Some Thoughts of R. H. Blyth

 Monkey by Tōhaku

It's been over three years since I speculated that it would take me awhile to read and report back on the 4 volume colletion of Haiku by R. H. Blyth and it seems I was right.

That's some delay.

Over those years, volume 1 has sat next to my bed, moving up and down the immediate pile of books to be read, occasionally picked up, dipped into, and very much enjoyed.  Lately, I've been reading a section on haiga and haiku.  Having to lead two groups over the last two weeks through appreciation of haiku sessions, I was particularly attentive to the following:

What Bashō wanted to do, however, was to condense without heaviness, to refine without dilettantism, to philosophize without intellection.  This he could find done in pictures already.

When you are working on trying to communicate a cogent definition of haiku to folks new to the form, you pay attention when you run across a statement like this.  Further on, as Blyth sums up his thoughts on haiga and haiku,  he notes that roughness and humor are two admirable qualities of haiga.  He continues:

The insistence on the fact that humour is to be seen everywhere, under all circumstances, which is the special virtue of haiku, is also the distinguishing quality of haiga, and one which keeps it most closely connected with this world and this life.  Art comes down to earth; we are not transported into some fairy, unreal world of pure aesthetic pleasure.  The roughness gives it that peculiar quality of sabi (Ed. note: B's emphasis, not mine) without age; unfinished pictures, half-built houses, broken statuary tell the same story.  It corresponds in poetry to the fact that what we wish to say is just that which escapes the words.  Haiku and haiga therefore do not try to express it, and succeed in doing what they have not attempted.

Here are two of  Bashō's poems, as translated by Blyth, from volume 1 of his Haiku:



        Yield to the willow
All the loathing, all the desire
        of your heart.





         In the midst of the plain,
Sings the skylark,
         Free of all things.



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We all sit and wait and pray over developments in Japan.  There will be another post from Scott Watson in Sendai tomorrow. 

For now, this week's featured poem comes from Lilliput Review #143, June 2005.  It is a translation of a Japanese classic.

We wait and hope.

A spring day
filled with tranquil light.
Cherry blossoms,
why are you
falling so restlessly.

Ki-no Tomonori
translated by Dennis Maloney and Hide Oshiro

without you--
how vast
the cherry blossom grove

Issa
translated by David G. Lanoue

best,
Don

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Wislawa Szymborska: "One hole in the net"

Thursday, July 2nd, is the birthday of the fine Polish poet, Wislawa Szymborska. Wikipedia characterizes her work as follows:

Szymborska frequently employs literary devices such as
irony, paradox, contradiction, and understatement, to
illuminate philosophical themes and obsessions.
Szymborska's compact poems often conjure large
existential puzzles, touching on issues of ethical import,
and reflecting on the condition of people both as individuals
and as members of human society. Szymborska's style is
succinct and marked by introspection and wit.

This is absolutely true and so cold as to convey nothing of the feel of her work. What is missing is the deep running emotion; time and again, I find myself deeply moved by her words. The imprint of 20th century European history is the touchstone of much of what she does, as with nearly all Eastern European poets.

Here's a poem to that point:



Children of Our Era

We are children of our era;
our era is political.

All affairs, day and night,
yours, ours, theirs,
are political affairs.

Like it or not,
your genes have a political past,
your skin a political cast,
your eyes a political aspect.

What you say has a resonance;
what you are silent about is telling.
Either way, it's political.

Even when you head for the hills
you're taking political steps
on political ground.

Even apolitical poems are political,
and above us shines the moon,
by now no longer lunar.
To be or not to be, that is the question.
Question? What question? Dear, here's a suggestion:
a political question.

You don't even have to be a human being
to gain political significance.
Crude oil will do,
or concentrated feed, or any raw material.

Or even a conference table whose shape
was disputed for months:
should we negotiate life and death
at a round table or a square one?

Meanwhile people were dying,
animals perishing,
houses burning,
and fields growing wild,
just as in times most remote
and less political.

Wislawa Szymborska
translated by Joanna Trzeciak

And here is the personalizing of the political which reveals the emotion beneath:




Could Have

It could have happened.
It had to happen.
It happened earlier. Later.
Nearer. Farther off.
It happened, but not to you.

You were saved because you were the first.
You were saved because you were the last.
Alone. With others.
On the right. The left.
Because it was raining. Because of the shade.
Because the day was sunny.

You were in luck -- there was a forest.
You were in luck -- there were no trees.
You were in luck -- a rake, a hook, a beam, a brake,
A jamb, a turn, a quarter-inch, an instant . . .

So you're here? Still dizzy from
another dodge, close shave, reprieve?
One hole in the net and you slipped through?
I couldn't be more shocked or
speechless.
Listen,
how your heart pounds inside me.

Wislawa Szymborska
trans. by Stanislaw Baranczak and Clare Cavanagh

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Some quick notes of interest:

outlaw poetry and free jazz network has reprinted
a review I wrote for The Small Press Review of the
book/dvd d.a.levy & the mimeograph revolution
book, edited by Larry Smith and Ingrid Swanberg.
The review is at the bottom of the post.

A new companion journal to daily haiku entitled
daily haiga is set to launch today. Check it out.

The Smoking Poet has put out a call for poems.
Frankly,most work they use is much longer than
the Lillie focus but, then again, whose isn't. They
also use fiction, reviews, flashfiction, and book and
cigar (!) reviews. Why not air out some of your
longer work here? Submission guidelines.

There is a new website with the complete list,
plus links, to the songs featured on the weekly
postings from Best LitRock Songs from Issa's
Sunday Service. The site will be updated weekly.

As mentioned in Ron Silliman's blog, there is an
interview up at Capital City Weekly with Alaska
poet Ken Waldman, whose work has appeared a
number times in Lilliput, as well as being featured
in a few posts here at Issa's Untidy Hut. Cheers,
to Alaska's fiddling poet!

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Cover by Bobo

This week's featured issue is #22, from May 1991. I've mentioned in a few previous posts, the further back we go, the more removed I feel. However, I've found this little issue packed with poems that still resonate for me today. Here are a handful:

budding leaves

how much
life loves
life!
a wreath
of over-
ripe history
decays
and drains
downward.
feeding tap
roots with
bombings,
war.

Deborah Meadows

Disaster

Last night the past broke
and there was history
all over the cellar.
You should have seen it -
Rome was here, Greece was there,
Egypt floated near the ceiling--
finally I had to
call a historian:
and you know what they charge
for emergencies.

Gail White

the dead walk the earth

walking thru minefields of my desire
my boots slosh & leak blood

I've become my own ghost

no shadows where I run the nights thru
the taste of the blade in my throat
& the silence of the dead

I slip my fingers thru a mirror
& pull out the beating heart
of a man I once knew so well

that I killed him

Bill Shields

Influences Carried By The Wind

Not the least demonic would have you think
your face doesn't look like a face,
or you have none: it never bloomed.

Beatrice George

in the thicket no one
knows about
trees budding bright

Issa
translated by David Lanoue

best,
Don