a Train.

nearly dusk . . .
the shadow of her tombstone
reaches his

One of two graveyard poems, "nearly dusk" is probably my favorite in the book.   It is at once literal, figurative, heart-wrenching, and lovely.  Also possibly dark, creepy, horrific and more.  It's your half glass of water: choose.

election posters
a neighborhood dog
marks his choice

Really, someone should do a small collection of election day poems.  This one is a beaut and would deserve a prominent place.

on my copy of
Robert's Rules of Order
a dried speck of blood

Somehow, this poem feels like it should have been placed (by me) before the graveyard poem.  One of the great virtues of these poems is their truth - they have a quality of the found poem about them, a satori-like state again in that true spirit of haiku of which this is a good example.   Also, in this case, it happens to be very funny, especially for anyone who has had to suffer through emotionally charged meetings governed by the thin veil of civilizing influence which Robert's Rules provides.

grocery line—
the dancer's feet
in fourth position

This fine ku catches the poet in the attentive mode - how often we miss the details in everyday mundane tasks such as standing in line, as suggested above in the wave poem.   A perfect little moment here.

pansies      we smile back

This is another personal favorite - plainly stated.  Four words, one moment, universal - live in it, dwell there, it's eternity.

between
the chimes of the clock
shooting star

Again, another moment ensnared, a suggestion of time stopped, if just for an instant. One might think of this as the unmeasured moment. This is the heart of haiku, the heart of life, the breath held, in, out, rest ... live.

It is noted in the prefatory material that the cover image for the chapbook is Hexagram 10, from the I Ching, entitled "Treading Carefully."  Here is the explication:

When treading upon the tail of a tiger, if it does not bite you have success.  For the weak to take a stand against the strong is not dangerous if it happens in good humour.

Looking back over the book and the poems highlighted in this post in light of the hexagram is potentially instructive.  The hexagram gives fair warning, and also a potential approach to a hostile environment.  Humor is a key; backing down not a particular option.

As another bard so aptly put it, "it's life and life only."


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This week's poem comes from Lilliput Review, #177, December 2010.  Enjoy.

end
  I pull up a weed
  to find at bottom
  a heart rough
  and split
  earth dangling
  green
  shooting out

Christina Manweller

traveling geese--
the human heart, too
soars

Issa
translated by David G. Lanoue

best,

Don

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Subscribe to Lilliput Review

 

Wednesday Haiku - #4 - Charles Trumbull

Wednesday Haiku, Week #3

 

writer's block
the tap tap tap of rain

on the skylight

Charles Trumbull

spring rain--
one Buddhist sermon
two haiku

Issa
translated by David G. Lanoue

best,
Don

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Hear 'em all at once on the the LitRock Jukebox

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Santoka: Some Further Translations

Last month, I did a post for which Scott Watson allowed me to share some of his thoughts on translation, along with 5 of his excellent renderings of the work of Santoka. In response, in order to prompt to continued thought and, perhaps, even talk on the subject, Charlie Trumbull sent along some translations of the same poems from his ongoing Haiku Database project. I asked him for more info on the project and he sent it, kindly granting permission to reprint the overview here:

The Haiku Database Project

A

while ago I was in the library looking for the text of a certain poem and was grateful for those anthologies that featured a first-line index of the contents. I had the thought that it would be wonderful to have a first-line or subject index of the best English-language haiku. But then, I continued, since haiku are so short, why not a full-text index? And while we’re at it, since we’re effectively talking only about 40 years of English haiku activity, why not a comprehensive, inclusive database?

The Haiku Database in an attempt to do just that: to put into a searchable, sortable, electronic database all important haiku that have appeared in English. I began working on the project in September 1998 and so far (end of June 2010) have captured almost 220,000 haiku. An unscientific guess is that the total number of English haiku published in the journals, anthologies, and individual collections is about twice that number. The Database grows at a rate of more than 20,000 haiku a year.

I began — because it was easy — by copying materials from on-line haiku sites and journals, including Dogwood Blossoms (the first Internet haiku journal), the Shiki Internet Haiku Salon biweekly kukai, Dhugal Lindsay’s Web site (which includes a few issues of Futoh), the wonderful sites constructed by Jane Reichhold, ai li, Elizabeth St Jacques, Randy Brooks, John Hudak, and others. Next, I targeted the major English-language anthologies, and have so far included Cor van den Heuvel’s The Haiku Anthology (all three editions), Bruce Ross’s Haiku Moment, Jim Kacian’s annual Red Moon Anthologies (1996–2008) and the first five volumes in the New Resonance series (1999–2007), the San Francisco, Canadian, Australian, and two New Zealand anthologies, the British Haiku Hundred and Iron Book of Haiku, Zoe Savina’s huge international anthology, and many others.

Journals and individual collections are next. I have finished entering systematically the full runs of a few journals including American Haiku, Haiku West, Haiku Quarterly (Arizona), Woodnotes, Black Bough, South by Southeast, Acorn, Still, and Frogpond, and have begun working on Modern Haiku, Cicada, Dragonfly, Blithe Spirit, and Brussels Sprout. As for Internet sources, the Database includes Reflections, Haiku Light, The Heron’s Nest, Tinywords, Roadrunner, and Simply Haiku as well as much material from the English-language haiku columns in Japanese newspapers such as Mainichi and Asahi.

The Database focuses on haiku in English, but translations into English are also included. The Database now includes the contents of first three volumes of R.H. Blyth’s Haiku, as well as all of his two-volume History of Haiku. All the Peter Pauper haiku books have been extracted, as has the first volume of Toshiharu Oseko’s Bashô’s Haiku and many other translations into English of Japanese haiku. David Lanoue’s astonishing online database of Issa’s work was added at the end of 2007. Important individual collections are being captured as well, including Jane Reichhold’s massive Dictionary of Haiku (both the print and on-line editions; more than 4,800 haiku), Richard Wright’s Haiku: This Other World, and Jack Kerouac’s Book of Haikus.

Criteria for inclusion of a haiku are basically that it should have appeared in print (or in an online journal) in English. A few haiku in other languages are included, some translated, some not; these may form the core of a non-English haiku database some time in the future. Verses included as part of haiga or haibun are included if, in our opinion, they can stand alone as independent haiku. Except for the hokku, verses of renku are generally not included, nor generally are rengay, tanka, cinquains, and the like. In the case of concrete poems and short verses of haiku length, we generally try to be inclusive rather than exclusive. Children’s haiku are included, but gathering them is a low priority.

Data collected for each haiku include the text (including as much of the formatting as possible), the author, publication history, date of composition (or, more commonly, date of first publication), and notes. For haiku translated from languages other than English, notably Japanese, the original text (in the original orthography and in a romanized version, if applicable), the name of the translator, and date of translation are also included. These data permit searches on specific kigo and comparisons of various translations of a haiku by, say, Bashô, even when the English texts are very different. Other fields in the database assist in sorting by season, season words, attributes (e.g., rhyme), etc.

The purpose of The Haiku Database is to make it easier for serious students to locate and study haiku — i.e., it is a finding tool. So far the database has proved useful to poets wishing to check the originality of their own work and in a few cases has helped identify cases of plagiarism in haiku contests. It has been useful for authors writing about haiku, preparing newspaper columns or journal articles, and compiling anthologies to have at hand large selection of examples, together with original publication information.

Clearly, any sort of commercial use or making the database freely available—e.g., on the Web—is out of the question, and I will not publish any raw search data. I would, however, like to make the existence of this resource known and make the search capability available to others in the haiku community. Please let me know if you are looking for a specific haiku or want to know what use has been made of, for example, “pampas grass” or “Christmas” in haiku. Within reason, I’ll be happy to run a search for you.

The poems that follow are in the order of the original post as translated by Scott Watson. I haven't reproduced Scott's renderings again as it isn't a question, in my mind (nor, I believe, Charlie's either), which one is better or worse etc. It is simply a further glimpse into the mind of the original poet, Santoka; more takes on his language, imagery, and thought. It is a way to expand our understanding and further the conversation. As Cid Corman said

Poetry is that
conversation we could not
otherwise have had.

Cid Corman
Lilliput Review, #103

落ち葉ふる奥深く御仏をみる
ochiba furu oku fukaku Mihotoke o miru

Dead leaves fall, in the depth, I see the Buddha

Hiroaki Sato, Cicada 2:3 (1978)



Fallen leaves
Deep in the forest
I see a Buddha.

John Stevens, Santôka, Mountain Tasting #223; different format with translator not given, in Simply Haiku [Web] 3:3 (autumn 2005)




空襲警報るいるいとして柿あかし
kûshû keihô ruirui to shite kaki akashi

The air-raid alarm
Screaming, screaming;
Red persimmons.

John Stevens, Santôka, Mountain Tasting #160; different format with translator not given, in Simply Haiku [Web] 3:3 (autumn 2005)




死人とりまく人々に雲もなきそらや
shinin torimaku hito-bito ni kumo mo naki sora ya

no other translations




うれしいたよりもかなしいたよりも春の雪ふる
ureshii tayori mo kanashii tayori mo haru no yuki furu

Good news,
Bad news;
Spring snow falls.

John Stevens, Santôka, Mountain Tasting #215




しぐるるや死なないでゐる
shigururu ya shinu naide iru

Cold winter rain;
I am still alive.

R.H. Blyth, Blyth, History of Haiku II:181





Downpour, dead I’m not

Hiroaki Sato, Cicada 2:1 (1978)





Winter shower I'm still not dead

Hiroaki Sato, Santôka, Grass and Tree Cairn, 7





late autumn rain;
not yet dying

and

late autumn rain;
yet not dying

Stephen Wolfe, Wolfe, "Wreath of Weeds," 219






It’s drizzling,
Here I am,
Still alive.

Hisashi Miura and James Green, Selected Haiku from Sômokutô


For further info on the Haiku Database Project, you may contact Charles Trumbull at:


trumbullc AT comcast DOT net (all one phrase, with AT standing in for @ and DOT standing in for .)


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This week's featured poem comes from Lilliput Review, #145 and, since this post has been about translation, what can be more fitting than this little tanka, from the seminal 100 Poems by 100 Poets collection (a full translation of which may be found here):

The mountain pheasant's tail
trails long behind
–longer still
is my loneliness
in the unendingly long night.

Kakinomoto-no Hitomaro
translated by Dennis Maloney & Hide Oshiro

completing
the green mountain
a pheasant cries

Issa
translated by David G. Lanoue

best,
Don

The Butterfly and the Moth Redux: Buson and Billy Collins

Following on the discussion of Buson and Billy Collins from this Wednesday's post, I received a very informative email from Charles Trumbull, editor of Modern Haiku. His email contained some salient information, plus variant translations of the temple bell / butterfly haiku, so I asked and received his kind permission to reprint it in full. For those who didn't read the original post, here are the two poems that were discussed:

----Butterfly
sleeping
----on the temple bell

Buson

Japan

Today I pass the time reading
a favorite haiku,
saying the few words over and over.

It feels like eating
the same small, perfect grape
again and again.

I walk through the house reciting it
and leave its letters falling
through the air of every room.

I stand by the big silence of the piano and say it.
I say it in front of a painting of the sea.
I tap out its rhythm on an empty shelf.

I listen to myself saying it,
then I say it without listening,
then I hear it without saying it.

And when the dog looks up at me,
I kneel down on the floor
and whisper it into each of his long white ears.

It's the one about the one-ton temple bell
with the moth sleeping on its surface,

and every time I say it, I feel the excruciating
pressure of the moth
on the surface of the iron bell.

When I say it at the window,
the bell is the world
and I am the moth resting there.

When I say it at the mirror,
I am the heavy bell
and the moth is life with its papery wings.

And later, when I say it to you in the dark,
you are the bell,
and I am the tongue of the bell, ringing you,

and the moth has flown
from its line
and moves like a hinge in the air above our bed.

Billy Collins

The gist of my musings was why Collins chose to go with "moth" rather than "butterfly," which is how most translations have it. Here's what Charlie has to say:

I read with interest your bit about the Buson haiku and Billy Collins. Here’s some background that may be of use to you.

The haiku by Buson (note, no macron over the O)

釣鐘に止りてねむる胡蝶 かな
tsurigane ni tomarite nemuru kochô kana


is indeed one of his most famous and most often translated. Harold Henderson, in his Introduction to Haiku, renders it literally as follows:

Temple-bell-on settling sleep butterfly kana


where “kana” is a kireji, a word in Japanese that governs the relationship between two parts of a sentence and here is a sort of unvoiced sigh or sotto voce “that’s so.”

Collins apparently saw the translation that was published in X.J. Kennedy’s Introduction to Poetry:

On the one-ton temple bell

On the one-ton temple bell
a moon moth, folded into sleep,
sits still


I haven’t checked my copy, but Kennedy probably got the version from someplace else. This translation is typical of early English translations of haiku, adding words and notions for their poetic values as well as unnecessary titles.

Neither my Japanese nor my Japanese dictionary are good enough for me to know the exact meaning of “kochô,” the name used by Buson for the insect. “Butterfly” is more commonly “chôcho,” while “moth” is “ga.”

Here is a handful of other translations, with translator and published source:


Silence

A frail white butterfly, beneath the spell
Of noon, is sleeping on the huge bronze bell

Harold Stewart
Stewart, Net of Fireflies, 52

Asleep in the sun
on the temple’s silent bronze
bell, a butterfly

Behn, Harry
Behn, Cricket Songs


Butterfly
sleeping
on the temple bell.

Robert Hass
Hass, Essential Haiku (1994), 108


Butterfly asleep
Folded soft on temple bell …
Then bronze gong rang!

Beilenson, Peter
Japanese Haiku (1955); Haiku Garland (1968); Little Treasury (1980)


Clinging to the bell
he dozes so peacefully
this new butterfly

Sam Hamill
Hamill, trans, Sound of Water; Hamill, trans, Little Book of Haiku, 61

on a temple bell
alighted and sleeping
this butterfly

William J. Higginson
Modern Haiku 35:2 (summer 2004), 52 (a)


On the great temple bell
stopped from flight and sleeping
the small butterfly

Miner, Earl
Miner, Japanese Linked Poetry; Bowers, Classic Tradition


On the hanging bell,
staying while he sleeps,
a butterfly!

Sawa Yuki and Edith Marcombe Shiffert
Haiku Master Buson


On the temple bell
has settled, and is fast asleep,
a butterfly.

Harold G. Henderson
Henderson, Introduction; Modern Haiku 4:3 (1973), 51 (a); Frogpond 14:2 (summer 1991), 31 (a)


On the temple bell
Something rests in quiet sleep.
Look, a butterfly!

Buchanan, Daniel C.
Buchanan, One Hundred Famous Haiku (1973), 65


On the temple bell,
Settled down and fast asleep
A butterfly.

Harold G. Henderson
Henderson, Introduction; Modern Haiku 3:2 (1972), 26 (a)


On the temple’s great
Bronze bell, a butterfly sleeps
In the noon sun

Beilenson, Peter, and Harry Behn
Haiku Harvest


Perched upon the temple-bell, the butterfly sleeps!
Hearn, Lafcadio
Hearn, Kwaidan


The buttefly
Resting upon the temple bell,
Asleep.

R.H. Blyth
Blyth, Haiku II—Spring, 258



Best,

Charlie

I checked my copy of Introduction to Poetry by Kennedy and, coincidentally, Buson and Collins are listed next to each other alphabetically in the "Lives of the Poets" section. The translation is Kennedy's own, though he has another poem by Buson translated by Robert Hass. In two romanized Japanese/English dictionaries I checked at the library, kochô was listed as butterfly, but I'll defer to Charlie since I also found chôcho listed as butterfly in a third.

So, though the mystery still remains, we've ended up with a wealth of useful information and a wonderful selection of different ways Buson's poem has been translated. I was particularly thrilled to see a beautiful version by Lafcadio Hearn, the subject of a post here recently, and a typically taciturn, precise version by R. H. Blyth.

Many, many thanks to Charles Trumbull for all the great information and the various translations. Only one question remains:

Will we wake up before the big bell rings?


best,
Don