Issa's Untidy Hut: Silent Flowers

Friday, February 8, 2013

Silent Flowers 3: Four Poems

Artwork by Nanae Ito

This is the third post on the diminutive little Hallmark haiku collection Silent Flowers. I revisited this book last month, taking a look at 6 poems that I hadn't talked in my first post back in 2010. Here are 4 more excellent poems from Silent Flowers, translated by R. H. Blyth and astutely selected by Dorothy Price, that haven't appeared in either post.

The first three all appear within a page of each other, and seem to focus on a single image, the smaller the better:

    The kitten
Holds down the leaf,
    For a moment.

            Issa

Here is a fine example of the exception to the rule, the rule being: show, never tell. Well, perhaps the reason it works is that it does a bit of both.

You can see the morning breeze
Blowing the hairs
Of the caterpillar.

Buson

I would say with the layout we can feel the morning breeze though we can't see it, particularly in the fine opening line (which, of course, breaks yet another rule).

    Grasshopper, —
Do not trample to pieces
    The pearls of bright dew.

           Issa

The observation in the later two poems is so finely delineated as to be absolutely marvelous. Each does what a ku should do - captures a perfect little moment; yet in this case all three share another quality. These are not pictures painted, or photos snapped: they are all moments in motion, the movement acutely emphasizing the fleeting quality of a moment, yet capturing it in that movement.

Magicians at work.

A few more pages along comes a 4th ku, and this one captures not just the body and mind, but the soul:

Yield to the willow
All the loathing, all the desire
Of your heart

Bashō

I yi yi yi! We are yielding to the willow, we are yielding to desire, we are yeilding to loathing, we are yielding to our heart ...

Let us yield to Bashō.

At this rate, I have a feeling there will be a 4th post on Silent Flowers.

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the village child
clutching the willow
sound asleep

Issa
translated by David G. Lanoue

And, of course, yield to the raven.

best,

Don

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Friday, January 4, 2013

Silent Flowers II: More Blyth Translations

Title Kiku (artist unknown)

A little over two years ago, I did a post on a collection of R. H. Blyth haiku translations called Silent Flowers, edited and assembled by Dorothy Price for a small little Hallmark hardcover collection. Recently, my partner and I were headed to the woods for a few days and I always like to have a little volume of this sort on hand for both enjoyment and inspiration, so into the backpack it went.

Nothing like a trek through snowy woods, followed by a hot toddie of some sort, while a few of the classic haiku masters take an analogous trek through the byways of your brain.

I found that many of the poems I'd highlighted in that past post appeared again on my little annotated sheet this go round. But there were some I missed last time, perhaps more subtle, certainly hitting me while I was in a different mood, so I thought I'd share a few more.

     The yellow chrysanthemums
Lose their color
     In the light of the hand-lantern.

                 Buson

The artist Buson dissects light itself, its gradations, its subtleties, its ultimate mysteries. There is a contrast here, too, between things man-made and things of nature. Might their even be a slight criticism of the former or is it just the artist as artist?

     A world of grief and pain:
Flowers bloom;
     Even then . . . . .

               Issa

Issa, poet of sorrow and loss and humanity, once again gives us the big picture. This is reminiscent of his more well-known "the world of dew ... and yet" but with perhaps a slight bit of objectivity.

     They spoke no word.
The visitor, the host,
     And the white chrysanthemum.

                 Ryota

Ryota's poem made me think of Buson's "the scissors hesitate". Here the chrysanthemum is on equal par with the visitor and the host, as important an element in the conversation as the other two, no mean poetic feat, indeed.

     The moon in the water;
Broken and broken again,
     Still it is there.

               Chora

Chora's poem is simply transcendent; what it says of nature, and of life, "there are more things in heaven and earth," dear reader ... we need not complete the sentence, the revelation has done that for us.

     The world
Is after all as the butterfly,
     However it may be.

           Soin

This may be one of the finest haiku I've ever read. It pushes all the boundaries; of form, of philosophy, of insight. The metaphor that is not a metaphor, in a poetic form that defies all rationalization.

This is stunning, in its literal as well as its figurative aspects.

Silent Flowers is arranged around some rough themes - specific images and seasons. I'm going to wrap this post with the promise with still a third on this same book, hopefully with a lot less time between. Here is another butterfly poem Price selects to follow directly after Soin's:

    The butterfly having disappeared,
my spirit
    came back to me.

                 Wafu

How anyone could contemplate following Soin's poem with another, especially on the same subject, is almost ludicrous except Wafu's haiku equals it, if on a different level: the personal/universal rather than the universal/personal. To describe the essence of an experience such as this so precisely yet in a nearly metaphysical way almost defies belief.

These are stunning examples of haiku, some on the near satori level of Zen (Blyth's especiality, as the fine folk say), many by classic haiku poets I have little familiarity with. The magnitude of Blyth's life work may be extrapolated from this handful of works, done in some cases by seemingly 'minor' poets.

Though this book is long out of print, it is still available for a song, as us humble folk are wont to say - check out copies here at abebooks, where you may often get better prices on new and used books from independent booksellers around the world than from the behemoth down the road.

All these years later, grouse or no, in all meanings of the word, Mr. Blyth shines through. We would hardly be here without him.

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