The crane screeches, the cicada's cry: Deep Mystery in the Haiku of Bashō

Photo by Castlelass

In loving memory of the Jane Reichhold, who, among her many accomplishments, is her English language translation of 

The Complete Bashō.

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

     The crane screeches:
At its voice
     The bashō will surely tear

                         Bashō
                         Translated by R. H. Blyth



In my morning reading (Haiku, v. 4, R. H. Blyth), I ran across the above Bashō poem which I didn't remember but which struck me immediately. It put me in mind of the more famous Bashō poem:


Quietness--
Sinking into the rocks,
A cicada's cry

        Bashō
        Translated by Makota Ueda


Some translations go so far as to say piercing the rock(s), which heightens the mystery inherent in the poem. What struck me here is the relationship between these two pieces, the first a touch more literal, the second, more famous poem, perhaps closer to the mystery.


And what of the mystery? The less said, the more realized? Perhaps the poems are each transcendent moments or, in this case, two moments sharing a certain otherness?


Thinking on these things, I took a break for breakfast, and began reading a review of a book on, believe or not, camping. In the book, as noted by the reviewer, the author made a rather a limp joke referencing one of Leonard Cohen's most famous verses:


Ring the bells that still can ring 
Forget your perfect offering 
There is a crack in everything 
That's how the light gets in. 


Bad joke or not, as so often happens in my morning reading, the bell rang ... again and again and again.


Leonard Cohen's "Anthem."

my cracked teacup
like Buddha on display...
plum blossoms

             Issa
             trans. by David G. Lanoue



best, 
Don

PS Click to learn how to contribute to Wednesday Haiku. Here you will find Jane Reichhold's contribution.

Five Classic Cormorant Haiku

Photo by Frédéric Lemaréchal

In book 3 of R. H. Blyth's classic 4-volume Haiku, there are a number of sections on particular subjects, one being cormorant fishing. Cormorant fishing is a method, as depicted above, in which the bird has a snare attached to the base of its throat. When the cormorant catches a fish, it is unable to swallow it and the fisherman extracts it from the bird's throat. The the process is then repeated, over and over again.

This method of fishing, hundreds and hundreds of years old, inspired many haiku. And, as would be expected, most are in empathy with the plight of the bird.

Here are 4 poems by classic masters, translated by Blyth:

Art by Katsukawa Shunsen

      Cormorants
and cormorant fishers, too,
      Parent and child.    

                    Issa

This is a signature Issa poem, focused as it is on the shared experience of bird and human: both are, potentially, parent and child. Issa, who considered himself an orphan from an early age, has compassion which knows no species line. Obviously, the plight of the cormorant is especially emotive for him.

Model from Vatican Museum

      Morning twilight;
In their basket, the cormorants
      Asleep, exhausted.    

                    Shiki

Shiki goes right to the heart of the matter, the birds' terrible plight: catch the fish, be unable to eat. Hence, the exhaustion - all effort, no reward. 

Statue, Eden Park, Cincinnati, OH

      The cormorant keeper
Grown old,
      Is not to be seen this year.  

                    Buson

Buson focuses on the elderly man he remembers seeing who is the keeper and trainer of cormorants. As with Issa's poem, we see the human, in important respects, shares the plight of the cormorant: life's ephemerality.

Frontispiece, Talks about Birds

       My soul
Dived in and out of the water
       With the cormorant    

                    Onitsura

Like Shiki, Onitsura identifies completely with the task of the cormorant and replicates what is a very real emotional experience for those who witness this type of fishing.

The one master missing is Bashō from this particular selection of Blyth translations. I found his translation of the follwoing a bit cumbersome, so here it is, translated by David Landis Barnhill instead:

Artwork by Keisai Eisen

so fascinating
        but then so sad:
               cormorant fishing boat  

          Bashō

Bashō  strikes a perfect balance of humanness - the fascination with this 'ingenious' method of fishing and, suddenly, the revelation of its implication, karmic and otherwise. The range of emotion from one mere moment to the next is, in itself, something of an analogy for the human experience.

One note - there are, and have been, different methods of cormorant 'fishing.' Another method does not involve a snare around the neck, but the bird (actually, a number are used at a time) is tethered to the boat, having been trained not to swallow.

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

Woodblock by Kunisada

the cormorants stare
at them hard...
cormorant fishermen

Issa
trans. by David G. Lanoue

best,
Don

PS  Click to learn how to contribute to Wednesday Haiku

Cid Corman: Yet

I have fond memories of my correspondence with Cid Corman over the years: a generous man, a resonant poet, and an insightful master of life's great mystery.

If you don't know what that great mystery is, pick up a collection of Cid's work and you'll soon find out. You'll find no obfuscating there.

My friends at the local used and rare bookshop, Caliban Books, know something of my tastes and so, one day a year or two back when I stepped in, they handed me the little volume, pictured above, that they had put aside for me when it came in.

And I've been meaning to write about it ever since. 

A tiny little volume that fits nicely in the palm of your hand, yet was published in an edition of 500 copies by Elizabeth Press in New Rochelle, NY, in March 1974, finely stitched as you can see above. It contains 18 poems, if you count the dedication and coda pieces, which I do. And they are little gems, these 18 poems. As an example:



Cicadas
cling 
to what

there is
to 
cling to too



There's that mystery, right out of the gate. The final "too" breaks through to where the poem was destined to go, in the process carrying the full weight of its meaning. I thought immediately of Master Bashō's poem about a cricket:


How solitary it is!
Hanging on a nail -
a cricket


And another from Cid:


Shaken
is the bell of silence

Transparent
body
transparent

emptiness
listening
unquenched



Each word, precisely chosen, precisely placed.  Precise.

Here is a little something a bit unusual for Cid, and beautiful:


Beautiflies
and bizzies
making their

curious
approaches
to what stands

up to them
as part of
their pursuit


No, those aren't typos in the 1st and 2nd lines. No typos at all.


From bamboo
flask into
bamboo cup

emptiness
the source of
drunkenness


Though this has little to do with haiku and syllable count, if you look (and listen) closely you will see that Cid's precision is not by any means limited to meaning and particular word selection.

I believe you've got it now. My friends at Caliban are special. A tip o' the hat their way. 

Though a limited edition, as mentioned above, there are 9 copies available through abebooks, most of them in fine condition, ranging with shipping from 13 to 40 dollars, all waiting like a beautifly to settle perfectly in the palm of your hand. There's a couple available via amazon, too, but not in as good a condition, so I'll let you find them yourself.

~~~~~

Butterfly and wisteria by Anonymous

on the flower pot
does the butterfly, too

hear Buddha's promise?

Issa
trans. by David G. Lanoue

best,
Don

PS  Click to learn how to contribute to Wednesday Haiku  

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    

Holiday Greeting & New Year's Haiku Challenge

Hungarian Postage Stamp

even the cormorants
on holiday today...
festival

Issa
translated by David G. Lanoue

It's time for a holiday break, so there will be no Wednesday Haiku or weekend post this week. 

But for those of us who spend some quiet time at year's end and, perhaps, long for a little something to occupy the mind, here you go: a New Years haiku challenge.

Send your best unpublished New Year themed haiku between now and 11:59 pm December 31st. If your poem is selected, you will receive a free 6 issue subscription (or 6 issue extension to your current subscription) to Lilliput Review and the posting of the 'winning' haiku on Issa's Untidy Hut on January 1st.

Send to: lilliput review AT gmail DOT com

Cheers to all, and happy, peaceful holidays and a wonderful new year.

On New Year's Day
each thought a loneliness
as winter dusk descends  

Bashō

Photo by Titus Tscharntke

best,

Don

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Gayle Elen Harvey: In Memory of a Small Press Poet

As a publisher in the business for some 25 odd years, I get lots of bounced mail. With the advent of the digital age, I've been able to locate quite a few poets who have moved on with a variety of online resources, managing to get contributor copies and subscriber issues connected up with their owners, something that had been previously nigh impossible.

So, when the above bit of mail bounced back, I put it aside for further investigation with a number of others. Before I got a chance, however, I received bad news from long time correspondent and poet, David Chorlton.

Gayle Elen Harvey had died in a traffic accident nearly a year ago.

As David noted, "We can't assume that news travels," even this technology-laden time.

David had heard of Gayle's death from another poet/long-time correspondent, Alan Catlin, awhile back. When he saw Gayle's poem in #190, enclosed in the envelope above, he got in touch with me to pass on the sad news. 

Over the years, a number of small press poets I've known have passed on and I'm often shocked at how little is out there about some poets (you will find a list in the sidebar towards the bottom of this page). So, I'm gathering here, in this spot, the six poems I published by Gayle over the years, including the latest, just out in #190 of Lilliput Review. 

As you might imagine, Lillie has evolved, as have I, over the years, and now has a more minimalistic, Eastern bent than it did in the early days. Gayle's poems reflect that change of style - on my part, not hers. The poem published in #20, Because, way back in March 1990, stands fairly well, arm in arm, in tone, style, & subject, with Still Hungry, published in the Autumn of 2013.

The poem from #49, Where once they lined up, was from an all-women issue of Lilliput, and can be seen as heightening an ongoing thread this work of what might be described as a chronicle of the constant struggle in relationships.  

Because, from #20, was selected as one of the best poems of the first 49 issues and so appeared in #50, which was a best of issue of those early years.

When I began public reading again a few years back, I read a selection of Lillie poems, reflecting my lack of confidence at that time in my own work. Because was one of the poems I read. It is still one of my favorite poems published in the magazine.

Though I found a poem or two here and there by Gayle and a mention in contributor notes searching the net, there seemed to be little of substance. One gem I finally did locate, however, courtesy of google books, is the introduction by Gayle herself to her collection Greatest Hits, 1976-2001, the Greatest Hits series being one originally put out by Pudding House Press and since taken over by Kattywompus Press. This gives something of a sense of the poet herself and is at once straightforward and poignant.

Finally, following Gayle's poems, which are presented in reverse chronological order, is a poem by David Chorlton in memory of Gayle. 

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

Still Hungry

   for memories, he continues to love her
   with deception
   and atonal flatteries.
   Devotee of serial urges, they’re his own
   dark parentheses.

   Fakir in worn corduroy, he surrounds
   himself
   with the kudzu and weeds of his sex
   as he scurries by, leaving
   messages trailing
   scars.                                    #190

Dreaming (for Paul)

   Memory's suckled
   with memory.  The mossy foreheads
   of stones are dripping
   with moonlight.
   Nothing is
   lost.  Reef after reef, all these sleep-shapes
   under our eye-lids
   as cranes ablaze
   in their arrogant fringes, pattern
   the blackness.                           #61

As if spring had not gone away

   and what you said would never be safe
   with anyone.  Always, starting over,
   unconnected to everything else
   as if the balance of things
   has been changed in the middle
   of what is happening.
   And you wake, finding nothing
   but her shadow
   on the last page.                       #57

Where once they lined up

   according to size, your words come
   muzzled, rushing straight out of
   colonial history, Master 

   and slave.                                         #49

Thinking it has nothing to do

   with the women you love signaling
   from a thousand windows,
   you are still running in the dim light, moved,
   as if by obedience, by one passion
   which is denial
   of everything.                           #39

 

Because

  you are tired because I thirst for
  salt, we turn to each other.   
  You are barefoot.  It is winter.
  This is going to be a difficult story.    

                                                  #50, #20   

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

  

Line Breaks
                          In memoriam Gayle Elen Harvey

Whoever lives by the line
knows how to take a switchback turn to reach
the meaning

promised in the phrases
that carry one thought into another, until
there is light in the language.
Each word

is ordinary before
the one that follows
transforms it.
Paper

could be snow
falling by the ream, or apples
become the scent of rain; always there is

an element of surprise
transforming what we think to the gold

the alchemist long dreamed of
but finding lead
would always be lead
gave up his kitchen to the poet

who knew better
how to stretch the words we use routinely

across the page
until they are luminous.

David Chorlton

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

Photo by Vmenkov

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

Bashō

translated by Robert Hass

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   

PS. Get 2 free issues. Get 2 more free issues

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