haze on the pond
an old frog
there, or not there
Chen-ou Liu
A Brief Look at Honkadori
Haiku poet and anthologist Cor van den Heuvel is often quoted for his succinct statement that “[t]he writing of variations on certain subjects in haiku, sometimes using the same or similar phrases (or even changing a few words of a previous haiku), is one of the most interesting challenges the genre offers a poet… some of the most original voices in haiku do not hesitate to dare seeming derivative if they see a way of reworking an ‘old’ image.”29 Van den Heuvel refers here to the ancient Japanese practice of honkadori, what Haruo Shirane has defined as “allusive variation on a classical poem.”30 Akiko Tsukamoto, in her article on modes of quoting in Japanese poetry, suggests (like Eliot) that images and phrases borrowed from “famous poems from earlier times” be put to new use, with “different meaning and atmosphere,” even as they connect the imitation to the original poem with “reverberatory effect.”31 No surprise, honkadori gets a fair amount of press in English-language discussions of haiku. Gabi Greve, for instance, takes a great deal of time on her website to educate the western poet that “[w]riting honkadoriis not the work of a copycat…but a work showing respect to the masters.”32
Let me remind you of a well-known set of examples assembled (and translated) by Shirane.33 Basho made allusions to foundational poetry before him; his poetry became fodder for the allusive variations of those who followed him, no poem more so than this one, written in 1686:
an old pond …
a frog leaps in,
the sound of water
Almost eighty years after “an old pond,” the Basho-admirer Yosa Buson made an adaptive copy:
jumping in
and washing off an old poem—
a frog
According to Shirane, Buson’s allusion to Basho made the point that Basho has ushered in a new perspective on the writing of haiku by wittingly copying a common frog motif and using it in a new way. Basho chose to ignore the frog’s song that others had typically singled out, and emphasized instead the sound of its entry into the water. Too, he related the frog, not to certain flowers or other sentimental associations, but to a stagnant pond. Image, meaning, atmosphere—all set the frog in a different context. Basho’s fresh take on spring, suddenly bursting winter’s stillness, offered a new twist on the poetic dimensions of haiku.34
A few generations later, the poet Shiki would have it that “old pond,” so simple and pure a poem, “is impossible to imitate.”35 Presumably he meant that the imitation could never be disguised, but would always announce its provenance. Nevertheless, as “old pond” gained in stature, it gained in copies or allusions. Shirane notes two. The first by the late-eighteenth century poet Ryokan:
a new pond
not even the sound of
a frog jumping in
and the second by the twentieth century American haiku poet, Bernard Einbond:
frog pond …
a leaf falls in
without a sound
By borrowing the notion of no sound from Ryokan and replacing the frog with a leaf, Einbond’s award-winning poem substantially renewed and expanded contemporary dialogue with Basho’s old haiku.
In “Beyond the Haiku Moment,” an essay appearing in Modern Haiku in winter-spring of 2000, Shirane argues that allusive variation is rare in English-language haiku, but I submit it may be more common than we think. As associate editor of Frogpond from 2012–2015, I had the privilege of reading several years’ worth of submissions. I was surprised by how many allusions I recognized—and, of course, variations on Basho led the pack. Over the course of ten reading periods, from autumn 2012 through autumn 2015, Frogpond received some 258 haiku using the word “frog” or “pond.” Ponds and frogs are common phenomena and a great many of these poems did not necessarily call “old pond” to mind. But some did, whether purposefully or not. Twenty-two haiku definitely invited comparison by using both “frog” and “pond.” An additional seventeen poems also invited comparison, either because they used some combination of “frog” or “pond” with “old,” “jump,” “sound,” or “silence,” or referred to Basho directly.
What these figures mean is that, over the course of any submission period, Frogpond was likely to receive an average of twenty-five or twenty-six haiku imitating “old pond,” at least four of which aimed at direct allusion.From autumn 2012 to summer 2013, Frogpond published three: The first, by John Stevenson, in obvious allusion to Basho:
without a sound
a frog
climbs out of the pond 36
The second, by Carolyn Hall, in less obvious, even unconscious, allusion to the classic:
a frog fills the garden of our attention 37
The third haiku, by Alison Woolpert, may be read without reference to Basho—and yet, should the reader finger it just so, her frog, too, is ready to hop into the “old pond” pond:
spring morning—
each student’s paper folded
in frog position 38
Note that all three poems place Basho’s amphibian in distinctly new waters. Successful allusions travel some distance from the original; without sacrificing the connection, they introduce an unexpected alteration that refreshes the imagery. Less successful imitations, those that did not make the Frogpond cut, for instance, tend to reiterate received thought, adding little to the poetic journey. In other words, “old pond” copies received by Frogpond ranged the copy continuum. So, too, did poems modeled on other iconic ku. Not only does it seem safe to say that imitation and emulation are alive and well in English-language haiku, they appear to reflect a learning and creating practice of use to both novice and seasoned haijin ...
-- excerpted from "Copying to Create: The Role of Imitation and Emulation in Developing Haiku Craft," first published in
Modern Haiku, 48:1, Winter/Spring 2017 and
reprinted by kind permission of NeverEnding Story contributor,
Michele Root-Bernstein)
Almost eighty years after “an old pond,” the Basho-admirer Yosa Buson made an adaptive copy:
jumping in
and washing off an old poem—
a frog
Below is Buson's first adaptive copy of Basho's frog haiku that opens up a window into the lamentable situation of the eighteenth century haikai community.
Soo no ku o osoite Inheriting one of our ancestor’s verses
furu ike no the old pond's
kawazu oiyuku frog is growing elderly
ochiba kana fallen leaves
Below is my response haiku to Basho's and Buson's:
still pond
the moss-covered tomb
of a poet
Happy Reading
Chen-ou
