The Pocket Haiku: Sam Hamill

 
Back in 2011 at the Haiku North America Conference in Seattle, poet Jerry Ball addressed a large roomful of haiku poets, practitioners, and scholars and set forth a challenge: he would present a series of quality haiku and we should determine the one element they all had in common. 

He read poem after poem after poem and the assembled audience puzzled over their commonality, themes, philosophy, subjects, bent, and allusiveness to no avail. Person after person suggested possible connections without any luck.

Turned out that Mr. Ball was at once having a bit of fun and demonstrating a valid, if decidedly unpopular concept: haiku written in English in the 5/7/5 form.

Form vs content: the eternal battle in haiku, in poetry generally, in philosophy, and, yes, in life.

Mr. Ball's demonstration, as intended, gave everyone in the room something to think about.

Sam Hamill is a well-known poet, translator and activist who has collected together in The Pocket Haiku some 200 plus of his translations of classic haiku that have long been revered by readers, fellow poets, and critics alike. As the name implies, the book is small: 3 x 4.75 inches. At this size it fits in nearly any pocket you might have, giving you the ability to carry with you the core canon of classic haiku without ever having to charge a battery or power up 'the source.'

One remarkable aspect of these translations is their general adherence to the 5/7/5 form as delineated above. There is much to be said for the work of translators such as Lucien Styrk and Robert Hass and their use of a much briefer approach in their translations, but there is absolutely nothing wrong with Hamill's approach. 

Here's a poem by Bashō, which I've probably read in any number of collections that I have no memory of. Hamill's translation is a resonant, singular work:

Come out to view
the truth of flowers blooming
in poverty 

This rendition resonates in an at once very modern and a very classical way. In this next poem, the deep truth of humanness is quietly revealed:

utter aloneness -
another great pleasure
in autumn twilight

Perhaps this is less than modern yet all the more true for that. One can feel the irony cut both ways: aloneness is thought of as alienation, yet aloneness is the very thing that may unite us all, the essence of who we are. The oneness of all things is writ large in this compact gem.

All the wonderful Issa ku are represented here. Personally, the one that is fresh and new in Mr. Hamill's rendition is:

Just to say the word
home, that one word alone
so pleasantly cool

The poet here is engaged in a full tilt sensory way. It is not often that sound and touch are the senses that connect in a synesthiesiac manner. In this poem, the connection is resonant in a deep, abiding way. 

A special delight of this collection is that, beyond the three classic haiku poets, there is a small collection of "Other Poets" of the classical school. Here, there are some less familiar gems, as in this anonymous haiku:

To learn how to die
watch cherry blossoms, observe
chrysanthemums

Here is the connection to nature, the Buddha's noble truth in action. And the deep truth of this poem, and the form itself, is easily confirmed when one thinks how the great haiku master, Shiki, spent his final years.

As I do with a great majority of books I read, I left the introduction to last. As a final example from this exemplary collection, I'll leave you with an Onitsura poem that I was happy to see Mr. Hamill chose to highlight in his intro:

True obedience:
silently the flower speaks
to the inner ear

 
This is a collection to go through again and again, as I've done and will continue to do. Whether at the bus stop, on lunch break, waiting on an appointment, concentrating full bore, I find the overall approach and execution, as in the works of Bashō and Issa, as instructive on many levels. 

For Bashō there was the Way of Haiku, for Issa Pure Land Buddhism. For Sam Hamill, in his capacity of translator in this volume, there is the task to communicate the essence and the resonance of classic haiku, its origin, its philosophy, its execution ... 

... and, its all-important universal message. And he has done just that.

This book belongs in the collection, and pocket, of every haiku aficionado. It can be purchased directly from the publisher, Shambhala, or your favorite independent bookseller. You won't regret it.


best,
Don

PS  Click to learn how to contribute to Wednesday Haiku    

Charles Olson and A. E. Housman

The Lego version of A. E. Housman's "The Loveliest of Trees" (see below)

Courtesy of the always excellent poetry blog Five Branch Tree, here is Charles Olson reading the poem he described as his best, "The Librarian," in an animated fashion, replete with Zero Mostel eyebrow articulation.

Yesterday, the folks at Poetry Alive reminded me over on Facebook that besides Corso, Campbell, and Frost, it was also the birthday of the poet A. E. Housman. Rather than trot out the same old, same old, I thought this "narrative" tale of ennui and ale, vaguely reminiscent of the drinking songs of the Chinese masters, appropriate enough. So, led on by the celebrant himself, lets raise pint to all four poets of their kind:



LXII--

-`Terence, this is stupid stuff:
You eat your victuals fast enough;
There's nothing much amiss, 'tis clear,
To see the rate you drink your beer.
But oh, good Lord, the verse you make,
It gives a chap the belly-ache.
The cow, the old cow, she is dead;
It sleeps well, the horned head:
We poor lads, 'tis our turn now
To hear such tunes as killed the cow.
Pretty friendship 'tis to rhyme
Your friends to death before their time
Moping melancholy mad:
Come, pipe a tune to dance to, lad.'

Why, if 'tis dancing you would be,
There's brisker pipes than poetry.
Say, for what were hop-yards meant,
Or why was Burton built on Trent?
Oh many a peer of England brews
Livelier liquor than the Muse,
And malt does more than Milton can
To justify God's ways to man.
Ale, man, ale's the stuff to drink
For fellows whom it hurts to think:
Look into the pewter pot
To see the world as the world's not.
And faith, 'tis pleasant till 'tis past:
The mischief is that 'twill not last.
Oh I have been to Ludlow fair
And left my necktie God knows where,
And carried half way home, or near,
Pints and quarts of Ludlow beer:
Then the world seemed none so bad,
And I myself a sterling lad;
And down in lovely muck I've lain,
Happy till I woke again.
Then I saw the morning sky:
Heigho, the tale was all a lie;
The world, it was the old world yet,
I was I, my things were wet,
And nothing now remained to do
But begin the game anew.

---Therefore, since the world has still
Much good, but much less good than ill,
And while the sun and moon endure
Luck's a chance, but trouble's sure,
I'd face it as a wise man would,
And train for ill and not for good.
'Tis true, the stuff I bring for sale
Is not so brisk a brew as ale:
Out of a stem that scored the hand
I wrung it in a weary land.
But take it: if the smack is sour
The better for the embittered hour;
It will do good to heart and head
When your soul is in my soul's stead;
And I will friend you, if I may,
In the dark and cloudy day.

---There was a king reigned in the East:
There, when kings will sit to feast,
They get their fill before they think
With poisoned meat and poisoned drink.
He gathered all that sprang to birth
From the many-venomed earth;
First a little, thence to more,
He sampled all her killing store;
And easy, smiling, seasoned sound,
Sate the king when healths went round.
They put arsenic in his meat
And stared aghast to watch him eat;
They poured strychnine in his cup
And shook to see him drink it up:
They shook, they stared as white's their shirt:
Them it was their poison hurt.
-- I tell the tale that I heard told.
Mithridates, he died old.

A. E. Housman

Since, of course, it is the season of the cherry tree, perhaps the poem "The Loveliest of Seasons," pictured above, would be more appropriate. Give it a try. I'll be raising that pint.

cherry trees blooming--
this corrupt world
is a Pure Land!

Issa
translated by David Lanoue

best,
Don