R. H. Blyth: Still Complaining - A Friday Idyll

Photo by Derpunk

Much of what is read in the commentary of R. H. Blyth's classic volumes on haiku might be considered as a kind of haibun, so close is he to the original, and so lyrical is his critical prose. Take this example, in which I've placed Issa's poem after the commentary which it originally preceded (to heighten the similarity to haibun) , from volume 3 of Haiku:

Issa is not grumbling at the grumbler. This verse has a prescript, "Man's desires are infinite, but his life is not." To want, to desire, is human, is thus divine, is part of our nature, is part of our Buddha nature. It is how we desire that decides whether we are a Buddha or an a ordinary man. It is not the grumbling, but how we grumble; it is the peevishness, querulousness, petulance that is 

An expense of spirit in a waste of shame.

This verse, written when Issa was fifty seven, is his considered criticism of human life. What distinguishes man from the lower animals is the very thing that degrades him below them.

This cool breeze
Through the summer room,—
But still complaining

     Issa
     tr. R. H. Blyth

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Now, there is much to grumble about Blyth's commentary; I feel I can hear it now, so perhaps it is really coming from me and not some imaginary critic. Is being human thus, therefore, being divine? Yet, to be wrongheaded is not to be wrong. Is not this the very lesson imparted in the action taken, the thoughts penned?

Just read some D.H. Lawrence, whom Blyth greatly admired. Both perfected the art of being right via the act of being wrong. 

Something the Bard knew all about, desire that is (tricked up a bit). And then there is that other master. 

Or group of masters, but we are somehow beyond desire now, and returning through that wrong-headed back door.

This, this is truly human nature, truly Buddha nature.

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Issa wrote some fine poems about breezes, as above.  Here are three, translated by David G. Lanoue:

in the spring breeze
already casting shadows...
irises

the cool breeze
meandering
arrives

saying my apology
to the sacred tree...
a cool breeze 

Photo by Seemann

best,

Don   

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R. H. Blyth and D. H. Lawrence: Flower and Fade

Last Saturday, I wrote a little about R. H. Blyth, his philosophy and style, and his approach to haiku.  A little further along in volume 1 of the 4 volume masterwork, Haiku, that I was discussing, under the section entitled "No, Ikebana, Cha no Yu," is the following:

It should be noted once for all, that art and poetry and drama, learning and religion, architecture and music, are far closer to one another in the East than in the West. In this sense, the East is easy to understand; if you know one properly, you know all,-but an understanding of western architecture  is no guarantee of an appreciation of Bach, nor that of Kantian metaphysics.  The multifarious incoherence of the various forms of Western culture gives them a kind of vitality and indeterminate direction of development which makes Eastern culture seem a little monotonous, a little lifeless in comparison. The truth is that that the East knows how to live, but does not do it; the West does not know how.  As D. H. Lawrence said,

Life and love are life and love, a bunch of violets is a bunch of violets, and to drag in the idea of a point is to ruin everything.  Live and let live, love and let love, flower and fade, and follow the natural curve, which flows on, pointless.

Often Blyth makes gross generalizations, some spot-on, others marginally off, and others to make the point at hand and simply move on. Many of the seeming contradictions in his work stem from this approach. At times, it seems that perhaps his writing style itself might best be described as Zen.

For some folks, there is lots to disagree with here.  What really is the point he is trying to make, and does the DHL quote make it for him, or is that something else altogether?

When thinking on Eastern thought, nf the Tao and Zen, we must realize that it isn't one of the other when it comes to duality: it is both, it is all.

As Whitman sang:

Do I contradict myself?
Very well then I contradict myself,
(I am large, I contain multitudes.)

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Bruce Springsteen's Rocky Ground

We don't often think of the art of the music video, that it can, in fact, be film, engaging and creative, same as the music it attempts to capture. Above is the perfect dovetailing of two art forms. Quite a video, quite a song.

solitude--
whichever way I turn...
violets!

    Issa
    translated by David G. Lanoue

best,
Don

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R. H. Blyth: The Aim of Haiku

Original brass dies for 1860 version

Sometimes, it seems that R. H. Blyth is to modern American haiku as Sigmund Freud is to modern psychology: a bit of a dotty old granddad, overdressed in a woolen suit on a hot, humid day, crumbs of this and that all down his front, with a glint in his eye of philosophical shenanigans none too pleasing to the parents in attendance.

Of course, all the grand kids are jumping up and down in his lap like there's no tomorrow.

Perhaps the comparison to Freud seems a stretch, though for many, I suspect, it is spot on.  Tracing the root of all things to infantile sexuality and the heart of haiku to Zen is quaint, indeed, for many, but consider, at least in the case of Freud: we are all, famous, infamous, and other, products of our time.  Could there have been any other time in history aside from the later part of the 19th and early part of the 20th century (think: Victorian England, for example) when all might be traced back to our murderous instincts for ma and pa?

Though this all seems very antiquated, it got me to thinking about what Joseph Campbell observed concerning fundamentalists of all religious denominations.  He noted that all the trouble starts (i.e. the purges, the wars, the torturing, and the deaths) when the metaphoric scripture of any particular sect (he was thinking predominately of the 'desert religions') was taken literally.  Literally, there was a Virgin Birth, literally an ascent to Heaven, literally a parting of the seas etc.

If one turned to the dottering grandfather and didn't mistake the metaphor for the reality, one might recognize a little something other in that glint.

Mr. Blyth beats the drum loud and long for Zen and haiku and, to my ears, at least, it is a most pleasing sound.  One can no more divorce spirituality from the origin of haiku than one can from life itself.  Notice the particular use of the "S" word, as opposed to the "R" word.

Participating, as I have recently in a weekly book discussion group concerning volume one of Blyth's four volume work Haiku, all this was underscored for me emphatically.  What exasperated the group, some of whom were coming to haiku study for the first time, was the myriad contradictions one encounters from page to page and from chapter to chapter throughout.

Delightfully, exasperation transmuted into something like a humorous acceptance: it would seem the teacher was also a practitioner.  This was most definitely a case of do what I do, as well as what I say.  So, throughout, one encounters many, many definitions of haiku, as well as poetry in general, and Zen, and philosophy itself, some complementary, many contradictory, all informative, and some even enlightening. 

In the complementary area, comes the following two quotes, within 10 pages of each other, working toward defining the "aim of haiku."

Coming now to the general differences between waka and haiku, we may say once more that waka aim at beauty, a somewhat superficial beauty sometimes, that excludes all ugly things. The aim of haiku is not beauty; it is something much deeper and wider.  It is significance, a poetical significance, "a shock of mild surprises", that the poet receives when the haiku is born, and the reader when it is reborn in his mind.  (pages 113-114)

In his second take on the aim of haiku, Blyth takes off from a quote from Master Bashō:

Haikai has for its object the setting to rights of common parlance and ordinary language.

Blyth comments:

This is one of those profound sayings which can and should be interpreted in a variety of ways. Bashō wanted our daily prose turned into poetry, the realization that the commonest events and actions of life may be done significantly, the deeper use of all language, written and spoken.  Our lives are slovenly, imitative. We live, as Lawrence said, like the illustrated covers of magazines.  Comfort is our aim, and dissatisfaction is all we achieve.  The aim of haiku is to live twenty four hours a day, that is, to put meaning into every moment, a meaning that may be intense or diffuse, but never ceases.  (page 119)

Significant, indeed; never mind that, for clarity, we might slip in 'reality TV' for 'the illustrated covers of magazines' for relevance.  For me, what is most important here is what Blyth specifically does not say, and in how he universalizes his point.  His first statement, re: significance above, is about process and, I believe, it goes right to the heart of the form that is haiku.  The second has a little more of that glint in his eye, also alluded to above. As such I find it magnanimously inclusive and not a bit exclusive at all.

Just a little further on, in another 'definition' of the haiku form, we get a bit of a hint at the fact that Blyth's own approach to his subject is analogous to how he perceives the form itself:

Waka began as literature, haiku as a kind of sporting with words.  Bashō made it literature, and yet something beyond and above literature, a process of discovery rather than creation, using words as means, not ends, as a chisel that removes the rock hiding the statue beneath. (page 121) 

Again that certain something is not said and, so, to, for me:

'Nuff said.

         People are few
Leaves also fall
        Now and then

          Issa
          trans. R. H. Blyth

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into the sunken hearth
they're swept...
red leaves

Issa
translated by David G. Lanoue

Photo by earl53

best,
Don

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R. H. Blyth on Shiki: Part 1

R. H. Blyth is the author, commentator, and translator of two separate sets of seminal publications on haiku: the 4 volume Haiku (V. 1 Eastern Culture, V. 2 Spring, V. 3 Summer and Autumn, V. 4 Autumn and Winter) and the 2 volume A History of Haiku. Blyth was one of the first to bring haiku to the West and is fairly conservative and traditional in his approach. His translations are sparse, the way I like them. Sometimes he elicits the hidden gem within: the principle of less is more comes to mind. At other times the results are flat, as if the very essence of the piece was simply untranslatable. His views betray a distinct bias (whose don't, eh?). His affinity for Zen has been cited as part of that bias but, in my estimation, we could do worse for a guide to both Japanese culture in general and haiku in particular.

The sets themselves are both lessons in all things haiku and a pleasure to peruse.

I have a soft spot for Blyth's great affection for western writers such as Wordsworth, Whitman, and Lawrence and his uncanny ability to slip them into the discussion in just the right spots. In some ways its hard to imagine comparing these relatively long-winded (in a good way) writers to the miniaturist art of haiku, though Lawrence's affinity early on with the Imagists certainly is a direct connection. But this is where Blyth excels. It is the essence he is after and the essence of these writers has a direct transcendent, almost transcendental, connection to the spirit of the East. Emerson, also, is never far from Blyth's ruminations. Typically, he may be translating a particular poem such as the following:

---A sliding door,
In the distance,
---At midnight.

Hōsai

And then throw in the offhand remark for the Western reader: "Emily Dickinson also felt the meaning of the shutting of a door, Stevenson too." That's it, just enough to make sure you are paying attention to the full resonant import of the tiny little gems he selects.

When it comes to Shiki, Blyth makes neither apologies or excuses. In A History of Haiku, Vol. 2, Blyth has three full chapters on Shiki: "Shiki: The Critic," "Shiki: On Furu-ike Ya," and "Shiki: The Haiku Poet." The second chapter is Shiki's critical appraisal of Basho's frog poem, which I'll be taking a look at sometime in the future. Today, I'd like to consider Blyth's take on Shiki the poet and present some of his translations. Here is his opening salvo:

Shiki, like all Japanese perhaps, is far better at creation than criticism. The Japanese have never produced a Coleridge, Hazlitt, or Lamb, but Wordsworth and Keats and Clare and Tennyson have their counterparts in Japan. Shiki has variety, if not depth. Though he is not emotional, he is not sentimental. There may be an excessive objectivity, but this means no pretense, no hypocrisy. As with Buson, whom he admired very much, he gives us pure poetry, which never fails to satisfy us and though it may not gain in depth with re-reading, we do not tire of him.

There is a razor sharp precision here, coupled with subtlies of distinction that I just marvel at. To put it succinctly, he nails it, big-time. He at once manages to show that Shiki's strength is simultaneously his weakness and who among us can deny that thought when applied to our own life's work? No depth a strength: you betcha! And let me tell you why, says Blyth.

This is beautiful, incisive criticism, reflecting a deep engagement with the work. I love the fact that he anchors this for the Western reader in artists more familiar to her/him. Blyth has such love of the romantics and their relation to Eastern ways reveals itself to his readers, complementing each tradition in a way that lifts them both up.

And, yes, I also love the fact that he mentions John Clare.

Before getting to some of the translations, here's a bit of insight, along with important background information on Shiki from his chapter on Shiki the critic:

Shiki, 1867-1902, is considered to be the restorer of haiku, which had been falling off since the time of Buson. Bashō walked his Way of Haiku; Buson his Way of Art; Issa, though he did not speak of it, his Way of Humanity. What had Shiki? He had no Way of any kind unless perhaps a Way of Beauty, like Keats, but ill-health and beauty do not go well together, and by the end of his short life he had got some humanity, but no religion, no pantheism, mysticism, or Zen.

One final critical note from Blyth is ironic in that he has already stated Shiki's importance in restoring haiku as an artistic medium in Japanese culture:

The effect of Shiki was to stimulate, but in over-praising Buson and under-praising Bashō he helped the continuous and never-ceasing tendency of haiku to become more artifical, rootless and, trivial.

Ouch. This may be a blow to Shiki, but notice the back hand is even more devastating: haiku, the medium on which Blyth wrote 6 groundbreaking books, is not immune to his intensely critical eye, as it should be.

All of this has helped me out immensely with my feelings toward all the Shiki poems I've been reading and remarking on over the last few weeks. In his chapter on Shiki the poet, Blyth translates 71 haiku, casually remarking that these are different than the 390 haiku he translated in his 4 volume masterwork. I've been reading those, but am having a hard time tracking them all down as the index to the paperback editions don't seem to correlate with the hardcovers (I have a mix of both) and so I have to go through page by page. Eventually, I'll sort it all out, but for now I've gone through these 71 and have marked 12 as grabbing me immediately. Here they are:

---A snow landscape
still hanging up in spring -
---the dust on it!

---The plan to steal melons
Forgotten too -
---Cooling in the evening.

Blyth's comment on this I love: " This is good because of its truthfulness, and consequently its truth to life; morality, like love, as Sydney Smith said, depends on the temperature."

---Oh, ears defiled
By sermons
---The hototogisu! (cuckoo)



--

---A boat finished,
The Rose of Sharon blooming,
---A fishing village.

---All the hawker's cries
Became silent,
---Noon cicadas crying.

---Fluttering and dancing,
They are drawn into the vortex,
---The dancing leaves.

---Water birds,
And reeds withering,
---In the setting sun.

And Blyth's critical comment on this: "Such verses as these may be called almost too objective, too lacking in humanity. They are nature devoid of what even nature itself looks forward to, and appears in mankind."

---The beginning of autumn
The shell of the cicada
---Patters down.

---The evening bell tolls:
The sound of ripe persimmons
---Thudding in the temple garden.

Again, with Blyth's comment: "The sound of the bell is large, and that of all falling fruits slight, but Shiki's love of religion was small and his love of persmimmons great. They are therefore equal as spiritual sounds, representing as they do the transcendental and the material, the ideal and the real in human life."

---Passing autumn:
He comes to collect the money
---For tolling the bell.

---I going,
You remaining,-
---Two autumns.

---When the snail
Raises its face too,
---It looks like me.



Some of these haiku I've featured before but Blyth's translations make me see them in a new light, sometimes because of a particular word, or perhaps a better distillation of the ones chosen. I've read many translations of the first ("A snow landscape") but this is the first time it grabbed me beyond the image itself. Particular words that make these poems for me are "defiled," "vortex," "patters," and "thudding." The condensation of the famed haiku (and one of my favs) on two friends parting ("I going") to a mere 6 words is a marvel of condensation and poetry; those six words positively explode off the page for me with the pure power of deep-felt sorrow.

I would single out also two other poems for special attention, two I hadn't encountered before in all those other collections. I'm not sure if it's intentional, either by Shiki or Blyth, but the fact that autumn might be seen as a personification in "Passing autumn" I find incredibly resonant. It raises the level of an everyday human experience to that of the cyclical struggle of life and death, making it like a 3 line allegory or 3 line morality play. Even if this is not intentional (for Blyth at least I can't see how it couldn't be), the echoes of autumn as a symbol in Eastern work cannot be denied. For whom is the bell tolling, indeed?

Finally, the last poem ("When the snail") is truly transcendent for me and if you had handed it to me blind and said pick one of the 4 master haikuists as composer, I would not have hesitated to pick Issa. This work is sublime, yet it found its way into none of the other collections I've reported on in previous posts.

I'm looking forward, indeed, to those other 390 translations of Shiki in the 4 volume Blyth. Despite the pointed criticism, he has won me over to this master poet, not simply intellectually, but in a heartfelt, emotional way. Shiki was notoriously difficult to get to know, by all counts irascible and nasty at times. His illness certainly goes a long way to explaining why he was so hard to know, literally as well as via his work.

Thanks to Blyth, I feel I know him now and like him, indeed, very much. Not only that, but I know why.


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Normally, on Thursday I append some Lilliput poems from the archive for your perusal. I have to skip that this week as I've expended a great deal of energy on Shiki and, unfortunately, my paying gig beckons. Well, something to look forward to next week, eh?

So as not close on a negative note, here's a poem from one of the two brand new issues of Lilliput, #165, Dennis Maloney's fine translation of my favorite tanka poet, Yosano Akiko:

#244

I won't transform
My feeling into words
Or a poem but pour them
From heart to heart
This day, this moment.

Yosano Akiko
translated by Dennis Maloney

All the best,
Don