Chen-ou Liu & Daryl Nielsen: Wednesday Haiku, #215

Photo by April Schultz

 
the river
swollen with spring ...
her stretchmarks

Chen-ou Liu

Photo by Willrad von Doomenstein

honeysuckle
through an open window
mother’s last breath

Daryl Nielsen

high noon--
the reed thrush sings
to a silent river

Issa
trans. by David G. Lanoue

best,
Don

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Bart Solarcyzk & Lisa Espenmiller: Wednesday Haiku, #214

Her princess dreams
& ragdoll dress
come morning

Bart Solarczyk

Photo by plochingen

 

morning bath
ghosts
rise with the steam

Lisa Espenmiller

Photo by Cecil Beaton

the beggar child prays
with trembling voice...
for a doll

Issa
trans. by David G. Lanoue

best,
Don

PS  Click to learn how to contribute to Wednesday Haiku

Steve Sanfield: a Tribute

Poet and correspondent, David Giannini, contacted me last week to pass on the sad information that haiku master poet, Steve Sanfield, had died. I'd just recently begun to acquaint myself with Sanfield's work in two anthologies of English language haiku which I've been reading over the last couple of months. The first, Haiku in English: The First Hundred Years, edited by Jim Kacian and ..... has a single poem of Steve's and the second, The Unswept Path: Contemporary American Haiku, edited by John Brandi and Dennis Maloney, which has a narrower geographical focus, has a whole section with over 35 poems.

I'll be writing more about both these anthologies in future postings. In one of life's little synchronistic moments, I'd just finished up the section of poems by Steve in Unswept Path when the news of his death came my way.

First, a poem by Sanfield from Unswept Path:


Because I have nothing else
I have begun to love
my sorrow. 


This is as touching as it is universal - at some time in each of our lives we experience the loss of love itself, which is replaced by another kind of love altogether as in this poem. This next poem is something of a prayer, one that would be appropriate each an every morning that a lapsed agnostic rises:


The silence before the dawn:
may it enter
my heart.


Another universal situation, at least as sketched out in the first line, with something of a wish/prayer for all that face it alone. Poem after poem deeply explores the ennui, the sorrow of our days:


to shake all morning
because you touched me 
—a simple bow



This is love, desire, and gratitude, all wrapped in one, in love's full glory. The poet makes us feel the emotion in an extraordinary way. 

And then this remarkable piece:


like a new season
she stands between me
and old sorrows


Remarkable in how the poet captures the transition between two exacting emotional states, the old sorrow we are all so reluctant to give up because our love is still so deeply entwined with it, and the new love standing aside in the path, showing the way. 

Here is so true a definition of love itself, I'm tempted to append it (in my own print copy) to the separate definitions in the unabridged Webster's Dictionary:


each time
surprised by it:
beauty beyond desire  



If these moved you, you can find many different editions of Steve Sanfield's work here. If you'd like to sample a few more poems, this website has a nice representation.  The later will, I'm certain, lead you back to the former. 

By the way, Sanfield called many of his poems 'hoops,' instead of haiku, and here is the reason he gave:

"I call them hoops rather than haiku, because haiku is a Japanese word for a poem usually written according to very specific guidelines. I wanted to step beyond those lines and also add another season—the season of the heart. And further, as Black Elk says, "that is because the Power of the world always worked in circles and everything tries to be round. In the old days when we were a strong and happy people, all our power came to us from the sacred hoop of the nation, and as long as the hoop was unbroken, the people flourished." 1.

Love, loss and sorrow were obviously major points of focus for Steve Sanfield. This last poem is the only one in Haiku in English, and it shows something more implied than explicit in the examples above, and certainly something that could not be more universal for those paying attention:


The earth shakes 
just enough
to  remind us.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

After putting together the above post and preparing it for posting, I ran across the following poem by Steve in my morning reading from the exemplar collection, Haiku Mind: 108 Poems to Cultivate Awareness and Open Your Heart (another being read for future posting), edited and annotated by Patricia Donegan:


a petal falls
       you
across the table


What an astounding body of work by Steve Sanfield ... 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Photo by Kentama

by itself
my head bows...
plum blossoms!

Issa
trans. by David G. Lanoue

best,
Don

PS  Click to learn how to contribute to Wednesday Haiku  

Gerald Vizenor: favor of crows: New and Collected Haiku

favor of crows by Gerald Vizenor has plenty to celebrate and plenty to ponder. The poems here are largely quiet, occasionally listless, many are image-based and some are simply revelatory, in the sense that anything revelatory can be simple.

But wait: perhaps that listlessness is something else. 


       bright hollyhocks
teeter in the rush of trains
        flurry of faces


Like many fine haiku, these poems on the surface do not give up their essence easily. So, we see that if it is mind that struggles, lay aside mind and, as again with many fine haiku, something else appears: meaning opening up with the first rays of the sun.


            gusts of rain
trees turn away from the sea
            beach stories


Gerald Vizenor is a poet, critic, cultural theorist and academician, a leading Native American writer of the last half century and a member of the Chippewa Nation. He is a haiku scholar as well as haiku poet - his introduction, entitled "Haiku Scenes," displays his command of haiku history and haiku essence, and situates him in the Zen Buddhist / R. H. Blyth school of haiku theory and practice.


            red poppies 
trace the motion of the sun
        elders in the park


His linking of Native American culture and concepts to Japanese culture is at once informative and historical (Vizenor, as was true with many Americans, encountered the culture first hand during a tour of duty in WW II), and the relationship to nature and animism in both cultures makes for interesting, thought-provoking theory.


        china sunrise
tourists circle the statues
        cicada fugues


Ultimately, there is a balance of theory and feeling, the academic and the lyrical, and the truth is revealed in the poems themselves. His haiku are firmly nature based and season themed, with two contrasting elements stylistically prompting revelations both large and small, succinct and resonant, as in this poem.


    marsh marigolds
trembling in the rain
     faces on a bus


This haiku reminded me simultaneously of the classic haiku of the horse and the trembling flowers (a little help, anyone; I can't quite recall the poet or the poem exactly) and Pound's petals/faces/Metro poem.

The book is arranged seasonally, as are many traditional haiku collections. The autumn section is particularly strong, with the following poem recalling Bashō's famous autumn crow haiku (scroll down for multiple translations via this link):


          spider web
billows on a bare branch
            empty


Vizenor is at once subtle and almost understated, presenting us with images and contrast, and letting the reader take it from there. Like the finest haiku throughout time and across cultures.


         mountain snow
warblers search for apricots
           no regrets


We know the warblers have no regrets; how about you? 

Or perhaps the warblers do. What to make of these clever little sparrows?


       noisy sparrows
flutter over the birdbath
     clearing the snow


Sentience, learned behavior, coincidence?  Some things to ask ourselves as well as the sparrows.

Gerald Vizenor asks, and his answers are of the very best type; they are suggestive, they are lyrical, they are alive.

This is a book I anticipate revisiting again and again, as the seasons return again and again.  And, as with the seasons, one can anticipate a return of joy, each time different, each time the very same. Give it a try, from the library or the nearest bookstore, electronic or otherwise. 

It will reward you deeply. 


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Eigenfaces by Ylebru

the first cherry blossoms
soon scatter and stick...
people's faces

Issa
trans. by David G. Lanoue

best,
Don

PS  Click to learn how to contribute to Wednesday Haiku  

"What Do We Know" - East Window

Above is an image from W. S. Merwin's East Window: The Asian Poems. It is a translation contained in a rather large section of the book which is called "Figures." This particular piece is from the Malay Figures section.

"and what do we know," indeed?

Though a figure, this, as do many other pieces in the figures section, has the feel of brief poetry, this particular poem being almost haiku-like in its execution and sentiment.

Photo by Stefano Mazzone

betting seashells
gamblers in a frenzy...
plum blossoms

Issa
trans. by David G. Lanoue

Photo by Daoan
 

best,
Don

PS  Click to learn how to contribute to Wednesday Haiku  

Olivier Schopfer & K. Ramesh: Wednesday Haiku, #198

Photo credit: Len Radin / Foter / CC BY-NC-SA

far from home...
the rustle of willow leaves
speaks my language

Olivier Schopfer

 Photo credit: Internet Archive Book Images / Foter /

football field...
every ant moves
with a morsel

K. Ramesh

Photo credit: yummywatermelon / Foter / CC BY-NC-SA

rustling
in Goddess Kannon's heart...
the willow

                    Issa
                    trans. by David G. Lanoue

 
  best,
Don

PS  Click to learn how to contribute to Wednesday Haiku 

K. Ramesh and Kala Ramesh: Wednesday Haiku, #182

Van Gogh

nothing to lose
nothing to gain...
starlit sky

K. Ramesh

Photo by Bob Jenkins

a beggar
lifts her palms to passersby 
hardened earth

Kala Ramesh

 Kashira of Tanabata Festival by Oishi Akichika

my stars--
a gang of old men
in the Milky Way

Issa
translated by David G. Lanoue

best,
Don

PS  Click to learn how to contribute to Wednesday Haiku.

Sherryl Anders & Kirsten Cliff: Wednesday Haiku, #154

Photo by Alvimann

ugly kitchen clock

plastic hands circling

eternity

Sherryl Anders

Photo by Serendipity Muse

stretched
the length of this sunset
Monday blues

Kirsten Cliff

Photo by George Wharton James

shallow river--
on hands rinsing a kettle
spring moon

Issa
translated by David G. Lanoue

best,

Don

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When I Have Fears That I Might Cease to Be: John Keats via Maia Porcaro

Keats' Grave

From the wonderful 'Videopoems' section of the Moving Poems website, this visual interpretation of John Keats' powerful poem, "When I Have Fears That I Might Cease to Be:" 


  When I Have Fears from Maia Porcaro on Vimeo.

When I Have Fears That I Might Cease to Be - John Keats
When I have fears that I may cease to be    Before my pen has gleaned my teeming brain, Before high-pilèd books, in charactery,    Hold like rich garners the full ripened grain; When I behold, upon the night’s starred face,    Huge cloudy symbols of a high romance, And think that I may never live to trace    Their shadows with the magic hand of chance; And when I feel, fair creature of an hour,    That I shall never look upon thee more, Never have relish in the faery power    Of unreflecting love—then on the shore Of the wide world I stand alone, and think Till love and fame to nothingness do sink.
---------------  

   

so many! on the shore at a hut of reeds reed thrushes

Issa
translated by David G. Lanoue

  Lots going on at the moment - a reading coming up a week from Saturday, doing a final edit on the forthcoming Yield to the Willow (page down a bit), my 2nd collection, and finalizing the selections for the Haiku Foundation's April Per Diem feature, so Wednesday Haiku is on temporary hiatus and, hopefully, will be back in a week or two.
    best,

Don

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Rumi & Issa: Across Cultures, Across Worlds

Art by Gustave Dore

Recently, in my day job, the poetry group I moderate had a session on the mystic poet Rumi. It was the second best attended meeting, after our session on haiku.

I read lots of Rumi in preparation since, though I appreciated what I'd come across of his work randomly, I hadn't delved deeply. I learned a lot, including the controversy over the 'Americanization,' or New Age approach, to translating his works, which de-emphasizes certain specific religious aspects for a more general spiritual approach. 

While doing some background work, I ran across the following intriguing brief poem, or quatrain:

O my God, what irony it is
That we are at the bottom of hell,
And yet are afraid of
of immortality.

              Rumi 
              translated by Nevit Oguz Ergin

Which immediately called to mind this:

           In this world
we walk on the roof of hell,
          gazing at flowers.

                    Issa
                    translated by Robert Hass

Could it be that, at the core of both these poems, from markedly different cultures, there is a single message? 

Could they be about our lack of attention to what is, both invisible and visible?

Of course even between two brief poems, there may be much that is dissimilar. Still, what is more important: the common ground or the disparities?

Art by Gustave Dore

~~~~~~~~~~~ 

Cuckoo & Hydrangea by Buson

so is haiku hell
over that-a-way...
mountain cuckoo?

Issa
translated by David G. Lanoue

best,

Don

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Cricket Songs: Japanese Haiku

Harry Behn, along with Peter Beilenson, published a series of Haiku Harvest books for Peter Pauper Press which served as an introduction to haiku for many people back in the 60s and 70s. 
The book at hand, Cricket Songs, however, was solely translated by Behn and published by the larger firm of Harcourt, Brace, and World. The volume exhibits an admirable lyrical quality, at least admirable for this reader, and, when it errs, errs on the side of image. It is delightfully, profusely illustrated with art "Sesshu and other Japanese masters."  Here are two pages, with a couple of poems:

Click pic to expand (& read poems)

The poems, in the style of the times, are predominately translated into a 5-7-5 format, and Behn shows how this can be done to advantage:

        A cloud shimmering
on the still pool ... deep below
        shadows, a fish stirs.

 Shurin

Though the line break between 2 and 3 might today be 'unfashionable,' it serves its own prosodic purpose.  The enjambment feels less imposed by form then intended by Behn. In either case, it works for me:

       Butterfly, these words
from my brush are not flowers,
       only their shadows.

 Soseki

At once a stunning image with an almost postmodern feel, Soseki's poem has a gorgeous resonance that may be seen in some of the finest haiku.

        My horse clip-clopping
over a field ... oh ho! I'm
        part of the picture!

Bashō

Speaking of postmodernisn, there you have it - or do you? Here is another by Bashō:

        The seed of all song
is the farmer's busy hum
        as he plants his rice.

The interconnectedness of all things is perfectly connected in this poem - a modern translation would probably drop the 'is' and 'his', not worrying about syllable count. But the meaning is clear and resonant either way. There is some complexity in this little poem - think about time as you read it, the moment and future time.

      Lightly a new moon
brushes a silver haiku
      on the tips of waves.

Kyoshi

This is a perfect meshing of the 5-7-5 form, imagery, and content. Is it classic haiku, or even haiku at all? Who knows? It is, however, wonder full.

       One man and one fly
buzzing along together
       in a sunny room . . .

Issa 

The translation of this classic Issa haiku has some problematic elements, which perhaps work in its favor. The enjambment of lines one and two, where the fly in line one is buzzing in line 2 causes the reader think of the man, too, as buzzing, and that causes some mischievous delight for me. Not intended, perhaps, but there you have it.

               Since my house burned down,
        I now own a better view
              of the rising moon

        Masahide

'Nuff said.

           Broken and broken
    again on the sea, the moon
          so easily mends

    Chosu

I love this little poem - there is something beyond pure image here that tolls a major chord. 

A delightful collection, all in all, though the selection above is but a dip in a very deep well. 


Harry Behn himself lived an eclectic life. Wikipedia gives a fair idea: he was a poet, a translator, a photographer, a screenwriter (collaborating with King Vidor and Howard Hughes) and, by virtue of a chance encounter that led him to live with the tribe, a member of the Blackfoot Indian community. His papers are collected at the University of Minnesota. His works, including his haiku translations, were thought of as being primarily for children. 

Yet, in a portrait of Behn by Peter Roop for Language Arts magazine back in 1985 (which is the very first link in this post, above), one word struck home that he read which Behn used to describe his own work: primitive.  Behn described his "business" of composing poetry and stories for children as primitive.

Roop goes to the heart of the matter in his portrait when he asks why this word:

The word primitive as Behn employed it does not mean a backward or unsophisticated approach to something. He used primitive to represent that special sense possessed by those who maintain a certain direct bond to the natural world.                 

   Language Arts, Vol. 62, No. 1, January 1985, pg. 93 

Roop goes on to illustrate this through Behn's own poetry and prose, never alluding to haiku. But one can see in this definition the essence of what the translator was after in his work with haiku: that direct bond to the natural world. Roop notes that, in addition to his becoming a member of the Blackfoot tribe, Behn also had 'extensive contact' Yavapais people of his home state of Arizona.

As a relatively early pioneer in the translation work of Japanese haiku into English, Harry Behn appears to have been uniquely qualified as the work above illustrates. The book itself, Cricket Songs, may be had for as little as two bits on amazon (of course there is the pesky $3.99 shipping charge), but you can find a nice hardcover copy at abebooks for under 5 bucks, so why not deal directly with an independent used bookseller? 

The book is well worth double that and more.

----------------------

 Photo by galaxies and hurricanes

when will it become
a cricket's nest?
my white hair

Issa
translated by David G. Lanoue

best,

Don   

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David Giannini: Felt in a Heartbeat - Small Press Friday

Click to zoom in

David Giannini is a formidable poet of both short and prose poems. Recently, Feral Press has published an astonishing number of his books, seven in the last year, showing their dedication to David's fine work. 

The book at hand, Felt in a Heartbeat, consists of 8 brief poems and, counting the cover illustration, 7 beautiful artworks by Judith Strauss Koppel. The cover is pictured above and 2 poems, each individually illustrated, pictured below. 

The first poem confirms for me my own personal Jungian leanings, and the second our collective membership to that unique, and occasionally, as here, breathtakingly beautiful club known as the human race. 

Yes, sadness and suffering can shatter the human heart, but spirit and beauty and poetry go a long way to healing it. These 8 poems, with subtly stunning art, do that and more.



 

Click to zoom in

Click to zoom in

 

Felt in a Heartbeat is a limited run of 100 copies and is available from Feral Press, (P.O. Box 358, Oyster Bay, NY 11771) for $8. Contact John and Joan Digby and let them know where you saw it. That would please David and myself.

If you'd rather get a copy direct from the poet, drop David an email at <davidgpoet AT gmail DOT com> or snail mail at PO Box 562, Becket, MA 01223. In the former case, make a check out to "John Digby," in the later to "David Giannini." 


----------------------

 Photo by Taysm

first winter rain--
the world fills up
with haiku

Issa
translated by David G. Lanoue

best,

Don   

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Go to the LitRock web site for a list of all 164 songs