Saturday, August 31, 2013

Dark Wings of the Night: Seamus Heaney and His View of Haiku

                                                               Toronto snowstorm ...
                                                               writing haiku to escape
                                                               the fear of silence

                                                               for Seamus Heaney, Poet of "the Silent Things"  


The haiku form and the generally Japanese effect have been a constant feature of poetry in English. The names of Basho and Issa and Buson have found their way into our discourse to the extent that we in Ireland have learnt to recognise something Japanese in the earliest lyrics of the native tradition.

Seamus Heaney, The Guardian (24 November, 2007)


The Irish poet Seamus Heaney (13 April 1939 – 30 August 2013), who won the 1995 Nobel Prize in Literature, died yesterday at the age of 74. Outside the haiku poetry community, he was one of few Western poets who recognized and appreciated Japanese haiku's influence on English poetry. On 24 November, 2007, he published an article, titled "The Pathos of Things," in The Guardian. Below are two excerpts:
 
It seems to me that the scenes which inspired [Wordsworth's] most characteristic poetry could well have inspired many of the great masters of Japan. The English and Japanese sensibilities respond in similar ways to the natural world, and landscapes which brought out the best in Wordsworth could equally well have provided the setting for a haiku by Basho. Significantly also, the English poet's work abounds in phrases which could be used to describe the general emotional impact of a certain kind of Japanese lyric - as when he speaks of being "an inmate of this active universe", of being taught to feel "the self-sufficing power of solitude" or a something in nature which is "far more deeply interfused", and so on...


[Ezra Pound] had begun by composing a 30-line poem but had destroyed it because it didn't achieve a satisfactory intensity of expression; six months then passed and he wrote one half that length; and a year later he produced what he called a "hokku-like sentence":

The apparition of these faces in the crowd:
Petals on a wet, black bough.

"I dare say it is meaningless," Pound concluded, "unless one has drifted into a certain vein of thought. In a poem of this sort one is trying to record the precise instant when a thing outward and objective transforms itself, or darts into a thing inward and subjective."

The poem is far from meaningless, and it is largely thanks to its existence that readers (and writers) in English have drifted "into a certain vein of thought". Thanks to these 14 words, we are now well attuned to the Japanese effect, the evocation of that precise instant of perception, and are ready to grant such evocation of the instant a self-sufficiency of its own. We don't require any labouring of the point. We are happy if the image sets off its own echoes and associations, if it speaks indirectly, as Issa speaks in his haiku:

A good world --
dew drops fall
by ones by twos.
 
By ones, by twos, ripples pulsed out from the image poem, so it was inevitable, especially given Pound's capacities as an operator on the literary scene, that the new Japanese effect should be integrated into the history of poetry in English as "The imagist Movement"...

For curiosity, I went through the recently published New Penguin Book of English Verse in search of this effect in pre-imagist periods, but didn't discover anything. This is not to say, of course, that poetry in English is unaware or unexpressive of the underlife of feelings or the melancholy of things: since Anglo-Saxon times the elegiac mood has been a constant of the poetic literature. It's just that the means of expression are different. In 1869, for example, Matthew Arnold wrote this brief, untitled poem:

Below the surface-stream, shallow and light,
Of what we say we feel - below the stream,
As light, of what we think we feel - there flows
With noiseless current strong, obscure and deep,
The central stream of what we feel indeed.

What the haiku/imagist form can do is to reach down into that noiseless, strong, obscure, deep central stream and give both poet and reader a sense of epiphany. It's worth noticing indeed that the word "epiphany" becomes available as a literary term around about the time when Pound is coining the term "imagism", James Joyce being the one who was responsible for this new extension and application of its meaning. In their different ways, Pound and Joyce felt a need to extend the alphabet of expressiveness, and found a way to articulate what TS Eliot would call "the notion of some infinitely gentle / Infinitely suffering thing" - a thing which was also for Eliot inherent in certain "images": "I am moved by fancies that are curled / Around these images and cling."

In the years since these early developments, the haiku form and the generally Japanese effect have been a constant feature of poetry in English. The names of Basho and Issa and Buson have found their way into our discourse to the extent that we in Ireland have learnt to recognise something Japanese in the earliest lyrics of the native tradition... Read the full text here


Below are two haiku by Seamus Heaney:

1.1.87

Dangerous pavements.
But this year I face the ice
with my father’s stick.

Seeing Things, 1991

Springtime in Ulster:
aerials in hedges, squawk
of walkie-talkies

Stepping Stones: Interviews with Seamus Heaney, 2008

You can read his Tankas for Toraiwa  here


Updated, September 15, 2013: Two Haiku-like Poems

In the section, titled Heaney's Haiku Poetry, of Chapter One, titled Petals on Sandymount Strand: Seamus Heaney, of The Japanese Effect in Contemporary Irish Poetry, Irene De Angelis further discusses two other haiku (in my view, haiku-like poems that demonstrate haiku sensibility): their concision results from his effort to write by subtraction (p. 24)

For Bernard and Jane McCabe

The riverbed, dried-up, half-full of leaves.

Us, listening to a river in the trees.

The Haw Lantern (1987)


The Strand

The dotted line my father's ashplant made
On Sandymount Strand
Is something else the tide won't wash away.

The Spirit Level (1996)


Note:  The phrase "inner émigré" in the fifth tanka of my sequence, Politics and Poetics of Re-Homing, below comes from Seamus Heaney's work:

inner émigré
rolling off my tongue...
the professor's
right eye flickers
in a long shadow


Below is an excerpt from George Morgan's interview with Seamus Heaney :

— You once wrote of yourself as an “inner émigré,” a term that has been bandied about a lot since then. Do you still think of yourself in this way?

8As far as possible, you try to remain a mystery to yourself. Living in Ireland, not being an exile, living in Ireland as a social creature, as a familiar citizen, I think there is a great danger that one’s social persona might overwhelm one’s daimon — if you’ll permit me such a grand term… And so what one is always trying to do is displace oneself to another place or space. In my case, I’ve been very lucky to have had a cottage in Wicklow where I am literally displaced from my usual Dublin suroundings and indeed Wicklow is where I first thought of myself as being an inner émigré. Since 1988, thanks to the great kindness of Ann Saddlemyer, I’ve been able to own the cottage and to think of it as my “place of writing.” When I said “inner émigré,” I meant to suggest a state of poetic stand-off, as it were, a state where you have slipped out of your usual social persona and have entered more creatively and fluently into your inner being. I think it is necessary to shed, at least to some extent, the social profile that you maintain elsewhere. “Inner émigré” once had a specific meaning, of course, in the 1920s and 30s in Soviet Russia. It referred to someone who had not actually gone into exile but who lived at home disaffected from the system. Well, to some extent that was true of myself. Certainly, in relation to Northern Ireland.

A Room of My Own: Fifty Years Later

the Global March
on Washington
a fleeting dream, and yet...

I have a dream...
hooded black teens sing
with their hands

paper butterfly
from her small brown hand
summer dream

Friday, August 30, 2013

One Man’s Maple Moon: Autumn Leaves Tanka by Adelaide B. Shaw

English Original

on a hill
autumn leaves vibrate
in the sun;
so much to absorb
on any single day

Ribbons, 5:3, Autumn 2009

Adelaide B. Shaw


Chinese Translation (Traditional)

山丘上
秋天樹葉在陽光下
顫動;
在任何日子
有這麼多要吸收

Chinese Translation (Simplified)

山丘上
秋天树叶在阳光下
颤动;
在任何日子
有这麽多要吸收


Bio Sketch

Adelaide B. Shaw lives in Milbrook, NY with her husband. She has published short fiction, children’s poetry and stories, haiku, tanka, haibun and haiga. She has served as an editor and as a contest judge for Japanese style poetry. Her haiku blog is: www.adelaide-whitepetals.blogspot.com/ Her haiku collection, An Unknown Road, won a 2009 Merit Book Award sponsored by the Haiku Association of America.

Thursday, August 29, 2013

Butterfly Dream: Twilight Haiku by Asni Amin

English Original

alone at twilight...
sound of a mosquito
and unfinished dream

Asni Amin


Chinese Translation (Traditional)

獨自在黃昏...
一隻蚊子的聲音
和未完成的夢想

Chinese Translation (Simplified)

独自在黄昏...
一只蚊子的声音
和未完成的梦想


Bio Sketch  

Asni Amin lives in Singapore and works as a librarian in a school.  She started writing haiku in 2012 and has her works published in Simply Haiku and various other ebooks on line.   

Wednesday, August 28, 2013

Hot News: One of PoemHunter's Top Five Most Popular Poets

My Dear Fellow Poets and Readers:

I' m listed as one of PoemHunter's Top Five Most Popular Poets, the only one who writes Japanese short form poetry.

You can read my poems here . Below are my most popular poems:

winter dawn
a butterfly wakes up
in my dream

I stretch out
in bed alone
the taste of moonlight

moonlit pond...
a frog penetrates
itself

holding
winter moonlight in my hand
length of the night

blood-red earth
pattering on his coffin
winter rain

Many thanks for your continued support of my work.

Chen-ou


Note: As of now, PoemHunter's database contains 882, 561 poems from 86, 886 poets. On Sunday, April 15, 2012, I published my first poem below on PoemHunter:

her pale face
and a ragged Barbie's...
framed by the window
of a group home
in Easter sunlight       

One Man's Maple Moon: Peppered Moth Tanka by an'ya

English Original

the symmetry
of this peppered moth
makes me think of
all those times I've been
unremarkable

Simply Haiku, Autumn 2006

an'ya


Chinese Translation (Traditional)

這隻胡椒蛾
的對稱性
讓我想到
所有這些
我不起眼的時刻

Chinese Translation (Simplified)

这只胡椒蛾
的对称性
让我想到
所有这些
我不起眼的时刻


Bio Sketch

an'ya is a haiku and tanka poet who has been published in over 60 foreign languages, and appeared in places and publications worldwide. If you would like to read more of her works and a complete biography, please visit https://sites.google.com/site/existencearts/

Tuesday, August 27, 2013

Butterfly Dream: Morning Mist Haiku by George Swede

English Original

morning mist…
disconnected thoughts search
for conjunctions   

Modern Haiku, 2013, 44.2

George Swede


Chinese Translation (Traditional)

晨霧...
斷續的思維
尋求連結

Chinese Translation (Simplified)

晨雾...
断续的思维
寻求连结


Bio Sketch

George Swede's most recent collections of haiku are Almost Unseen (Decatur, IL: Brooks Books, 2000) and Joy In Me Still (Edmonton: Inkling Press, 2010). He is a former editor of Frogpond: Journal of the Haiku Society of America (2008-2012) and a former Honorary Curator of the American Haiku Archives (2008-2009).

Monday, August 26, 2013

A Room of My Own: And the Spring Will Come

He can write in English, states the dog-eared Chinese-English dictionary on the coffee-stained desk. A German Shepherd lives with him, says the attic wall with an old map of Taiwan on it. But he can't stand Canadian food, observes a line of jars of salted bamboo shoots. Except food, everything looks OK, they say in unison.

the stillness
of this morning …
tenth winter


Haibun Today, 7:3, September 2013
Contemporary Haibun, 15, 2014

Sunday, August 25, 2013

One Man's Maple Moon: Sleeping Face Tanka by Motoko Michiura

English Original

One of those men
in his forties, worn out,
Mr. Marxist's sleeping face
looks like
a blade of grass.

a long rainy season: haiku & tanka

Motoko Michiura
trans. by Leza Lowitz


Chinese Translation (Traditional)

在那些四十多歲
疲累的人之中,
馬克思主義先生的睡臉
看起來像
一棵小草。

Chinese Translation (Simplified)

在那些四十多岁
疲累的人之中,
马克思主义先生的睡脸
看起来像
一棵小草。


Bio Sketch

Motoko Michiura was born in Wakayama Prefecture, Japan, in 1947. She has published four books of poetry, and is well known for her poetry concerning her experiences as a student activist at Waseda University in the 1960s and 1970s. She received the 25th Modern Tanka Society Prize for the 1980 publication of Helpless Lyricism. For more information about her work, see a long rainy season, pp. 99 - 118.

Saturday, August 24, 2013

To the Lighthouse: Misunderstood Japanese Literary Terms

Few weeks ago, I received a copy of What Happens in Haibun: A Critical Study of an Innovative Literary Form, written by David Cobb, the renowned poet and a founding member of the British Haiku Society, and I was surprised to find out that in his slim book (88 pages in total, including 5 pages of the information regarding copyright, acknowledgement, contents, ..etc), there are 3.3 pages (pp. 83-86) or 4% of the text, dedicated to a glossary of Japanese terms, some of which are given a relatively lengthy description  situated in the different contexts, Japanese and Western (mainly Anglo-American). This shows that David Cobb placed a special emphasis on the functional role of a glossary of literary terms: a touchstone for important aesthetic concepts and ideals.

However, of his 21 Japanese literary terms, five are seriously misunderstood.

Haibun       The generic name for any confection of prose with embedded haiku. Includes, at least in the West, essays and “[haibun] stories,” which may be either anecdotal and imaginary, or a blend of both fact and fiction (See also kikobun, nikki) (p. 83) 1

As I have clearly pointed out in my “To the Lighthouse” post, titled “Haibun Myth,” haibun, broadly speaking, existed before Basho in the form of short essays, prefaces or headnotes to hokku written by haikai poets (Shirane, Traces of Dreams, p. 213). In the first important collection of haibun, Fuzoku Monzen, by Basho and members of his school, there are various categories of elegy, preface, rhyme-prose, essay or monograph ("setu") that were "derived from traditional Chinese collections like Wen Hsuan (Monzen in Japanese), but little attempt was in fact made to distinguish one genre from another” (Keene, p. 142). And Basho's contemporary, Ihara Saikaku (1642 -- 1693), already "employed an experimental, dramatic form of haibun, or haikai prose, for which there was no precedent in the prose literature of his time" (Shirane, p. 21). On the contrary, to the best of my knowledge, haibun-specific journals in the West, such as Contemporary Haibun Online and Haibun Today, have never published a haibun written in the form of essay. And it was not until this year, a haiku journal, Modern Haiku, published its first haibun explicitly written in the form of essay -- Dimitar Anakiev’s “How Narrow Is THE HAIKU PATH?: Essay in the form of a haibun on perspectives of haiku).” 2

Karumi  Often translated as “lightness,” but not in the sense we use “light” in “light verse.” Rather it seeks the ability to deal with “weighty” subjects with philosophical detachment; not be “weighed down” by them. Treating good fortune and disaster the same (p. 84)

I do not know how or where Cobb get his idea of karumi that “it seeks the ability to deal with ‘weighty’ subjects with philosophical detachment “ (p. 84) because he does not offer any sort of textual evidence or scholarly reference. According to Basho scholar Haruo Shirane, in his last years Basho experimented with the karumi (lightness) style that "stressed everyday common life, contemporary language and rhythm, and avoided heavy conceptualization or allusions to the past" (Shirane, Early Modern Japanese Literature, p. 201), and for Basho, this salient characteristic of Japanese art meant "a return to everyday subject matter and diction, a deliberate avoidance of abstraction and poetic posturing, and relaxed, rhythmical, seemingly artless expression (Shirane, Traces of Dreams, p. 26). And according to Christopher Drake, in terms of the linkage technique, “Basho's late notion of karumi or lightness, which refers more to linking than to verse content, is still based on a preference for relatively distant links and an exclusion of verbally dense verses” (Drake, p. 57). In the forward to Betsuzashiki ("Shomon Renku"), Basho considered this quality of "lightness" to be "like seeing a shallow sandy-bedded brook. The shape of the verse, the very heart of the linkage, both are light and refreshing." Below are two of Basho’s hokku written in the karumi style that have nothing do with “’weighty’  subjects with philosophical detachment” (p. 84):

under the tree
soup, fish salad, and all --
cherry blossoms

in the plum blossom scent
the sun pops up --
a mountain path

The first hokku is the first recognized poem written in the karumi style, the opening verse of  a 1690  kasen written at a blossom-viewing party at Ueno (Ueda, Basho and His interpreters, p. 286), and the second poem is the opening verse of one of Basho’s last haikai  sequences that demonstrate the karumi style, "Plum Blossom Scent," ("Ume ga Ka"), composed with Yaba in Edo(Shirane, Early Modern Japanese Literature, p. 201). For detailed comments, see my “Poetic Musings” posts, “Basho’s First Hokku in the Karumi Style,” and “Plum Blossom Scent, A Haikai Sequence in the Karumi Style by Basho and Yaba ” 
Nikki  a kind of haibun which we might call a diary or an essay (p. 85)

Nikki means “diary’ while setu refers to “essay,” or “monograph.” For more information, see Earl Miner, “The Traditions and Forms of the Japanese Poetic Diary,” Pacific Coast Philology, Vol. 3, April 1968, pp. 38-48, and F. J. Daniels, Selections from Japanese Literature: 12th to 19th Centuries, pp. 52, 149. You can read the full text of Yamaguti Sodoo’s "Minomusi no setu” (“On the Mantle-Grub") in the first important collection of haibun, Fuzoku Monzen.

Senryu 1 A Japanese verse of the same length as a haiku, but without the requirement of a “season word” or a cutting word (kireji); making pointed comments on some aspect of human behaviour, and generally regarded by the Japanese as vulgar or at least inferior to haiku (pp. 85-6)

If this Japanese view of senryu as “vulgar or at least inferior to haiku” is true, why do hundreds upon hundreds of thousands of Japanese men and women read and write senryu daily? And why was Onishi Yasuyo, Japanese senryu poet, awarded in 1996 one of the most prestigious haiku awards, the Nakaniida Haiku Prize, for her brilliantly-crafted senryu (Gilbert, p. 224)? 3 In her interview with Richard Gilbert (“Gendai Senryu: History and Significance,” Gilbert, pp. 223-32), Onishi emphasizes that “the vehicle of senryu is an excellent way to express human pathos and the naked and true nature of what a human being is. In order to express such things, senryu may in fact be an ideal literary form” (p. 227). Below are some of her senryu included in Gilbert’s Poems of Consciousness (pp. 233-4)

from behind
comes the sound of water
comes news of death

where a life starts and becomes
                    september wind

in the deep bosom
of a sniper --
myrtle blossom

hydrangea darkness --
the past gradually withers

For more information about the aesthetic development of senryu in the Japanese context, see “Introduction,” Light Verse from the Floating World: An Anthology of  Premodern Japanese Senryu by Makoto Ueda, pp. 1-40. And Ueda’s description of senryu is one of the best I’ve ever read:

"Senryu differs from haiku in its rhetoric, too, since it seldom uses the common haiku technique known as internal comparison. Whereas a haiku often juxtaposes two disparate objects challenges the reader to make an imaginary connection between them, a typical senryu presents one unique situation and asks the reader to view it in the light of reason or common sense. The reader who does that will usually experience a feeling of superiority, or of incongruity, or of relief, which in turn lead to laughter. (Preface, pp. vii-viii)

Zappai 1 A joky Japanese verse superficially resembling haiku, but intended to display wit or sentiment, possibly meant as an adage or aphorism.
             2 A similar verse in a Western language and shunned by the “informed” haiku poet. Also known as “spam haiku,” though writers of these are usually sticklers for 5-7-5 (p. 86)

Cobb’s description is in the spirit of the 2004 Haiku Society of America definition.4  This is a culturally offensive representation of zappai. Richard Gilbert and Shinjuku Rollingstone published a point-by-point rebuttal essay (Simply Haiku, 3:1, Spring 2005), titled “The Distinct Brilliance of Zappai: and the Need to Reconsider its HSA Definition,” against the 2004 Haiku Society of America definition.. In their insightful essay, Gilbert and Rollingstone emphasize that  “the linking of zappai to such writings as spam-ku and headline haiku in English is inappropriate and culturally offensive, as zappai has evolved directly out of the ancient haikai tradition…. and importantly, survives as a contemporary literary form of cultural expression, with composition groups, competitions, etc.” For more information about the socio-aesthetically contextualized understanding of the literary genre, zappai, see the “Zappai and Senryu” entry of The Kodansha Encyclopedia of Japan  composed by Japanese scholars. A three-page excerpt of this entry can be found in Gilbert’s Poems of Consciousness, pp. 244-7. Below are some of contemporary zappai included in Gilbert and Shinjuku’s abovementioned essay:

leisurely
listening to the morning rain
of the water man

Misatoken? (uncertain pronunciation)


no eyes no ears no mouth    the wife and step-mother doing well  

Iwashita Yumiko

sheer darkness    falling and finding the rain puddle  

Nakagawa Ryūseki

Notes:

1 I changed "haiku stories" to "haibun stories." It's because I couldn't find "haiku stories" in any of haibun-related articles/books. Therefore, I think it's a typo. As for "haibun stories," see Ken Jones's "Writing Reality: Fictional Haibun Stories," which was published in Contemporary Haibun Online, 3:3, September 2007.

2 Modern Haiku, 44:2, Summer 2013, pp. 164-5. For more information, see my “To the Lighthouse” post, titled, “Haibun Myth

3 This event occasioned controversy. One judge explained, “We wished to confer this prize based upon the excellence of the poetry, rather than the genre. In this spirit, Onishi accepted the prize (Gilbert, p. 224).

4 The 2004 HSA valuation of zappai states: Many so-called "haiku" in English are really senryû. Others, such as  "Spam-ku" and "headline haiku", seem like recent additions to an old  Japanese category, zappai, miscellaneous amusements in doggerel verse  (usually written in 5-7-5) with little or no literary value. Some call the  products of these recent fads "pseudohaiku" to make clear that they are not  haiku at all.


References:

Haruo Shirane, Traces of Dreams: Landscape, Cultural Memory, and the Poetry of Basho, Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1998.

Haruo Shirane, ed., Early Modern Japanese Literature: An Anthology, 1600-1900, New York: Columbia University Press, 2002

Donald Keene, World within Walls: Japanese Literature of the Pre-Modern Era, 1600-1867, Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1976

F. J. Daniels, Selections from Japanese Literature: 12th to 19th Centuries, L. Humphries, 1959.

Makoto Ueda, Light Verse from the Floating World: An Anthology of  Premodern Japanese Senryu, Columbia University Press, 1999.

Christopher Drake, “The Collision of Traditions in Saikaku's Haikai,” Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies, 52:1, June, 1992, p. 5-75.

Earl Miner, “The Traditions and Forms of the Japanese Poetic Diary,” Pacific Coast Philology, Vol. 3, April 1968, pp. 38-48.

Richard Gilbert and Shinjuku Rollingstone, “The Distinct Brilliance of Zappai: and the Need to Reconsider Its HSA Definition,” Simply Haiku, 3:1, Spring 2005.

Friday, August 23, 2013

Butterfly Dream: Abandoned Lot Haiku by Jack Galmitz

English Original

an abandoned lot:
weeds tall as men, a shopping cart

yards & lots

Jack Galmitz


Chinese Translation (Traditional)

廢置不用的土地:
雜草像人一樣高,一個購物車

Chinese Translation (Simplified)

废置不用的土地:
杂草像人一样高,一个购物车


Bio Sketch

Jack Galmitz was born in NYC in 1951. He received a Ph.D in English from the University of Buffalo.  He is an Associate of the Haiku Foundation and Contributing Editor at Roadrunner Journal.  His most recent books are Views (Cyberwit.net,2012), a genre study of minimalist poetry, and Letters (Lulu Press, 2012), a book of poetry.  He lives in New York with his wife and stepson.

Thursday, August 22, 2013

One Man's Maple Moon: Cliff Tanka by Keitha Keyes

English Original

a blind man stands
on the edge of a cliff
in awe
of things unseen
but still remembered

Ribbons,  8:1, Spring/Summer 2012

Keitha Keyes


Chinese Translation (Traditional)

一個瞎子
站在懸崖邊緣
敬畏那些
看不見但還記得
的事物

Chinese Translation (Simplified)

一个瞎子
站在悬崖边缘
敬畏那些
看不见但还记得
的事物


Bio Sketch

Keitha Keyes lives in Sydney but her heart is still in the Australian bush where she grew up. Keitha mostly writes haiku and tanka and related genres, revelling in the inspiration, friendship and generosity of these writing communities. Her work appears in Eucalypt, Kokako, Moonbathing, Simply Haiku, GUSTS, Ribbons, red lights, A Hundred Gourds, Take Five, Atlas Poetica, Lynx, FreeXpression, Evening Breeze, Windfall and several other anthologies.

A Room of My Own: Confucius Said, at Forty I Had No More Doubts

for 劉鎮歐

Every day and night, I ask myself what if?  Whether things might have been different or better.  If anything more could have come of it.  But I died four days before my 40th birthday, on a moonless night.

distant sirens ...
across the winter sky
a shooting star


Haibun Today, 7:3, September 2013
(included in my review essay)

Note: The title comes from Chapter II of  The Analects, one of the foundational texts of Confucianism:

At fifteen my heart was set on learning; at thirty I stood firm; at forty I had no more doubts; at fifty I knew the will of heaven; at sixty my ear was obedient; at seventy I could follow my heart's desire without overstepping the boundaries of what was right.

Confucius's retrospection of his own life has been the model for the Chinese people for more than 2500 years.

Wednesday, August 21, 2013

One Man’s Maple Moon: Silence Tanka by Michael McClintock

English Original

silence
seeks the center
of every tree and rock,
that thing we hold closest --
the end of songs

Letters in Time: Sixty Short Poems, 2005

Michael McClintock


Chinese Translation (Traditional)
   
寂靜尋求
每一個樹和岩石
的中心,
那最貼近我們的事 --
歌曲的結束

Chinese Translation (Simplified)

寂静寻求
每一个树和岩石
的中心,
那最贴近我们的事 --
歌曲的结束


Bio Sketch

Michael McClintock's lifework in haiku, tanka, and related literature spans over four decades. His many contributions to the field include six years as president of the Tanka Society of America (2004-2010) and contributing editor, essayist, and poet for dozens of journals, anthologies, landmark collections and critical studies. McClintock now lives in Clovis, California, where he works as an independent scholar, consultant for public libraries, and poet. Meals at Midnight [tanka], Sketches from the San Joaquin [haiku] and Streetlights: Poetry of Urban Life in Modern English Tanka, are some of his recent titles.

Tuesday, August 20, 2013

Butterfly Dream: Tattered Moon Haiku by Pamela A. Babusci

English Original

after the divorce
a tattered moon
in every window

Distinguished Work Prize, 5th Yamadera Basho Memorial Museum Haiku Contest

Pamela A. Babusci


Chinese Translation (Traditional)

離婚後
破碎的月亮
在每一個窗口

Chinese Translation (Simplified)

离婚後
破碎的月亮
在每一个窗口


Bio Sketch

Pamela A. Babusci  is an internationally award winning haiku, tanka poet and haiga artist. Some of her awards include: Museum of Haiku Literature Award, International Tanka Splendor Awards, First Place Yellow Moon Competition (Aust) tanka category,  First Place Kokako Tanka Competition,(NZ) First Place Saigyo Tanka Awards (US), Basho Festival Haiku Contests (Japan).  Pamela has illustrated several books, including: Full Moon Tide: The Best of Tanka Splendor Awards, Taboo Haiku, Chasing the Sun, Take Five: Best Contemporary Tanka, and A Thousand Reasons 2009. Pamela was the founder and now is the solo Editor of Moonbathing: a journal of women’s tanka; the first all women’s tanka journal in the US. 

Monday, August 19, 2013

One Man's Maple Moon: A Tanka about White Faces and White Words by M. Kei

English Original

now Muslims
and immigrants but
-- the same white faces
-- the same white words
they used to point at me

M. Kei


Chinese Translation (Traditional)

現在是穆斯林
和移民,但是
-- 相同的白色面孔
-- 相同的白色用語

他們曾用來指摘我

Chinese Translation (Simplified)

现在是穆斯林
和移民,但是
-- 相同的白色面孔
-- 相同的白色用语
它们曾用来指摘我


Bio Sketch

M. Kei is a tall ship sailor and award-winning poet. He is the editor-in-chief of Take Five : Best Contemporary Tanka, and the author of Slow Motion : The Log of a Chesapeake Bay Skipjack (Recommend Reading by the Chesapeake Bay Project). He is the editor of Atlas Poetica : A Journal of Poetry of Place in Contemporary Tanka and compiler of the Bibliography of English-Language Tanka. He has published over 1500 tanka poems. He also published a gay Asian-themed fantasy novel, Fire Dragon. Twitter: @kujakupoet

Butterfly Dream: Closing Day Haiku by Beverley George

English Original

closing day
vine tomatoes
warm my hands

2nd Place, Kaji Aso Studio 23rd Annual Haiku Contest, 2011

Beverley George


Chinese Translation (Traditional)

收盤日
帶藤的蕃茄
溫暖我的手

Chinese Translation (Simplified)

收盘日
带藤的蕃茄
温暖我的手


Bio Sketch

Beverley George is the past editor of Yellow Moon and the founder/editor of Eucalypt: a tanka journal 2006 - . In September 2009 she convened the 4th Haiku Pacific Rim Conference, in Terrigal, Australia. Beverley presented papers on haiku in Australia at the 3rd Haiku Pacific Rim conference in Matsuyama, Japan in 2007, and on Australian tanka at the 6th International Tanka Festival, Tokyo 2009. She was the president of the Australian Haiku Society 2006-2010.

Sunday, August 18, 2013

Politics/Poetics of Re-Homing, IV

to me, time is
an endless stream of thens

I turn away
from this new Canadian
to avoid his gaze

Atlas Poetica, 15, July 2013

Note: you can read its preceding tanka or the whole sequence here

Saturday, August 17, 2013

Hot News: Haiku/Tanka Reprinted in More Than Half A Hundred E-Papers

My Dear Readers/Poets:

Launched on the first day of 2013, NeverEnding Story reached another milestone today:  its haiku/tanka have been regularly reprinted in 52 e-papers, four of which are Japanese.

The newest members are Poetry & Prose Daily edited by Morgan Dragonwillow, Highlights of the day! edited by Monica Serban, TWITTER #ART edited by Tweeete Media, and The Mind Canvas edited by Randy Sturridge. For more information, see Hot News: New Milestone & Haiku/Tanka Reprinted in 45 E-Papers and its comment section

Many thanks to all of you who have helped NeverEnding Story grow in any way.


Chen-ou


Updated, August 19

The newest member is  Ms Meows’ Art and Culture Daily edited by Tutee Meows

One Man’s Maple Moon: Skyscrapers Tanka by LeRoy Gorman

English Original

a full moon
between skyscrapers
if only
we could find
that street again

American Tanka, 22, June 2013

LeRoy Gorman


Chinese Translation (Traditional)

摩天大樓
之間的滿月
但願
我們可以再次
找到那條街

Chinese Translation (Simplified)

摩天大楼
之间的满月
但愿
我们可以再次
找到那条街


Bio Sketch

LeRoy Gorman writes mostly minimalist and visual poetry.  His most recent book, fast enough to leave this world, is one of tanka published by Inkling Press, Edmonton.  More information on his writing can be found at the American Haiku Archives where he is the Honorary Curator for 2012-2013.

Friday, August 16, 2013

Butterfly Dream: Chrysalis Haiku by Marilyn Humbert

English Original

a chrysalis
waits for spring
autistic son
  
Windfall, 1, 2013

Marilyn Humbert


Chinese Translation (Traditional)

一個蛹
在等待春天
自閉症兒子

Chinese Translation (Simplified)

一个蛹
在等待春天
自闭症儿子


Bio Sketch

Marilyn Humbert lives in the Northern Suburbs of Sydney NSW surrounded by bush. Her pastimes include writing free verse poetry, tanka, tanka prose and related genre. She is the leader of Bottlebrush Tanka Group and member of the Huddle and Bowerbird Tanka Groups. Her tanka appears in Australian and International Journals.

Thursday, August 15, 2013

One Man's Maple Moon: Crow Tanka by Sonam Chhoki

English Original

almost dark
a crow searches the grass
in a dry field . . .
no sign of impending death
in his last voicemail message

Simply Haiku, 10:2, Winter 2013

Sonam Chhoki


Chinese Translation (Traditional)

幾乎黑暗
在乾燥的田野一隻烏鴉
搜尋綠草
在他最後的語音留言
沒有跡象表明即將到來的死亡

Chinese Translation (Simplified)

几乎黑暗
在乾燥的田野一只乌鸦
搜寻绿草
在他最後的语音留言
没有迹象表明即将到来的死亡


Bio Sketch

Born and raised in the eastern Himalayan kingdom of Bhutan, Sonam Chhoki has been writing Japanese short forms of haiku, tanka and haibun for about 5 years. These forms resonate with her Tibetan Buddhist upbringing and provide the perfect medium for the exploration of  her country's rich ritual, social and cultural heritage. She is inspired by her father, Sonam Gyamtsho, the architect of Bhutan's non-monastic modern education. Her haiku, tanka and haibun have been published in poetry journals and anthologies in Australia, Canada, Ireland, Japan, UK and US.

Wednesday, August 14, 2013

A Room of My Own: Colors of Loneliness Haiku Sequence

a corridor that runs
off into infinity
Mom! I'm coming home

Moon Festival ...
the attic and I share
a day of rest

running away
from myself and my shadow
the smell of formalin

grief knocks
the wind out of me
drifting snowflakes

New Year's dinner for one
I pick up the chopsticks
and yet … and yet …


Notes:

1 The Mid-Autumn Festival, also known as the Moon Festival in the West, is the second most important festival celebrated by the Chinese people, and it is held on the 15th day of the 8th month in the Chinese calendar, during a full moon.

2 "formalin: a clear solution of formaldehyde in water. A 37% solution is used for fixing and preserving biologic specimens for pathologic and histologic examination."

Tuesday, August 13, 2013

One Man's Maple Moon: Reunion Tanka by Barry George

English Original

reunion --
that’s
old Mr. Hager’s
son
old Mr. Hager  

The Louisville Review, 69, 2011

Barry George


Chinese Translation (Traditional)

團聚 --
這是
老海格先生
的兒子
老海格先生

Chinese Translation (Simplified)

团聚 --
这是
老海格先生
的儿子
老海格先生


Bio Sketch

Barry George’s tanka have been published in journals including Gusts, Modern English Tanka, Chrysalis, and The Louisville Review, as well as the anthology Streetlights: Poetry of Urban Life in Modern English Tanka. Several of his poems have been winners in the annual Tanka Splendor Contest. His essay, "Shiki the Tanka Poet," appeared in The Writer's Chronicle. Also a haiku poet, his book, Wrecking Ball and Other Urban Haiku, was nominated for a Pushcart Prize.

Monday, August 12, 2013

Butterfly Dream: Green Tea Haiku by Graham Nunn

English Original

last words
green tea darkens
in the pot

Shamrock, 5, 2008

Graham Nunn


Chinese Translation (Traditional)

最後的話
茶壺裡的綠茶
變暗

Chinese Translation (Simplified)

最後的话
茶壶里的绿茶
变暗


Bio Sketch

Graham Nunn blogs at Another Lost Shark and has published six collections of poetry, his most recent being, The First 30 and other poems (Another Lost Shark Publications, 2012). Nunn has won several awards for his haiku and will have work featured in the new international anthology, Haiku in English: The First Hundred Years. In 2011, Nunn was the recipient of The Johnno Award for outstanding contribution to QLD Writers and Writing.

Sunday, August 11, 2013

Poetic Musings: Plum Blossom Scent, A Haikai Sequence in the Karumi Style by Basho and Yaba

Plum Blossom Scent (Ume Ga Ka, 1694)

In the plum blossom scent
the sun pops up --
a mountain path

                                                        Basho

Here there pheasants
crying as they fly away

                                                        Yaba

Beginning
house repairs in
spring's slow season

                                                       Yaba

From the city: news
of a rise in the price of rice

                                                       Basho

tarns. by Haruo Shirane


In the early spring of 1694, Basho composed with Yaba in Edo a haikai sequence, "Plum Blossom Scent," ("Ume ga Ka"), and later died in the early winter of the same year. As one of his last sequences, "Plum Blossom Scent" demonstrates his "karumi" style ("lightness") developed in his last years, one that "stressed everyday common life, contemporary language and rhythm, and avoided heavy conceptualization or allusions to the past" (Shirane, p. 201). This style was strongly supported by Rural Shomon poets and the sequence was later included in the verse anthology, Charcoal Sack, which was considered by some of his followers as the “epitome of good haikai.” (Crowley, p.28) 1

The plum blossom scent in the hokku, or opening verse, is a seasonal word for early spring, and with the aid of the sun image in L2, this verse is "implicitly on the spring topic of lingering winter cold" ("yokan," Shirane, p. 201). And the aurally effective use of "pops up" ("notto," a colloquial adverb with a roundish, warm sound," Ibid.) enhances the emotional appeal of the verse.

The main function of the second verse is to "expand on the content of the hokku,...maintaining the same season and filling out and extending the setting" (Ibid.). Surprised at the sound of the speaker's footsteps in the hokku, the pheasants fly out from the mountain grass, crying as they flee. "The sharp cries of the pheasants connotatively echo the startling, bracing feeling of the sun” portrayed in the hokku. These two verses are linked through a scent link (Ibid.)

Linking with the second verse while turning away from the opening verse, the third verse turns the reader's attention to the human world, describing the farmer's house repairing in the spring's slow season. The pheasants portrayed in the second verse now are implied in the third verse, wandering outside the house being repaired.

Linking with the third verse while turning away from the second verse, the closing verse announces good news from the city: an increase in the price of rice, which definitely brings a big smile to the farmer's face.


Note: Below is excerpted from my essay, titled “Reviving Japanese Haikai through Chinese Classics: Yosa Buson and the Basho Revival,” which was first Published in Haijinx, 4:1, March 2011 and then reprinted in Simply Haiku, 9:1, Spring 2011:

After his death in 1694, [Basho’s] disciples had varied views on writing haikai, emphasizing different aspects of the “Basho style,” and eventually formed their own followings. Within years, Basho’s school faded quickly, and his disciples and their followers used his name and legacy to form individual factions, fighting fiercely with each other to expand their local base of poetic influence.

Over years of grouping and regrouping among Basho’s disciples and their followers, there were two major factions: the rural Shomon, which was divided into two sub-factions, the Mino and Ise factions, and the urban Shomon. The division was related to the different periods of the Basho style during which he made stylistic changes exemplified in various anthologies published by his supporters. 14

Rural Shomon poets looked to the style with which Basho experimented in the last years of his life, the karumi (lightness) style. This style “emphasized simplicity and ordinary language and situations,” 15 and the verse anthology, Charcoal Sack, was considered by the followers as the “epitome of good haikai.” 16 Urban Shomon poets closely followed the style of Basho’s developed in the Tenna period (1681--84), the kanshibuncho or Chinese style. “[It] was a literary, elevated style that drew on kanshi (poetry in Chinese) for its model,” 17 and the verse anthology, Empty Chestnuts, was regarded as the “‘quintessential expression of Basho’s kanshibuncho period.” 18


References:

Haruo Shirane, ed., Early Modern Japanese Literature: An Anthology, 1600-1900, New York: Columbia University Press, 2002.

Cheryl A. Crowley, Haikai Poet Yosa Buson and the Basho Revival, Boston: Brill, 2007.

Saturday, August 10, 2013

Butterfly Dream: A Haiku about Her Brother’s Hug by Ignatius Fay

English Original

her brother’s hug
the arm he didn’t leave
in Afghanistan

Breccia

Ignatius Fay


Chinese Translation (Traditional)

她哥哥的擁抱
那隻沒有留在阿富汗
的手臂

Chinese Translation (Simplified)

她哥哥的拥抱
那只没有留在阿富汗
的手臂


Bio Sketch

Ignatius Fay is a retired invertebrate paleontologist. His poems have appeared in many of the most respected online and print journals, including The Heron’s Nest, Modern Haiku, Ars Poetica, Gusts, Chrysanthemum and Eucalypt. Books: Breccia (2012), a collaboration with fellow haiku poet, Irene Golas; Points In Between (2011), an anecdotal history of his first 23 years. He is the new editor of the Haiku Society of America Bulletin. Ignatius resides in Sudbury, Ontario, Canada

Friday, August 9, 2013

A Room of My Own: Between the Spoken and Unspoken

A Tanka Set for Anne Lister's Spiritual Daughters


they cursed and burned
Anne Lister and Ann Walker
in effigy
XXX on her copy
of The Well of Loneliness

a thin layer of dust
on her bookshelf
The Diaries of Anne Lister
leans against Emma
in the pale moonlight


Note: Anne Lister (1791–1840) was a well-off Yorkshire landowner, diarist, mountaineer and traveller. Throughout her life she kept diaries which chronicled the details of her daily life, including her lesbian relationships, her financial concerns, her industrial activities and her work improving Shibden Hall. Her diaries contain more than 4,000,000 words and about a sixth of them—those concerning the intimate details of her romantic and sexual relationships—some parts in her diaries were written in code. The code, derived from a combination of algebra and Ancient Greek, was deciphered in the 1930s. Lister is often called "the first modern lesbian" for her clear self-knowledge and openly lesbian lifestyle…. -- excerpted from the Wikipedia entry, Anne Lister

The Well of Loneliness is a 1928 lesbian novel by the British author Radclyffe Hall. It follows the life of Stephen Gordon, an Englishwoman from an upper-class family whose "sexual inversion" (homosexuality) is apparent from an early age.... Publicity over The Well's legal battles increased the visibility of lesbians in British and American culture. For decades it was the best-known lesbian novel in English, and often the first source of information about lesbianism that young people could find. ...Although few critics rate The Well highly as a work of literature, its treatment of sexuality and gender continues to inspire study and debate…-- excerpted from the Wikipedia entry, The Well of Loneliness

Emma, by Jane Austen, is a novel about youthful hubris and the perils of misconstrued romance…  As in her other novels, Austen explores the concerns and difficulties of genteel women living in Georgian-Regency England… Before she began the novel, Austen wrote, "I am going to take a heroine whom no one but myself will much like." In the very first sentence she introduces the title character as "Emma Woodhouse, handsome, clever, and rich… --excerpted from from the Wikipedia entry, Emma

Thursday, August 8, 2013

Butterfly Dream: Gendai Sparrow Haiku by Jack Galmitz

English Original

the sparrow's young mouth
opens
the underworld's well

yards & lots

Jack Galmitz


Chinese Translation (Traditional)

麻雀的年輕嘴
打開
地府的井
   
Chinese Translation (Simplified)

麻雀的年轻嘴
打开
地府的井


Bio Sketch

Jack Galmitz was born in NYC in 1951. He received a Ph.D in English from the University of Buffalo.  He is an Associate of the Haiku Foundation and Contributing Editor at Roadrunner Journal.  His most recent books are Views (Cyberwit.net,2012), a genre study of minimalist poetry, and Letters (Lulu Press, 2012), a book of poetry.  He lives in New York with his wife and stepson.

Wednesday, August 7, 2013

One Man’s maple Moon: Pink Sky Tanka by Helen Buckingham

English Original

Mum calls
just to tell me
the sky is pink...
I peel back the curtains                     
with gratitude

Little Purple Universes

Helen Buckingham


Chinese Translation (Traditional)

媽媽打電話
只是告訴我
天空是粉紅色...
懷著感恩的心
我打開窗簾

Chinese Translation (Simplified)

妈妈打电话
只是告诉我
天空是粉红色...
怀著感恩的心
我打开窗簾


Bio Sketch

Helen Buckingham lives in Bristol, England. She has been writing tanka for about the last decade or so, and in 2009 took third place in the annual Saigyo Awards. In 2011 she had a tanka collection published alongside (and produced by) Canada's Angela Leuck, titled Little Purple Universes. Buckingham's most recent work is a solo collection comprising a mix of western and Japanese forms (including tanka) titled Armadillo Basket (Waterloo Press, UK, 2012).

Tuesday, August 6, 2013

Butterfly Dream: Porridge Haiku by kjmunro

English Original

winter morning --
porridge in the pot
breathing

Haiku Canada Review,  7:1, February 2013

kjmunro


Chinese Translation (Traditional)

冬日早晨
鍋中的粥
在冒氣泡

Chinese Translation (Simplified)

冬日早晨
锅中的粥
在冒气泡


Bio Sketch

Born & raised in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, kjmunro moved to the Yukon Territory in 1991. She is a member of Haiku Canada, and volunteers with The Whitehorse Poetry Society. She is currently working on a poetry manuscript.

Monday, August 5, 2013

Politics/Poetics of Re-Homing, III

English teacher said
Just wipe "I used to be...."
out of your mind

walking home alone
face-to-face with falling snow

Atlas Poetica, 15, July 2013


Note: you can read its preceding tanka or the whole sequence here

Sunday, August 4, 2013

Cool Announcement: A Freebie at Scribd.com

My Dear Poets/Readers:

One aspect of kire – or disjunction – has to do with the reader-sense of how at the moment of entering a haiku there can be experienced an instantaneous cutting away of linear time and space, in terms of reality-sense. At the completion of the haiku there is again, an abrupt return. In the English tradition, the kireji has been heretofore seen as the only significant element of juxtaposition, which has also been limited in function to juxtaposing realist-oriented, naturalistic imagery

-- Richard Gilbert, Poems of Consciousness, p. 300.


I just uploaded Cutting through Time and Space to Scribd, the largest online library. This document consists of three widely read and quoted “To the Lighthouse” posts -- titled “Three Formulations about the Use of Cutting,” “Cutting through Time and Space,” and “Re-examining the Concept and Practice of Cutting” -- published on NeverEnding Story. These posts provide an in-depth and aesthetically contextualized analysis of kire (cutting)/ kireji (cutting words) employed in classical Japanese haiku and contemporary English language haiku, encouraging readers/poets to re-examine the concept and practice of cutting from a different perspective, one that is informed by the Japanese aesthetic of “ma” and modern psychology. This document also includes scholarly references, commentaries from haiku masters, such as Basho and Buson, and fine haiku examples.


falling snow –
hairs of the willow
turned white

Shigeyori

in the mountain village
the New Year dancers are late --
plum blossoms

Basho

An evening breeze blows.
The water ripples
Against the blue heron’s legs.

Buson

It is early dawn.
The castle is surrounded
By the cries of wild ducks

Kyoroku

Over the even sea
The wild ducks' cry
Is faintly white

Basho

the brightness
of the full moon
deepens the cold

T. D. Ingram

eyes of the ancestors
the twinkle
in winter stars

Rebecca Drouilhet


For more haiku examples and detailed comments, view Cutting through Time and Space

Butterfly Dream: New Moon Haiku by Bob Lucky

English Original

new moon
the missing button
on her blouse                                   

Presence, 38, 2009

Bob Lucky


Chinese Translation (Traditional)

新月
她的上衣缺少
一個鈕扣

Chinese Translation (Simplified)

新月
她的上衣缺少
一个钮扣


Bio Sketch

Bob Lucky teaches at the International Community School of Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. His work has appeared in numerous journals, including Rattle, The Prose-Poem Project, Emerald Bolts, Modern Haiku, Presence, Ribbons, Eucalypt, and Atlas Poetica. He is co-author of the chapbook my favorite thing. 

Saturday, August 3, 2013

One Man's Maple Moon: Canoe Tanka by Irene Golas

English Original

I rest my paddle
let the canoe drift awhile
rocks     trees     sky
the lake and I
are an empty mirror

terra north/nord, 3, Summer 2011

Irene Golas


Chinese Translation (Traditional)

放下我的槳
讓獨木舟漂流一會兒
岩石 樹木 天空
湖和我
成為一個空鏡

Chinese Translation (Simplified)

放下我的桨
让独木舟漂流一会儿
岩石 树木 天空
湖和我
成为一个空镜


Bio Sketch

Irene Golas has published poetry in a number of haiku and tanka journals, including Acorn, Eucalypt, Frogpond, Heron’s Nest, Ribbons, and Simply Haiku. Her work has also appeared in Carpe Diem: Canadian Anthology of Haiku; Take Five: Best Contemporary Tanka (2010) and other anthologies. In 2012, she and Ignatius Fay published Breccia, a collection of haiku and related forms. She lives in Sudbury, Ontario.

Friday, August 2, 2013

Butterfly Dream: Pomegranate Haiku by Djurdja Vukelić-Rožić

English Original

ripe pomegranate ...
I take the setting sun
for a walk

Djurdja Vukelić-Rožić


Chinese Translation (Traditional)

成熟石榴 ...
我帶著夕陽
去散步

Chinese Translation (Simplified)

成熟石榴 ...
我帶著夕陽
去散步


Bio Sketch

Djurdja Vukelic Rozic  was born on April 6, 1956, and now lives in Ivanić Grad, Croatia.  Editor in chief of bilingual haiku magazine IRIS, and deputy editor for haiku at Diogen pro cultura magazine, Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina. She publishes humorous sketches, short stories, and poetry. For her work she received a number of awards and commendations in Croatia and abroad.

Thursday, August 1, 2013

Poetic Musings: Kasane Tanka by Matsuo Basho

Spring passes by
again and again in layers
of blossom kimono
may you see wrinkles
come with old age

Iku haru o/ kasane gasane no/ hana-goromo/ shiwa yoru made no/ oi mo miru beku

Matsuo Basho
trans. by Jeff Robbins and Sakata Shoko

Commentary: A "blossom kimono" is an exquisite robe worn just once a year to view cherry blossoms, then folded up and stored away until the next cherry blossom celebration. The spatial and temporal meanings of Kasaneru overlap in a web of blessing and hope for Kasane and all female children. "Layers of kimono" can refer to the two-layered kimono over an inner robe; the succession of blossom kimono one woman wears from bright to sedate as she ages; and the passing of the kimono to her daughter, who is the next layer of herself. Both the kimono and her face also have "wrinkles." By encapsulating the existence of one woman from newborn to wrinkles, the tanka is an ode to life.

-- excerpted from Jeff Robbins and Sakata Shoko's "Two Tanka by Basho," Ribbons, 9:1, Spring/Summer 2013

Only a few comprehensive Basho anthologies, such as  Nihon Koten Bungaku Zenshu volume 71 (p. 284-85), include Basho’s tanka above. Written in 1690, this poem is the concluding tanka of Basho's haikai prose , entitled Blessings unto Kasane.

During my pilgrimage to the Deep North,
in one of the villages was a little girl
who looked no more than five years old.
She was so small and indescribably charming
that I asked her name, and she said “Kasane”.
What an interesting name!
In Kyoto rarely is it heard
so I wonder how has it has passed down
and what is that “layers, again and again”?

“If I had a child this name she would receive,”
I remember saying in jest to my traveling companion
and now, unexpectedly, through an acquaintance
I have been called on to be Name-giving Parent.

Spring passes by
Again and again in layers
Of blossom-kimono
May you see wrinkles
Come with old age

Matsuo Basho

(translated by Jeff Robbins. For more information about this poem, see A Message of Hope For Women and Girls: Matsuo Basho‘s Blessings unto Kasane, Translations and Commentary by Jeff Robbins with assistance from Sakata Shoko)

The story described in the opening lines is recorded in Basho’s famous travel writing, The Narrow Road to the Deep North:

I knew someone in a place called Kurobane in Nasu, and I decided to take a short cut from Nikko straight across the broad plain. We happened to notice a village in the distance as rain began to fall and the sun set. Lodging for a night at a farmer’s house, at daybreak we headed off again over the plain. A horse stood grazing in a field. We sought assistance from a man cutting grass and though he was a rustic, he was not without compassion. “Hmm, let’s see here. The plain is criss-crossed with trails and somebody unfamiliar with the right way is bound to get lost -- that’s a real problem -- say, why don’t you take this horse as far as he’ll go and just send him back,” and he lent us the horse. Two children came running along behind the horse. One was little girl named Kasane, a truly elegant name I’d never heard before.

“Kasane”--
must be a name for
a double-petalled pink
kasane to wa / yaenadeshiko no / na narubeshi (Sora)

Soon we made it to a village, and tying some money to the saddle, I sent the horse back.

(trans. by David Landis Barnhill, see Basho’s Journey: The Literary Prose of Matsuo Basho, Translated with an Introduction by David Landis Barnhill, p. 52)

According to Basho’s account above, the little girl’s name, “Kasane,” inspired Sora to write the haiku above. Nadeshiko is a small plant known as pink, usually associated with little girls. As kasane means “layers” or “double,” Sora made a wordplay by adding a prefix “yae-“ (literally “eightfold”) to nadeshiko. But, there is no such flower called (Double Pink).

Butterfly Dream: Bedroom Mirror Haiku by Rita Odeh

English Original

bedroom mirror --
the coldness of that dangling
single breast

Third prize, Sharpening the Green Pencil Haiku Contest

Rita Odeh


Chinese Translation (Traditional)

臥室鏡子 --
單個乳房晃來晃去
的寒冷

Chinese Translation (Simplified)

卧室镜子 --
单个乳房晃来晃去
的寒冷


Bio Sketch

Rita Odeh is from Nazareth, Israel. She comes from a christian Palestinian  family. She has B.A. in English and Comparative Literature from Haifa University. She has published 6 books of poetry,one book of short stories, three electronic novels, one e-book of Haiku. Her poetry has been published in several international publications. Rita is Co-Editor of International Haiku. Her haiku and haiga artwork are featured in her Catching The Moment blog.