"Even in Kyoto ... I long for Kyoto:" Bashō by Hass

Last week, I mentioned that I really connected for the first time in a resonant way with Bashō via some of William Howard Cohen's unusual translations from the 1970s.  I've continued reading the haiku translations of Robert Hass after doing a recent post on his renderings of  Issa.  I thought this week, I'd marry those two posts and look at Hass on Bashō.

Until recently, I'd never properly warmed up to Bashō, yet he is a favorite of many of the folks who write me regularly.  I went through the nearly 100 translations that Hass provides and come up with a scant 12 that I really like.  That being said, the ones I like are very fine, indeed.  I see that previously from David Landis Barnhill's collection of 700 Bashō poems, I selected 35 I enjoyed very much, so the math seems comparable. From Jane Reichhold's complete Bashō book, I enjoyed 45 from the 1000+ she translated.   From Hass's selection:

       Even  in Kyoto—
hearing the cuckoo's cry—
       I long for Kyoto.

I love this haiku.  It has a certain post-modern quality that gives it a great contemporary appeal, yet describes a very essential truism about the nature of life.    This is a poem about memory and nostalgia and, probably more importantly, it addresses the second of the 4 Noble Truths: "the origin of suffering is attachment."   What is felt here is the sweetness, the very humanness, of the pain caused by attachment.    This may be my very favorite Bashō poem.

       First day of spring—
I keep thinking about
       the end of autumn.

Again, memory plays a big part in this haiku.   Truly, spring and autumn share many qualities; but for the direction of the wind, one is hard put to tell which season is which on any given day.  And, of course, the wind doesn't know what month it is.  How often in describing beautiful weather in autumn we mention blustery weather in spring as and vice-versa.  Still, what is the poet exactly thinking about the end of autumn?

        The jars of octopus—
brief dreams
        under the summer moon.

The oddness of the two elements of this haiku - an octopus in a jar and brief, disturbed dreams - are what unites the imagery.   The oddness is the meaning and, as such, encapsulates  the oddness of life itself.

       It's not like anything
they compare it to—
       the summer moon.

Pure, unadulterated Zen in spirit, if not in execution.  Talk about the finger pointing at the moon!  This one tells the reader in no uncertain terms that there is no finger.

       As the sound fades,
the scent of flowers comes up—
       the evening bell.

I've been thinking a lot about this haiku, so much so that I believe I will be using it in the introductory haiku class in October I'll be conducting.  What I've been thinking about this I can sum up in one word: vibrations.   That's not what all the critics tell me I should be thinking but I'm thinking it anyway.

       A cicada shell;
it sang itself
       utterly away.

How lyrical can it get?  Anymore lyrical than this?   I doubt it.  The ennui of life perfectly sketched, emphasizing how beautiful sadness might be, if perceived a certain way at a certain time.

       Year after year
on the monkey's face
       a monkey's face.

Another ku that has a post-modern feel, combined again with a Zen feeling, both in philosophy and in execution.  This time the reader cannot see the man behind the curtain.   This poem also recalls for me personally the story I recounted in last week's post about suddenly seeing human faces as having overwhelmingly animal characteristics.   

     A wild sea—
and flowing out toward Sado Island,
     the Milky Way.

The visual image is at once surreal, overpowering, and lyrical.  Yosano Akiko has a beautiful tanka about the Milky Way - the collection of her work, The River of Stars, refers to it - and there are a number of other haiku in this tradition.  Issa, I believe, has at least one ("A clear view / in the soup kettle / ... Milky Way," translated by David G. Lanoue).   In this rendition of Bashō's haiku, since the sea is wild the Milky Way can't be a reflection.  More likely it is so wild, that the sky and sea seem to be one.  Perhaps it is a clear night before a storm or a clearing one just after.

       A caterpillar,
this deep in fall—
       still not a butterfly.

Is this a strikingly modern haiku in its implications?   If a reader insisted that this was senryu rather than haiku, it would have a different resonance than perhaps originally intended, but a significant resonance none the less.   

       The dragonfly
can't quite land
       on that blade of grass.

Here is a moment, a series of contiguous moments actually, so perfectly captured through minute observation that it may only be described as immensely beautiful.  This is as painterly as Buson - actually, it is beyond painterly, it is cinematic.

       A group of them
gazing at the moon,
       not one face beautiful.

This poem has an Issa quality about it.  On the surface, it is about a group of people at a moon viewing party. Somehow, there seems to be something very attractive about the lack of beauty in Bashō's companions.  Is the moon's face, too, ugly?

       Ripening barley—
does it get that color
       from the skylark's tears?

This last is a favorite of mine - a striking image, a philosophical inquiry or, perhaps, a scientific one.  It reminds me a bit of one of Bashō's most famous, and one of my favorite, haiku.   For me, both show a very practical side to the concept of reincarnation.

The summer's grass!
all that's left
of ancient warriors' dreams.

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This Friday feature poem from the archive is from Lilliput Review #137, May 2004.  It is a haiku that may remind you of a little something:

Flower
bent by a butterfly ...
broken dream

Jean Michel Guillaumond

garden butterfly--
the child crawls, it flies
crawls, it flies..

Issa
translated by David G. Lanoue

best,
Don

PS  Get two free issues           Get two more free issues

Buson, Chiyojo, Meisetsu, Moritake: 1 Maxim & 5 Haiku

Two Crows by Buson

Ran across this quote while reading The Essential Haiku, edited by Robert Hass, in preparation for the November Haiku session I'll be doing

"Use the commonplace to escape the commonplace"

Buson

Capturing the spiritual aspect of haiku, haiku as a way, can be tricky when dealing with a Western audience new to haiku. This particular quote may or may not work for my purposes, but it sure does work for this blog. There is at once a Tao/Zen quality to the quote, probing to the core of the Mystery. A beauty.


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As promised in a previous post, here are a few more haiku from One Hundred Famous Haiku, selected and translated by Daniel Buchanan. An older book which largely adheres to the 5-7-5 form in English, there were a number of standout haiku well worth sharing.

Bearing no flowers
I am free to toss madly
Like the willow tree.

Chiyojo

This is a most uncharacteristic haiku, especially a classic haiku, on a couple of levels. First, the use of a simile, with the word "like" and, second, flowing directly from that, a deep expression of personal emotions. It might be more correctly called a senryu, but in any case its strong appeal is precisely because of its uncharacteristic qualities. One of the great Japanese woman practitioners of the haiku form, this powerful emotional work is remembered long after it is read.

Butterflies follow
Lovingly the flower-wreath
Placed on the coffin.

Meisetsu

The translator Buchanan explains in a note that the word "shitau" in the original, which has been translated as "follow / Lovingly" has also the alternate meaning of "yearn for" or "love dearly." Thus the comparison in this ku is implicit compared to Chiyojo's above; the mourner/mourners, too, are like the butterflies, following longingly.

The morning-glory
Today reveals most clearly
My own life cycle.

Moritake

Again perhaps more senryu than haiku, Moritake speaks to the essence of what the nature element and haiku are all about. To make a distinction between nature and human beings, as though people were not part of nature, is in my estimation a significant error. Looking to nature, Moritake sees himself (and us) in the grand scheme of things.

What might the morning-glory reveal tomorrow?


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Sometimes, all it takes is one line; from Lilliput Review, #142, January 2005, a "companion" poem from one of last week's featured poets:

poetry is the dew of silence

Jean Michel Guillaumond

if someone asks
answer: it's a dewdrop
OK?

Issa
translated by David G. Lanoue 

best,
Don

PS  There are always 100's of poems to peruse at the Lilliput archive.

Blues & Haiku: Big Mama Thornton & Peggy Heinrich

Over the years, Peggy Heinrich has published a number of outstanding haiku in the pages of Lilliput Review. 10 of her works were recently featured at santacruz.com. Of the featured haiku, I was particularly touched by:

holding my breath
until the cormorant
resurfaces

Peggy Heinrich

This, of course, reminds me of Bashō's cormorant poem, featured and discussed in a previous post. Here's Bashō, as translated by Lucien Stryk:

Cormorant fishing
how stirring
how saddening.

Bashō
translated by Lucien Styrk

For those unfamiliar with cormorant "fishing," the following explanation comes from that earlier post:

The verse about the cormorant fishing perhaps needs a gloss. Fisherman commonly used the cormorant to fish by tying a string around its neck so when the bird snared a fish it couldn't swallow and the "fisherman" would simply remove the fish and put the bird back in the water. Not quite fishing with hand grenades, but certainly in the same mode. What really captures the true Basho spirit here is that he is both stirred and saddened, he still sees the miracle of nature despite the appalling behavior of nature's "highest creation", man.

Peggy manages to capture the idea of being stirred, as in Styrk's version of Bashō, with a suggestion of sadness or, perhaps, horror.

Another poem that resonates from this selection seems so basic, so simple in image and execution, to approach cliché, and yet, and yet (as Issa said of the dewdrop world):

ebb tide
turning to look back
at my footprints

Peggy Heinrich

In some ways, this is a perfect modern haiku: precise, concise, a literal image capturing a specific moment that resonates mightily. There is not one wrong word here and each carries its weight. Three words are at this poems core: ebb, turning, and back. What each one of those words means individually and collectively makes the poem come together. It is something anyone whose been to a shoreline has experienced. Mixed in that experience is the cosmic feel of place, a sense of self as self, a sense of self as part of the whole, a sort of returning, a vague bit of romantic nostalgia ...

But, ah, I'm projecting and that's the point of great haiku, the interaction of reader and poem, bringing one's own experience to bear. The poem has a feeling of ending, but it could just as well be about beginning, or both.

A genuine haiku moment, so simple it might easily be overlooked, as we overlook things, ordinary things, each and every day. Haiku moments. Moments.

The now.


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On to the then, to risk a trite segue. Here is a moment, courtesy of Miss Late July (who also recently posted this), that is just too good for words. Big Mama Thornton. A very young Buddy Guy.

And, because once you get something like this started you can't stop, see if this one doesn't blow you out of the water:

Ok, so three's a charm: this one's for Janis (there is a reason this link has over 6 million hits), who was a huge fan of Big Mama (turn it UP):

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Featured this week are two poems from the archive, from Lilliput Review #143 (June 1993), to mull over:

when you say 'bird'
do you feel
your wings unfurl?

Jean Michel Guilliaumond

A Melody by Haydn

wild plums --- just --- out -of ---reach

James Magorian

And one from the master:

not giving a damn
that plum blossoms fall...
his stern face

Issa
translated by David G. Lanoue

best,
Don