Sunday Afternoon with Lucien Stryk

Issa by Mokuzan Murase

A quick post for a Sunday holiday afternoon: in a comment by Greg Schwartz to the last post concerning Basho translations, he mentioned the work of Lucien Styrk. I thought I'd point out in a followup post that besides the Basho translations On Love and Barley, Stryk is known for his own poety and his two most popular volumes, The Penguin Book of Zen Poetry and Zen Poems of China and Japan: The Crane's Bill, which were translated with Takashi Ikemoto. Lover's of Issa, as I am, also delight in his sparse translations of 366 haikus, The Dumpling Field: Haiku of Issa.

I discovered an interview and poetry reading by Stryk at poetrypoetry.com, a great audio site dedicated to the poem. It's a long program, but conveniently divided into digestible pieces. The reading, to a certain extent, is droll and perhaps a bit pedantic, but don't be fooled: the work is quite good and the insights even better. Stryk is passing the history and wisdom on to those interested.

There are more than a few insightful moments in this interview/reading. Section three, "Three Poems", opens up with one of his own poems, "The Cormorant." This is of interest particularly in light of his translation of the Basho cormorant poem highlighted in the last post. In the next section, section four, he mentions the zen idea of how one "shouldn't look at things but as things", its relevance to the poet, and how it is so much in the spirit of Basho the zen master. He reads a few of Basho's haiku in the section "A Few Haiku Translations", along with 2 by Buson.

Section 13 contains quite a few readings of Issa's work and here is a real gem from there:



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Where there are humans
you'll find flies,
and Buddhas.

Issa
translated by Lucien Stryk

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best,
Don

The Duckweed Way: Haiku of Issa

A couple of weeks back, I uncharacteristically took a lunch hour off and went to a favorite local used bookshop.  To my delight and surprise, I ran across, among other things, two signed limited edition chapbooks of translations by one of my favorite translators, Lucien Stryk.

The volume pictured above, which I'll be taking a look at today, is entitled The Duckweed Way: Haiku of Issa, rendered by Stryk along with Takashi Ikemoto.   I am absolutely thrilled to have this collection, which was limited to 250 copies signed by Stryk, and was published by Rook Press of Derry, Pennsylvania.   To have an Issa collection translated by a Stryk is simply sublime.

As I've noted previously and others much more knowledgeable have before me, the power of Stryk's renderings are in their brevity.  Somehow Stryk manages to portray all the delicacy, power, and resonance of Issa with fewer syllables and words than so many other translators.  Many of the haiku, if not new to me, are effectively new in these succinct, pointed renderings.  Stryk captures mystery, via both his selections and their translations, in a way that is missing from more literal, prosaic versions.

Changing clothes,
but not
the wanderer's lice.

This particular haiku is familiar yet transformed by Styrk; his use of the third person ("the wanderer's') opens the poem up to a more universal view, while still decidedly residing in the physical realm.  It is the plight of the wanderer, the plight of the poor man, the plight of the priest/beggar.

Tonight you too
are rushed,
autumn moon.

The moon reminds the poet of what he is about or, more specifically, how he is about.  This haiku is its mood, the outer realm seeming to reflect the inner.

Buddha Law,
shining
in leaf dew.

I don't remember this particular haiku, though there are certainly plenty of Issa dew drop poems.  What is "Buddha Law" referred to here?  I would think the 4 Noble Truths (plus the 8 Fold Path), but this is only conjecture on my part.  Certainly, when dew is referenced in haiku, we think of its symbolic significance in pointing out the transient nature of all life; this rendering simultaneously captures the beauty and magnificence of all life.

A good world,
dew-drops fall
by ones, by twos.

Would that be as opposed to falling by dozens and dozens?   Well, yes, I think so.  Life may be transient but it plays out at its own pace and, as with the Tao, we flow with it.

Listen,
all creeping things-
the bell of transience.

I seem focused on Issa's evocation of transience.  What is the bell of transience Issa refers all creeping (i.e. all living) things to?  Certainly, I can only speculate and if it is something specific, I'll be wrong.  Still, the bell is silent, the bell is rung, the bell resounds, the bell fades.

The bell is silent.

Where there are humans
you'll find flies,
and Buddhas.

I'm sure I've quoted this one before - and I'm sure I'll quote it again.  Issa turns the world on its ear and loves.

First cicada:
life is
cruel, cruel, cruel.

I don't remember this one at all and it exemplifies Issa's immense sympathy with insect life.  And humans because, well, the insect may be living it, but humans are reading it (and living it, too).  The struggle of the first cicada of the season may be reflected in the cry Issa hears or at least his perception of it.

Autumn wind-
mountains shadow
wavers.

A great example of classic haiku translated as succinctly as it possibly can be.  It makes me un-remember the versions I've read before.  Little insects, plants, trees, people - even huge mountains - all bowing to the wind.

Never forget:
we walk on hell,
gazing at flowers.

This is just wonderful - Robert Hass's version, nearly as succinct, is also a favorite:

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

             translated by Robert Hass

Stryk's "Never forget" is more direct, less philosophical, but both have their virtues. 

From the bough
floating down river,
insect song.

To be fair, this is one in which Hass has the superior, just as brief, version:

----Insects on a bough,
floating down river,
----still singing.

The Hass version is more active, more present in the moment, though both are in the present tense.  One translator chooses the singular "insect," the other the plural, as there is no distinction in the original. Why the difference?  To be fair again, Stryk's did come first and therefore was available perhaps to consult.  That can, of course, work to disadvantage when a later translator spots an opening, goes for it and falls short.  To mix the metaphor, one can paint oneself into a corner.  Sometimes avoiding what came before can be fatal, or at least result in sticky soles.    

In any case, both translators use the utmost brevity to great advantage.

Under cherry trees
there are
no strangers.

I have a crewel-point version of this one on my wall, done by someone who is no longer with us, and so I can't be objective.   Everything about it radiates the love, though there are technically better translations.

Dew spread,
the seeds of hell
are sown.

This is a little bit of darkness I've never seen before and I find it simultaneously powerful and very good.  Although the metaphor seems contradictory in light of this haiku's more famous cousin above, I'd say it depends whether or not you know how to stand on your head.

Eh?

Reflected
in the dragonfly's eye
mountains.

I've seen this one translated badly time and again - except this time.   The classic haiku theme of contrast between the very large and very small, this time perfectly dovetailed together, has never been captured better than in Master Issa's fine, fine poem.

Cherry blossoms?
In these parts
grass also blooms.

The one thing I would say is missing from the selection above is an abundance of Issa humor - this one making up for it in spades.   A real beauty.

Finally, here's the signed title page.

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This week's selection from the Lilliput archive comes from #121, another poem by Albert Huffsticker I believe hasn't seen the light of day since December 2001.  Enjoy.

I was born
into a body
and set out in it
to learn who
I was.  I saw
no contradiction
in this.

Albert Huffstickler

stubborn they are
even while trampled...
cherry blossoms

Issa
translated by David G. Lanoue

best,
Don

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Haiku of the Japanese Masters - Lucien Stryk

Two weeks back, I mentioned a used bookstore trip that yielded two little haiku treasures.  At that time, I took a look at The Duckweed Way: Haiku of Issa.  Today I'd like to look at the other volume: Haiku of the Japanese Masters, translated again by Lucien Stryk and Takashi Ikemoto.

This collection is once again published by Rook Press of Derry, Pennsylvania, this time in a limited signed edition of 300.  The scope is broadened: instead of one poet, we have 55 poems by 23 poets, including the 4 masters of masters, Bashō, Issa, Buson, and Shiki.  Some of the poems by the 4 masters I've looked at before and will try not to repeat.

I marked 18 of the 55 poems for further perusal and right off the bat I noticed that one was the "cormorant" poem by Bashō that I've mentioned a couple of times previously.  Moving on, there is

Cherry blossoms-
so many,
I'm bent over

Sobaku

One can feel the weight of the blossoms, literally and metaphorically.  It would seem that the blossoms are so full and hanging down so low, the poet must bend to avoid hitting them.  The bowing is, of course, also a sign of respect.  In addition, the sheer volume seems to be overwhelming, so as to cause the poet to bend at the very idea of their immense beauty and profound significance. 

Nameless,
weed quickening
by the stream.

Chiun

Both in the previous post and this one, the brevity of Stryk's translations has been emphasized.  Brevity is this poem's essence and the reason that it works for me though, admittedly, it almost falters.  Bashō, too, has a poem about a nameless tree or flower and the sense of that haiku, as I remember, is one of universality rather than specificity.    Buson has a poem about a nameless river wherein the lack of familiarity in an unknown region evokes the unknown, fear of the unnamed.  With Chiun's poem there are a number of possibilities.  The weed quickening mirrors the stream quickening, so perhaps there is rain or wind.  Though unnamed, it is effected by the water the same as any known weed.  Perhaps there is not enough here to sketch in a bigger picture.  But the poet's observation is intent and precise.

Spring plain,
gulped
by the pheasant's throat.

Yamei

Sound has overwhelmed sight (and perhaps smell) in this haiku, but there is something else, too.  Has the pheasant ingested the essence of the field, becoming part of the field itself as a result, so what appears to be a disparate evocation of two elements is actually one?

Old pond,
leap-splash-
a frog.

Bashō

Mostly, I only comment on the poems I like, the ones worth passing on to folks or further pondering.  I don't, however, like this rendition of Bashō's classic poem.  I think I'm used to the poem being predicated on sound.  The oral quality in this version shifts to visual, otherwise how could the observer know that there has been a leap before the sound?  Or maybe I'm being too fussy here.

Buddha Law,
shining
in leaf dew.

Issa

I noted this one in The Duckweed Way post but it was new to me then and still fresh so here you have it again: I simply love it.

Thunder-
voices of drowned
in sunken ships.

Taigi

This is a haiku that reminds us that Japan is an island nation, whose very existence is inextricably bound with the sea.  The ghosts of Japanese culture are conjured here and somehow, for me, they are palpable in this brief little poem.  Various cultures ascribe the sound of thunder to various mythological sources - when I was young, it used to be said thunder was the sound of the gods bowling in heaven.

Autumn wind,
the beggar looks
me over, sizing up.

Issa

Though part of the same chapbook series, The Duckweed Way, which is exclusively Issa haiku, did not have this translation.  Who hasn't had this feeling, which in this poem balances precariously between humor and fear (I'm guessing the former for the poet).  Beggars know well their clientele, observation being the primary way.  Yet, has autumn and its cold winds pressed the beggar a little closer to desperation?  In Stryk's rendering, sizing, which functions as slang, may also call to mind the tailor fitting one for a coat.  This may be spurious, however, since Issa wasn't likely to have clothes worth very much to anyone.

Dewy morn-
these saucepans
are beautiful.

Buson

This is one of Buson's painterly poems and I love it - pure image, it still somehow resonates with deeper meaning.

Pure brush-clover-
basket of flowers,
basket of dew.

Ryoto

Another painterly image, this time from Ryoto.  The moment is perfect, the dew reminding us it is only (!) a moment and will soon pass, as will the flowers, and all.  The dew in Ryoto's poem has made me look back at the dew in Buson's, with a different eye, and I sense the resonance even more.

Autumn-
even the birds
and clouds look old.

Bashō

The quality of the light or the color of the sky, with the feeling of wind and dampness, are all brought to the fore with two simple words "look old."  Concision like this in haiku translation is peerless.

There is another Ryota poem that is quite good that is again painterly in the Buson manner and another Issa noted in the Duckweed post.   I'll finish, however, with three other beauties, one of which is an Issa poem not in the Duckweed book:


On the iris
hawk's
soft droppings.

Buson

Don't weep, insects-
lovers, stars themselves,
must part.

Issa

May he who brings
flowers tonight,
have moonlight.

Kikaku

6 brief words in Buson's poem and the 1 upon which it turns is "soft."   The tactile quality evokes the feel of the iris also and the whole picture presents us with a hint of a complete life cycle.  Issa and his compassion for "lower" life never gets old and this is a great little poem I don't recall seeing before.  Notice the poet's use of contrast between the very small (insect) and the large (star) with us humans in between, the contrast emphasizing the power of the similarity to great effect.  Kikaku's poem is a perfect way to finish - a beautiful wish, almost a prayer, that is lovely in and of itself.

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This week's poem from the archive comes from issue #119, back in September 2001.  Enjoy.

Sycamore

   One day all the leaves blow away
   I have been worrying
   about the wrong things

Ray Skjelbred

And the master's final word:

downstream, the gate
to knowledge...
evening's red leaves

Issa

best,
Don

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The Acorn Book of Contemporary Haiku, Part II

Saturday November 21st, 8 pm, at Modern Formations
A Six Gallery Press Reading

Che Elias, Kristofer Collins, Bob Pajich, M. Callen, Paco Mahone, Scott Silsbe, Karen Lillis, Zoe Goehring, Bill Hughes, Jonathan Loucks, Don Wentworth, and Laura Davis

I promised a follow-up to last week's post on The Acorn Book of Contemporary Haiku, edited by Lucien Stryk and Kevin Bailey. There was just too much great work to cover in one go round. The second half of this volume, which runs 170 plus pages with anywhere from 1 to 5 haiku per page, is if anything stronger than the first half. All types of contemporary haiku are considered, though there is a definite leaning toward brevity. Being a British publication, there is a decided slant to the Brits, plus lots of folks from the continent, from Asia and poems in translation. Here's a second selection:




between the question
--------and the reply -
sunlight on a few leaves moving

Geoffrey Daniel

whisper of wind
--leaves brushing leaves
--as they fall

Jean Jorgensen

imprinted
in each new Aspen leaf
--the tree

Jean Jorgensen

The hour has not come
for high tide to wash away
a dead cat's maggots

Tamaki Makoto

The blackbird as usual
when I was about to
buttonhole God

Leo Lavery

3 by Daniel Richard

In the plain vase
the forgotten sunflowers
turn to light





The high mountains.
Sometimes, the echoless
sound of the cow bells...






Gazing at the moon
one realizes that she
has come quite a way...

Paros Haiku

Bucket down a well -
--------hear the morning
---------------splinter into water!

Alexis Lykiard

3 four line haiku by Peter Dent

A hand from the water.
Circles out.

To find another stills
and clarifies the world.






Old vessel
of blue we hold to

to the end where all
we've emptied fills.

A moon to read by.
Gulls trail in

a line of broken shadows.
Every tide a text.

generations buried
from tombstone to tombstone
the dragonfly

Kenneth Tanemura

summer vacation
a single butterfly fluttering
in the piano lesson room

Ikuyo Yoshimura

the first day of autumn
a single feather rolling
on the Tatami floor

Ikuyo Yoshimura

from The Haiku Dictionary by Philip McCall

Jealousy

--------guarding one's own love
as if it were something that
could be found again

Nostalgia

--------Sunlight reflected
from the windows of a house
where we used to live

see how the coastline
exactly fits the ocean
all the way along

David Steele

A cracked soap
preserves the last
dirt from your hands

Nick Pearson

Cherry blossoms falling -
a carp follows just below
a duck's wake

Tsunehiko Hoshino

With their voices
cicadas create the shape
of a big tree

Tsunehiko Hoshino

There is much here to admire and to admire deeply. Jean Jorgensen gives us the micro in one poem, the macro in the next - read together it makes one dizzy. Tamaki Makoto, as so many poets here, points to nature for answers. Leo Lavery, I know that blackbird, he is presently on a wire outside my garret, attempting to distract me, with some success, from you. Bells that don't echo, flowers that know better than you, and that old devil moon all show off Daniel Richard's deft touch. Alexis Lykiard is dipping into an abbreviated version of old Bashô's pond.

There is something so mysterious about Peter Dent's 4-line haiku I feel that I've gone to church.

Kenneth Tanemura shows explicitly why the traditional haiku, like blues music, will never die. The limited forms are the most infinite! I'm right back in church, perhaps temple this time, with Ikuyo Yoshimura's ku rippling like wind on water. Philip McCall has a splendid notion with his Haiku Dictionary. Nick Pearson's powerful 3 lines catch in the back of the throat.

Tsunehiko Hoshimo's 2 poems have a purity of image that resound through all time and space, simply the beauty of life itself. Finally, I've said nothing of Geoffrey Daniel's poem because it resides in the exact space where all good poetry, haiku included, comes from and to whence it returns.

Lucien Stryk and Kevin Bailey are to be commended for one of the premier anthology's of contemporary haiku to be published. Someone must simply get this work back into print. Since it has, in fact, never been printed in the US to my knowledge, someone out there needs to pick it up and run. It is too good to languish in obscurity.



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One of the reasons I'm behind in just about everything is the prep I've been doing for a Six Gallery Press reading this Saturday night at the Modern Formations Gallery. It will be a mix of Lilliput and my own work just as the reading back in August was (here are the Lilliput poems from that reading). I'll be doing all new poems, with the exception of one of my own. Six Gallery plans to publish a collection of my work some time in the not to distant future, as well as a 20th anniversary retrospective Lilliput collection. I'll keep you posted.



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Bashô Haiku contest folks have showed great patience awaiting word. It's all on simmer and I will returning my full attention to it again next week, so thanks for that patience. I'm on schedule to make announcements in the first week of December, with the anthology chapbook slated to be published sometime around mid year 2010.



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This week's featured back issue of Lilliput Review is #151, from July 2006. Here's a couple of little beauties to put that spring back in your step (or knock the wind out of your sails, depending on what you need). Enjoy.

blending morning tea
hearing water from the fountain
ferns narrow the sound

Guy Beining

Painless Poems

Remember this poem? its simple
rooms? its window full of trees? the white

gable which you loved about this poem,
how its lone triangel seemed to encompass
all humanity? and the spiky yellow sun

exploding somewhere outside the poem?

Of course you do. In fact you're reciting it
right now, standing on one foot in a room
of a different poem.

Paul Hostovsky

When we build bridges
we forget where rivers flow from
and to.

Michael Meinhoff

now blurry, now clear
through the wiper blades
the journey home

Robbie Gamble

And another fine translation of Issa by David G. Lanoue:

big bridge--
the hunter is followed
by a goose

Issa
translated by David G. Lanoue

best,
Don

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

On The Acorn Book of Contemporary Haiku

In perusing my poetry shelves to see what was what, it occurred to me that, as a semi-regular feature, I could delve into the items found there and share a thought or two. So, the first couple of shelves consists of anthologies of Eastern or Eastern influenced verse, haiku, tanka, and traditional Chinese, Japanese, and Indian verse. In addition there are some modern anthologies of English and American verse in traditional forms, which brings us to the first item on the shelf, The Acorn Book of Contemporary Haiku, edited by Lucien Stryk and Kevin Bailey.

The first thing I realized about this book is that I must have purchased it on a London trip because it is going for ridiculous sums via amazon and has evidently never been published in the States. I bought it for 4.5 pounds, probably as a remainder at the Ulysses Bookshop near the British Museum.

I'm over halfway through the volume (so it goes for perusing part of this "project") and I have to say it is as fine a collection of contemporary haiku as I've run across. The hint of regret (have to say) I believe betrays the fact that I'm recommending something that is costly and difficult to get a hold of.

The volume's selection and tone bears all the earmarks of Stryk: poems stark, precise, and imagistic in nature. Stripped to the bone, the bones boiled, and placed out on large leaves, gleaming as they dry in the sun. Imagine my surprise when I ran smack into three poems that have graced past issues of Lilliput Review. Here they are:

Spring

The earth bears
everything,
even your sadness.

David Lindley

ancient headstones
the name and numbers
worn to murmurs.

William Hart

Summer

When the page was blank
no one thought, suddenly
a flower would appear.

David Lindley

One of the things that surprised me a bit was the lack of acknowledgment, a pet peeve of mine. Don't get me wrong; I don't think it is something a press or poet is obligated to do, it's just a courtesy. I explain to folks that it is akin to being accepted for publication for a poet/writer. It is a great lift and, most importantly, recognition of quality in the editorial process. This is not a gripe with this particular press or either poet, just me talking out loud. In my estimation, these are great examples of the finest work in haiku form and I'm proud to have helped them see the light of day. As far as I'm concerned, it is the poet who owns the work, from inception through publication and in any further incarnations, unless they explicitly sign that right away. And they'll never do that here at Lillie.

So, no harm, no foul ... just a little boy griping.

But I digress (and feel the better for it). Here's a selection of a few items that grabbed my attention and held it.

in the corpse's
half-closed eyes
the flame of a candle

Vasile Spinei

one word
but so many varieties
of rain

David Findley

Another robin in my mousetrap:
few of us fail to give
humanity a bad name.

Anthony Weir

The old barn
--looks more like a tree
----each year.

Hannah Mitte

late afternoon sun
the shadow of the gravestone
slants towards my feet

Brian Tasker

Works Gloves

On the garden gate
left here with me --
Shape of her hands

Bob Arnold

The white kitten
playing and playing
with the faded cherry petal

Vincent Tripi

Still in my garden
--------I bend to pluck a weed but
----------------see its smiling face.

Harold Morland

In the garden of Saleh
The silence is soothed
By the whispered lisp of leaves.

David Gascoyne

sunrise
the fisherman's shadow stretches
across the river

George Swede

A moorhen dives
Ripples spread
To the ends of the earth

Aasha Hanley

I hear the magpies
and you you have give me
this sense of longing.

Paul Finn

I was equally delighted to see a number of poets whose work has appeared in Lilliput featured in Acorn. From this selection alone are the fine poets George Swede, Vincent Tripi, and Bob Arnold. What is most amazing, really, is I've just dug through to the first layer of this exemplary volume. If I have the time and space, perhaps I'll highlight a few more poems from the 2nd half of this work sometime soon.

For an additional insightful, theoretical review (with a large selection of poems) of The Acorn Book of Contemporary Haiku, see Lynx Book Reviews (last review toward the bottom of the page - and from this review which I read after completing this post, I discovered another Lillie poem in the volume, from the 2nd half I haven't gotten to, this one by Gary Hotham).

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In the Bashô Haiku Challenge update, I can say that I've narrowed down the nearly 500 haiku received to somewhere in the neighborhood of 60 to 70 poems after two complete read-throughs. Lots of decisions still to made, one big one being exactly how long will this year's chapbook be. I believe I'll let content dictate form in this instance, so living with the poems for another two weeks or so should help answer that question very well.

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This week's featured issue is #152, from November 2006. Hope something grabs you here:

After Basho

Chrysanthemums bloom
in a gap between the silence
of the stonecutter's yard.

Michael Wurster

trumpet vine
still waiting
for you

David Gross

in the park
--struck
by a falling leaf

Peggy Heinrich

Four ancient rocks rose from the earth:
Grief, Rope, Axe, and Sparrow

Gail Ivy Berlin

And, before I flit off, one more:

baby sparrow--
even when people come
opening its mouth

Issa
translated by David G. Lanoue

best,
Don

Issa by Robert Hass

In last Sunday's post, I mentioned that I'd spent some time with Robert Hass's The Essential Haiku. Most of the translations are by Hass himself but, as he mentions in a note, when he couldn't better a translation by R. H. Blyth, Sam Hamill, Lucien Stryk, Makoto Ueda, or Jorie Graham, he included them. I thought over a couple of posts to highlight some of what Hass has done in choosing work by 3 of the 4 great masters for this volume, the poets being Issa, Buson, and Bashō. Previously, I featured 27 poems by Issa as rendered by Hass. Since I've revisited the translations nearly a year and a half later, I thought I'd see if any others struck me this go round.

And of course there were, 7 more to be exact.

.......Zealous flea,
you're about to be a Buddha
.......by my hand.

I love this one. Here is this pious monk, Issa, sending off a flea to its next destination for fulfilling so well its current destiny. Is it rationalization, is it serious, or is it humorous?  Well, no, it's poetry, and it made me laugh, which probably says more about me than the ku. This reminded me of an interview Bill Moyers did, probably 20 years ago, with the Dalai Lama. It was outdoors at some sort of conference, a hot summer day, they were sitting under a tree and a single, persistent fly kept lighting on the Dalai Lama, on his arm, on his face, on his head. The fly was so persistent that finally Moyers could ignore it no longer and said, "I notice this fly keeps landing on you and yet you remain perfectly still. Is it because all life is sacred." And this was his answer:

.......The holes in the wall
play the flute
.......this evening.

Issa is so poor that his hut is full of holes and yet what does he make of it but music.

........From the end of the nose
of the Buddha on the moor
........hang icicles.

When I first read this one I didn't like it much. But when I thought more about it, how the vapor from breathe, too, can form icicles, I realized there was more here than I originally assumed.

.......face of the spring moon-
about twelve years old
.......I'd say.

Here is another where the poet, with a touch of Zen, catches the reader off guard.   How deep might one dig for the truism herein.  When reading this I think of the adage, it is the moon and not the finger pointing at it.

.......Fleas in my hut,
it's my fault
.......you look so skinny.

Like with the hut with holes, we see here that Issa is so impoverished he feels obliged to apologize to his friends, the fleas, because he is so skinny himself he can't feed them very well.

....

.......Her row veering off,
the peasant woman plants
.......toward her crying child.

Issa, the orphan, was always appreciative of attentive parents and longed for that attention himself. Here he observes what others might overlook.

.......The moon tonight-
I even miss
.......her grumbling

Possibly for his wife, who died before him, his sadness overwhelms his thoughts, and this reader.  The melancholy humor is typical of Issa in its resonance.

.......The world of dew
is the world of dew.
.......And yet, and yet ...

The most famous of these 7, this poem in 13 monosyllabic words encompasses the entire world and the summation of all of knowledge, be it religious, philosophical, scientific or spiritual. Here is all we know, and all we don't know, about our life on this tiny spinning ball. He did this with a couple of the 20,000 plus poems he wrote - I'm thinking about the one with the insect on the branch singing as it is carried downstream  and the one about walking on hell's roof gazing at flowers - huge philosophical statements about life summed up in a few slight words.

It's amazing to me that this time round, from over 100 poems by Issa translated by Hass, I picked between 35 to 40 and, of those, 27 were the same as I'd picked before.




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This week's feature poem from the Lilliput archive is by British poet David Lindley and was originally published in issue #139 in October 2004.  Things being what they are, anytime a poet composes a haiku with a frog, a comparison is inevitable.  This one, however, gives a different angle to man's place in nature and, for that matter, Mr. Frog's, too.

My hand trailing in
the water.  The frog and I
surprise each other.

David Lindley

old pond--
please, you go first
frog jumping

Issa
translated by David G. Lanoue

Here is David Lanoue's note to this Issa poem:

This haiku has the prescript, "Looking at the ruins of Bashô's hut." The opening phrase, "old pond" (furu ike ya), is a playful reference to Bashô's famous haiku: furu ike ya kawazu tobikomu mizu no oto:

old pond--
the frog jumps in
with a splash

Shinji Ogawa adds, "I would like to point out the humor Issa put into the haiku. The old pond is not any pond but the pond of the great haiku master Bashô. Therefore, there must be the descendants of Bashô's frog [in the pond]. The ordinary frogs, perhaps Issa's, must pay respect to the frogs of high birth. When it comes to this type of humor, Issa towers above the rest."

best,
Don

Top 5 Poetry Books of 2008

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Top Five Poetry Books of 2008


The Door by Margaret Atwood

On Love and Barley: the Haiku of Basho, translated by Lucien Stryk

Shattered Sonnets, Love Cards, and Other Off and Back Handed Importunities, by Olena Kalytiak Davis

One Secret Thing by Sharon Olds

At Blackwater Pond: Mary Oliver Reads Mary Oliver (audiobook)

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Above is a list of the top five poetry books I read in 2008, culled from a list about 8 times the size. Only 1 of the 5 were published in 2008, but that's really not surprising, at least to me. The Basho title is an obvious offshoot from the Basho Haiku Challenge, instituted here this year. And the Mary Oliver title comes from my research for the 3 Poems Discussion group I moderate at work. The complete Emily Dickinson would have made this list if I'd finished it instead of hunting and pecking my way through. A book called West Wind by Oliver, which I'm currently reading, most certainly would have been in the running as it may be her best print collection I've read so far. The audio book At Blackwater Pond, which I listened to since there is no companion print volume, is in fact her best collection overall. It was particularly interesting to me that the poems she selected from various volumes were not necessarily included in either of her collections of selected poems, sending the message that perhaps she might have selected differently if she'd had her druthers (or maybe she just changed her mind). I probably should say I read quite a few Basho and Oliver titles that did not make the list.

The Sharon Olds' title made it on the strength of its final third. The poems that open the collection are not quite up to her usual excellent standards but the poems in the final section, dealing with her mother's death, have the devastating power of her very best work.

Here's to a peaceful, happy, and decidedly more lyrical new year,

best,
Don

Basho's New Robe

Bart

Via snail mail, one of my favorite small press poets, Bart Solarczyk, shared one his favorite Basho haiku

In my new robe
this morning --
someone else.

Basho translated by Lucien Stryk

Basho

Too good not to share ... thanks, Bart.

Oh, and about that family resemblance ...


best,
Don

E. E. Cummings vs. e. e. cummings vs. the universe (The Universe)

Cover by Harland Ristau

Michael Dylan Welch, a fine haiku poet and contributing editor to Spring, the journal of the E. E. Cummings Society, has appended a comment to a recent post on E. E. Cummings' birthday that seemed both interesting and important enough to pass along.

Just a quick note to suggest that E. E. Cummings' name be treated with the normal capitals. The lowercasing of his name was just something that his book designers did -- not Cummings himself. The policy and practice of the E. E. Cummings Society (I'm a longtime contributing editor to its journal Spring), Liveright (Cummings' publisher), and George Firmage (Cummings' literary executor, although recently deceased himself) is to treat the poet's name with initial capitals. Despite popular practice and perception, lowercasing his name is simply incorrect. For more information, please visit the definitive articles on the subject at http://www.gvsu.edu/english/cummings/caps.htm and http://www.gvsu.edu/english/cummings/caps2.html.



The myth of lowercasing E. E. Cummings' name is not unlike the myth of 5-7-5 syllables for English-language haiku. Too many people, even well-meaning poets and textbooks, have borrowed the number without thinking about what the number is counting. Yet people cling to their beliefs in odd ways, and perhaps lowercasing Cummings' name is similar. Or in some cases, they simply have heard anything to counter their beliefs. Please give the two essays I linked to a good read and give them a chance to shift your world just a little bit.



Michael Dylan Welch

I'd like to thank Michael for sending this along. Cummings was one of the first poets that "spoke to me" as a teen, one of the first that motivated me to make a life of reading and writing (and editing) poetry. This is the first I've heard this, though that is not surprising since I'm hardly a scholar and have never read a full-length biography. The fact that this misnomer is so culturally all pervasive is truly amazing. I've followed and read Michael's links in their entirety and would urge others to do so if you need convincing.

It should be mentioned that probably what added to the confusion is that Cummings occasionally did use the lower case spelling but I think it is very clear that, overall, it was his desire that his name be capped in standard fashion.

The intrepid Ed Baker has followed Michael's comments with a link he sent along to a Wikipedia article, that has some interesting links of it's own, and links to the articles Michael cites above. Ed also posits the opinion that Cummings probably just went along with the publisher's whim when the lower case spelling was used and that's how the whole thing got legs.

This week I read a slim volume of poems from the Chinese Tang dynasty entitled In Love With the Way and ran across a poem that reminded me of what is becoming my favorite Basho haiku (after reading it in so many different translations over the last few months). First, the Tang poem:



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Grasses of the Ancient Plain

Tender grasses across the plain

Every year wither and grow back.

The wildfires fail to put an end to them,

With the breath of spring, they are reborn.

With their fragrances, they perfume the ancient way,
Emerald sheaves in the ancient ruins.
Agitated and quivering with nostalgia,
they bid farewell to the departing lord.

Bo Juyi

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Here's Lucien Stryk's take on the Basho poem that came to mind:



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Summer grasses,
all that remains
of soldiers' dreams.

Basho

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I've linked up to some more Bo Juyi (or Bai Juyi) poems above, but here's another I ran across in a Witter Bynner translation:

A Suggestion to My Friend Liu

There's a gleam of green in an old bottle,
There's a stir of red in the quiet stove,
There's a feeling of snow in the dusk outside -
What about a cup of wine inside?

I've been busy this past week getting over a nasty cold and contacting folks about the Basho Haiku Challenge. Because I lost some time to the former, I'm still busy with the later but hope to be getting to it over the next 10 or so days.

Here's a bit of interesting news from the Japanese paper The Mainichi Daily News for those with a fondness for ancient Japanese poetry, specifically the Manyoshu. Also a great notice from the New York Times on a new film by one my favorite counterculture heroes, Patti Smith. And finally, for fans of Albert Huffstickler, Nerve Cowboy has posted the poems Huff published there from 1996 to 2002.

Johnny Baranski's Pencil Flowers is one of the books from the Near Perfect Books of Poetry list and tiny words (if you click their link, you'll see a fine haiku by the Basho Challenge winner, Roberta Beary) has posted a couple of his haiku. Here's one:

New Year's morning--
old haiku linked together
with cobwebs

I hope to be regularly posting samples from books selected for the Near Perfect list in the regular Thursday postings when time and space allow (almost slipped into a Star Trek episode there), sometimes with samples from the Back Issue archive and sometimes alone.

This week's back issue is #71, from August 1995. Full of many flights of fancy, we are all brought down to earth from lyrically ethereal realms by the ever insightful (balloon: here, pin: here) Wayne Hogan. Enjoy.



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your body

each piece a shining eye
examining
the rest of the explosion.

scarecrow

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Air served at room temperature reverberates until we snow.

Sheila E. Murphy

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late summer rain
one droplet among many
catches my eye, trickles down the glass
thoughts of you
so different from all the rest

Cathy Drinkwater Better

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the dead spider's web
holds the morning catch --
opaque beads of dew

Dorothy McLaughlin

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New And Collected Poems

-----------I.
Sun's branches leap
from the fingers across town
a one-way sign.

----------II.
Talk Walks on
the wild side, spokes spin
too fast to be.

----------III.
Silence squiggles and
creeps upstream, history
giggles.

Wayne Hogan

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Perhaps, we should end it all with the man himself, EEC, having the last word in a poem ya just don't see everyday:


--

----Seeker of Truth

seeker of truth

follow no path
all paths lead where

truth is here

Till next time,

Don

Basho's Journey Continues & Dancing with Mr. B.

A couple of quick notes and then it's onto the continuing saga of Basho's journey. I was really happy to find out that the Voices and Visions series is currently available via the Annenberg Media site. The good news is that all 13 programs are streamable on line for free with a free signup. The bad news is the series and individual titles are pricey: $39.95 each, $389 for the series. That being said, however, they are available on DVD for the first time and this series is about as good as it gets in its treatment of classic American poets. I have used excerpts from these programs in a poetry appreciation class (the Robert Frost video is particularly fine) I've conducted in the past and plan to use them in the future. If I can come up with the dough, I'll definitely be investing.

I ran across another posting of a Brautigan poem on a Live Journal site that was too good not to share:

Star Holes

I sit here
on the perfect end
of a star,

watching light
pour itself into
me.

The light pours
itself through
a small hole
in the sky.

I'm not very happy,
but I can see
how things are
faraway.

Richard Brautigan

I may be doing a blog only haiku challenge in the future, with print publication of the winner in a future issue of Lilliput Review and also a neat prize for the winner. More on that in a future post but, for now, I will say that all of this is Basho-related.

Over the past week I've been immersing myself in a variety of Basho translations. At work I'm reading Basho's Haiku: Selected Poems by Matsuo Basho translated by David Landis Barnhill, which I'll be getting to in a future post. At home I've just finished up On Love and Barley translated by Lucien Styrk and have been dipping into a number of volumes by the classic haiku commentator, R. H. Blyth, concerning Basho. Blyth is amazing, his knowledge of haiku all-encompassing, and he always manages to off-handedly put in a word about Wordsworth or Lawrence or Whitman, so much so that I have to admit I actually like a critic. Hmn, I've been a bit faint of late, perhaps I need to take my temperature.

It took me quite sometime to get with the flow of Stryk's Basho but once I did there was much to appreciate there. Of the 250 plus poems here, I marked off 15 as being particularly noteworthy. The virtue of Stryk's translation also exhibits its flaw: brevity. These are stripped down to the barest bones. Most are under 10 words, some less than five. When the translations work, they are like the Eastern style of brushwork art; a stroke here, a bird, a few there, an entire mountain range. The brevity suggests boundless possibility and the reader fills in the details. When they fall flat, there is simply nothing, in a most unzen-like way. The ultimate success of the work, I believe, is that some of those that fall flat for me may work for someone else and vice versa. Ultimately, it is Basho who shines through and I suspect the less-is-more approach might have appealed to his monk-like sensibility. He certainly knew how to pack a rucksack with the minimal amount of things!

Here's a few highlights that grabbed me:


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If I'd the knack
I'd sing like
cherry flakes falling.

Skylark on moor -
sweet song
of non-attachment.

Cormorant fishing
how stirring
how saddening.

Come see real
flowers
of this painful world.

Morning-glory -
it, too,
turns from me.

Man's end -
a bamboo shoot,
or less.

Year-end sprucing,
carpenter
hanging his own shelf.

Summer grasses,
all that remains
of soldiers' dreams.

June rain,
hollyhocks turning
where sun should be.


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The "summer grasses" haiku is one that I featured in another translation in a previous post. Stryk does it with more economy and equal effect, I believe. It is all, perhaps, a matter of taste, but the more translations I read, the fuller the picture of the original poet, Basho, I seem to get. 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.

Cover Art by Guy Beining

This week's featured back issue is #160, from November 2007. Enjoy. Beginning next week, we'll going into the way back machine to sample issues from places long ago and faraway.


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in
cottonwood
bark's cleft

a lichen
buddha

John Martone

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#213
Only a wisp
Of cloud above,
But like a
Sacred Song
It pointed the way.

Yosano Akiko
translated by Dennis Maloney

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Crows sitting on naked trees. Expecting snow.

Alan Catlin

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No appetite
I have no appetite for verse,
but for the velvet vesture
of lamb's ear savored.
between my lips, tonight,
your lobes and limbs
wooly sward and bole,
succulent mullein, growing
virgate among your leaves.

Jeanne Lesinski

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two wings per pigeon
and this is where they gather
on a wire
in the city
Ah, what do I know

Shawn Bowman

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washing
dishes first
then shaving

John Martone

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Till next time,

Don