Friday, December 11, 2015

James W. Hackett (I.M.): 4 Haiku


Recently, I've been re-reading the introduction to Cor van den Heuvel's The Haiku Anthology (3rd ed.) and, when it comes to English language haiku poets, it essentially begins with James W. Hackett and Nick Virgilio. Of course, there were others earlier, but these are two major poets at the beginning of what van den Heuvel speculates may someday be called 'the golden age' of English language haiku.  

This sent me back to a collection of his work, The Way of Haiku: an Anthology of Haiku Poems, Japan Publications, 1969. I read it a few years back and, as is customary when I read poetry books, I have a slip of paper inside that serves the dual function of bookmark and place where I note down the page of poems that are, for me, highlights.

The book is over 250 pages long, 3 haiku to a page, and my note sheet has lots and lots of poems marked. Often I will put a special mark - an asterick or check - next to a page for poems that moved we especially. So, I looked at these first and, of all things, 
a particular image/theme appeared and so here are 3 of the especially highlighted poems:

 Photo by Nebojsa Mladjenovic



Now that I have freed
  the butterfly from the web
    I feel uneasy.


The design that spins 
  the spider, allows him no rest
    until its done.




A long line of web
  loose at both ends, riding free
    on the summer breeze



Photo by Chris Sorge


Early on, Hackett received the imprimatur of haiku guru R. H. Blyth, who, in Hackett, saw the very real possibility for haiku in English. You will note that all the haiku are in the strict 5/7/5 form, with beginning caps and punctuation, as was the prevailing approach of the day.

And none seem worse for that. I could talk a bit about what attracted Hackett to this imagery (and me, as reader, to those images/themes in his work), but perhaps it best to leave the air of mystery.

After all, it is life, isn't it?

One other observation is that the poems are all focused exclusively on nature. "Now that I have freed" is a rare instance of the intrusion of the poet (or any other human) in Hackett's work. The last poem below does not have that intrusion, but in it, I feel, you can sense very real human emotion and, so, not surprisingly, for those of you who know we and my own approach, it is one of my favorites:


Left by the tide
   within a shallowing pool:
        a frantic minnow


Photo by Brad Smith


some stay behind
in the green leaves...
low tide crows
Issa
trans. by David G. Lanoue



best,
Don

PS  Click to learn how to contribute to Wednesday Haiku  

Wednesday, December 9, 2015

Daryl Nielsen & Elizabeth Crocket: Wednesday Haiku, #224

 Illustration by Helen Stratton


evening image                    
on the lake’s surface
boy that still is

        Daryl Nielsen


Photo by G. dallorto

 

their headstone
whispering out loud

the news they'd want to hear
        Elizabeth Crocket




the lake is slowly
lost in mist...
evening falls

Issa
trans. by David G. Lanoue



best,
Don

PS  Click to learn how to contribute to Wednesday Haiku 

Wednesday, November 11, 2015

Susan Diridoni & Vibeke Laier: Wednesday Haiku, #223

 Photo by Aedallou

 

sans pearls summer peaches
          Susan Diridoni


 

Photo by Mike McCaffrey



summer moon
how tenderly waves
touch paper boats

      Vibeke Laier







the katydid
in the paper bag...
still singing

Issa
trans. by David G. Lanoue



best,
Don

PS  Click to learn how to contribute to Wednesday Haiku 

Wednesday, October 21, 2015

Ramesh Anand & Elmedin Kadric: Wednesday Haiku, #222

 

glow of light
from the hilltop hut –
shooting star

Ramesh Anand


 Photo by Martin Burns

rain song
the busker
sings along

Elmedin Kadric


Orpheus Pines by Heather Wizell



wafting through trees
a beggar's flute
a nightingale's song

Issa
trans. by David G. Lanoue


Photo by Dave Hamster



best,
Don

PS  Click to learn how to contribute to Wednesday Haiku
 

Wednesday, September 23, 2015

Helen Buckingham & Laszlo Slomovits: Wednesday Haiku, #221

GIF image courtesy of NASA


Geminid night--          
another good one
dies

Helen Buckingham


Mephistoles from Gounod's Faust



opera —
even the bad guys
sing in tune

Laszlo Slomovits


Devil Priest by Matahei



a long night--
the devil in me
torments me

Issa
trans. by David G. Lanoue



best,
Don

PS  Click to learn how to contribute to Wednesday Haiku  

Wednesday, September 9, 2015

Alexis Rotella & Kanchan Chatterjee: Wednesday Haiku, #220

Photo by Troy Mason


The things
he doesn't say
slow-growing ivy

Alexis Rotella


Photo by Ivo Ivov


summer noon. . .
even the woodpecker's pecking
sounds heavy

Kanchan Chatterjee


Photo by Inderjit Nijjer



geese flying south--
the ducks at the gate
cheer them on

Issa
trans. by David G. Lanoue



best,
Don

PS  Click to learn how to contribute to Wednesday Haiku 

Wednesday, August 12, 2015

Rehn Kovacic & Matthew Moffett: Wednesday Haiku, #219

Image from Talshiarr



Picking up each seed
   the bird bows--
        backyard Buddha

Rehn Kovacic



Photo by Ross




beside themselves
beside the cracked-up pavement
daffodils

Matthew Moffett


Artwork by Hishida Shunso




still plum blossoms
my head, by itself
bows
Issa
trans. by David G. Lanoue



best,
Don

PS  Click to learn how to contribute to Wednesday Haiku

Wednesday, August 5, 2015

Ida Frelinger & Susan Diridoni: Wednesday Haiku, #218


Image by Tom Simpson via foter




one day at a time
a duckling skids
into the no-wake zone

     Ida Frelinger




Photo by azut via foter



sprouting oaks fugue a welcome

               Susan Diridoni 





Photo by Paul Hudson via foter




my money sprouted wings
and flew away...
the year ends

Issa
trans. by David G. Lanoue



best,
Don

PS  Click to learn how to contribute to Wednesday Haiku

Wednesday, July 22, 2015

DJ Garvey & Jayashree Maniyil: Wednesday Haiku, #217

 Photo by Jodene


the road goes
Ommmmmmmmm ...
forever


             DJ Garvey




 
eating ice-cream
my cat licks her paw
every now and then

            Jayashree Maniyil




 Photo by Dioboss



four-way crossroads--
one drives out devils
one takes them in

Issa
trans. by David G. Lanoue



best,
Don

PS  Click to learn how to contribute to Wednesday Haiku

Wednesday, July 8, 2015

DJ Garvey & Susan Constable: Wednesday Haiku, #216

Photo by Andrew Moore


evening chant -
sacred ibis in lines
of flight
DJ Garvey


 Photo by Jonathan Boeke


writer’s block
he asks what I think
about parsnips
Susan Constable


Artwork by Ted Silveira



over the big house
an excellent flight!
firefly
Issa
trans. by David G. Lanoue



best,
Don

PS  Click to learn how to contribute to Wednesday Haiku

Wednesday, July 1, 2015

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

Photo by April Schultz

 

the river
swollen with spring ...
her stretchmarks

Chen-ou Liu





honeysuckle
through an open window
mother’s last breath

Daryl Nielsen






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

Issa
trans. by David G. Lanoue



best,
Don

PS  Click to learn how to contribute to Wednesday Haiku

Sunday, June 14, 2015

William Stafford: Where People Aren't


A book that I recently completed in my morning reading rotation is Things That Happen Where There Aren't Any People, a solid little William Stafford 38 page chapbook, put out by BOA Editions in 1980. 

Many of the poems in the book are about what the title suggests: things that happen without people. Stafford's deep interaction with nature comes out in any number of the poems included, such as the following:


Through the Junipers

   In the afternoon I wander away through
   the junipers. They scatter on low hills
   that open and close around me.
   If I go far enough, all sight or sound
   of people ends. I sit and look endless miles
   over waves of those hills.
   And then between sentences later when anyone
   asks me questions troubling to truth,
   my answers wander away and look back.
   There are these days, and there are these hills
   nobody thinks about, even in summer.
   And part of my life doesn’t have any home.


Stafford is the kind of poet who, on occasions such as this one, we seem to overhear talking to himself. He was a prolific poet, a serial writer if you will, and the more you read, the more you feel him working out the many different aspects of things he encounters. 

I could easily imagine him, on any given day, writing a very different last line for this poem. It is important to note, however, that this last line does not present empirical fact or even conjectural 'fact' - it presents feeling, how he felt after encountering nature without humans, and how he feels upon reentering the world of humans.

Reading this through some might think of Buddhism. Though this has some substance, I thought that Stafford, in his approach, represents a very Western (in this case, in both senses of the word) way of thinking, albeit a wilderness way of thinking. It reminded me of Somerset Maugham's character Larry Darrow from The Razor's Edge, who thinks that it is easy to be a monk on a mountain top, just try taking idealistic principles down into the world of people.

In case you forgot the post from 3 years ago (or weren't around these parts at that time), here's a scene with Bill Murray capturing the above sentiment from the excellent 1984 movie adaptation:




Because serendipity is the way of all things, I ran into the following haiku by Shiki in-between the next to last and last edit of this post and it seems, in its own way, to speak to the heart of the subject at hand:


      There is no trace
Of him who entered
      The summer grove
      Shiki
      trans. by R. W. Blyth


Photo by Tom Magliery

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






baby sparrow--
even when people come
opening his mouth
Issa
trans. by David G. Lanoue



best,
Don

PS  Click to learn how to contribute to Wednesday Haiku

Wednesday, June 10, 2015

Bart Solarcyzk & Lisa Espenmiller: Wednesday Haiku, #214




Her princess dreams
& ragdoll dress
come morning

Bart Solarczyk



Photo by plochingen

 


morning bath
ghosts
rise with the steam

Lisa Espenmiller



Photo by Cecil Beaton



the beggar child prays
with trembling voice...
for a doll
Issa
trans. by David G. Lanoue



best,
Don

PS  Click to learn how to contribute to Wednesday Haiku

Wednesday, June 3, 2015

Mary Frederick Ahearn & Pravat Kumar Padhy: Wednesday Haiku, #213

Photo by Clyde Bentley



how tenderly
the hawk feeds her young -
who are we to say

Mary Frederick Ahearn


 

Photo by Chris Gunns



autumn melancholy--
the shadow connects
the trees

Pravat Kumar Padhy



Photo by Kusakabe Kimbei

 
in the wake
of the Buddhist procession...
honking geese
Issa
trans. by David G. Lanoue



best,
Don

PS  Click to learn how to contribute to Wednesday Haiku

Wednesday, May 27, 2015

alter-world: old pajamas


What is it we ask of the modern short-form poet, the modern haiku poet? What do we want, what is necessary in a short poem?

What do we need?

To get close to an answer to any, or all, of these questions perhaps we should be asking most importantly: what do we ask of ourselves when it comes to poetry as readers and, for some, as poets?

Old Pajamas (aka Alan Segal) is an excellent poet working in short forms for whom form itself is mercurial, form is protean, form is content's shadow. Like contemporary masters Cid Corman, John Martone, and Charlie Mehrhoff, he knows where the lines are and chooses to dance over and amongst them.

For my two cents, Old Pajamas would be a candidate for inclusion in a second edition of Haiku in English, as would Ed Baker, another fine purveyor of 'shorties' as he is wont to call them on any given day, work don't fit any strict definition but is all heart and spirit and soul.

Is the pen name 'Old Pajamas' off-putting? Just think about the various pen-names of so many Japanese poets. Even the masters - Bashō's name means banana leaf or tree, Issa's cup-of-tea, Buson's midnight studio, and Shiki's cuckoo. 

As far as English goes, Old Pajamas sounds just fine to me. 

The new collection he sent along is a limited hardcover edition, 1 of 25 printed.The book is entitled alter-world and here are four of my favorites from it:


Photo by Hadi Fooladi

ah
the butterfly
not an actor



Photo by Amour Perdu


that you're in black
flower and scaly
while I'm paleness
blinking in the dark
is enough enough for us





in one cricket
the sound is weary



Photo by Seth Anderson


BLOWER MOTOR #4

mad with rust  / /  camellias in bloom




Regular readers of this blog will recognize this last poem (and photo) as having appeared previously on Wednesday Haiku

Looking at these four pieces superficially they seem to be all over the place, form-wise. Yet, there is a unifying element among them, one of the major components of traditional haiku.

All four are firmly ground in nature.

Now, arguments could certainly be had, one way or the other, as to which, if any, are haiku, and which are not. I have my opinions and I'll keep them (mostly) to myself. 

One thing I will say is that they are all haiku-like or, even more generally, fine brief poems.   

alter-world is not available to purchase, so there is no pitch here. However, you can find more of Alan's work, from alter-world and and other places, at old pajamas: from the dirt hutIt is definitely worth your while. There is also a more extensive review of an earlier collection, Drenched Through at Old Age, here.


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



Photo by Mo


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

Issa
trans. by David G. Lanoue




best,

Don

PS  Click to learn how to contribute to Wednesday Haiku