Cool Announcement: HSA's Presentation, Exaggerated Perspective in Haiku, by Deborah P Kolodji

My Dear Friends:

Last weekend the Haiku Society of America (HSA) held its first ZOOM meeting! NeverEnding Story contributor, Deborah P Kolodji, presented one segment, entitled "Exaggerated Perspective in Haiku," where she analyzed the use of exaggerate perspectives in the works of Issa, Hokusai and some contemporary haiku poets. Here are some haiku selected from her presentation.

little snail
inch by inch, climb
Mount Fuji

Issa

(FYI: My haiku below is written for Issa

a snail stretching
after summer rain
Mount Fuji

seashores, 4, 2020 )

autumn mist
we taste our way through
the orchard

Marion Clarke

darkened village
the bat's calls bouncing off
the Milky Way

Loris John Fazio

gray morning
the whole world
a foghorn

Deborah P Kolodji

beach dinner
the papad in her hand
dwarfs the moon

Kala Ramesh

(FYI: A papad is a thin, disk-shaped food from India made from flour)

heartland
the world winnowed down
to wheat

Alan S. Bridges

14, 000 feet
the mountain disappears
into my breathing

David Elliott

wishing well
I scoop out
the moon

Lucy whitehead

(FYI: The image of scooping the moon in Lucy Whitehead's "wishing well haiku," first published in Stardust, March 2019, reminds me of the concluding haiku of  my immigration haibun, Following the Moon to the Maple Land:

Name: Chen-ou Liu (phonic);

Country of Birth: R.O.C.;

(Cross out R.O.C. and fill in Taiwan)

Place of Birth; Date of Birth; Sex;

simply more technocratic questions

the Immigration Officer needs to pin down my borders.

He is always looking for shortcuts,

more interested in the roadside signposts

than in the landscape that has made me.

The line he wants me confined to

is an analytically recognizable category:

immigrant. My history is meticulously stamped.

Now, you're legally a landed immigrant.

Take a copy of A Newcomer’s Introduction to Canada.

from Lake Ontario

I scoop the Taiwan moon

distant sirens

Contemporary Haibun Online, 10:2, July 2014 )

Happy Reading

Chen-ou

Note: For further discussion on exaggerate perspective in haiku, see my "To the Lighthouse" post, A Rhetorical Device, Hyperbole.

To the Lighthouse: A Rhetorical Device, Hyperbole

                                                                                                             half moon rising ...

                                                                                                             Berlin Wall of pillows

                                                                                                             between us

I believe that it is crucial for haiku to tell about the truth as if it were false.
-- Yatsuka Ishihara

Given the extreme shortness of the poem, the stylistic interest or hitch cannot but consist of the most elementary of rhetorical devices: oxymoron and hyperbole. I use these terms in their widest senses, "oxymoron" covering a whole range of meanings from contradiction to opposition to contrast, and "hyperbole" including various modes of exaggeration such as emphasis and repetition...

… Hyperbole is employed as a humorous exaggeration, a reductio ad absurdum, of the graceful aestheticism of waka. The "comicality" of haiku, which Basho and other poets championed as a mark of their identity, consists precisely of such earthy twists.

-- Koji Kawamoto, “The Use and Disuse of Tradition in Basho's Haiku and Imagist Poetry,” Poetics Today, 20:4, Winter, 1999, pp.713, 714, 716.

Take Basho’s haiku below for example:

1) The force of hyperbole is borne by the use of the particle “mo” (“even”) “(Kawamoto, The Poetics of Japanese Verse: Imagery, Structure, Meter, p. 79).

Even a thatch hut these days

sees a change of residents --

house of dolls.

The opening phrase, thatch hut (kusa no to), is a waka cliche that “calls to mind the house of a recluse who has moved here in order to free himself from the vicissitudes of the floating world “ (Ibid., p. 80). And the closing image, house of dolls, suggests that the new residents will transform a humble hut into a gaily decorated dwelling. In the haiku, the intensity of change is portrayed emphatically through the observation that even a thatched hut will undergo a change in residents.  The opening phrase, “thatch hut, underscores the hyperbole with a humorous oxymoron” (Ibid.).

2) The production of hyperbole includes the “repetition of synonymous words and similar sounds” (Ibid., p. 83)

At daybreak --

the white fish is only

an inch of white.

The poem repeats the word, white (shiro), in order to “highlight the fragile and precarious transparency of the white fish (also known as icefish)” (Ibid., p. 84).

More white

than the stones of Stony Mountain --

autumn wind.

The whiteness of the stones is brought into vivid relief by the repetition of  "ishi" ("stones" and "Stony"). This autumn haiku uses "white" (shiro) as "a means to convey a kind of transparent substantiality" (Ibid.).

For more information about the effective use of hyperbole and haiku examples, see "Hyperbole and Oxymoron," Ibid., pp. 79-127).

Below is my hyperbolic haiku for the couples who engage in The War of the Roses (written by Warren Adler):

half moon rising ...

Berlin Wall of pillows

between us

The icy relation between a couple in bed is portrayed emphatically through the geopolitically charged Cold War  icon, “Berlin Wall,” that foregrounds unbridgeable ideological barriers and interests, which are the clear indicators of this failing relationship.

I think it is fitting, then, to conclude this post  with examples from Yatsuka Ishihara's work that places prominence on hyperbole, which is indicative of his treatise: "I believe that it is crucial for haiku to tell about the truth as if it were false."

pulling light

from the other world ...

the Milky Way

     

burning withered chrysanthemums

I stirred up

the fires of Hades

faintly white

it sticks to my face

the autumn wind


Updated, March 17:

Below are two hyperbolic haiku and detailed comments by Sketchbook Editor, John Daleiden:

gold threads of sun—
her white wedding dress
fit for a Goddess

Eftichia Kapardeli

Commentary by Sketchbook Editor, John Daleiden

Lines two and three describe the dress as "fit for a Goddess"—a hyperbole probably meant to extend to a description of the bride as well. In a similar manner, the dress is said to be "gold threads of sun", a reference to the material from which the dress is made, presumably a product of the environment. The images of "gold", "sun", and "white" are meant to express the abstraction of the Ideal.


my engagement ring
Spring’s open cluster
of stars

Karin Anderson

Commentary by Sketchbook Editor, John Daleiden

Karin Anderson compares "my engagement ring" to an "open cluster / of stars" in Spring. The vastness of the Spring sky suggests that for her, the "engagement ring", most certainly a diamond, is impressive. This use of hyperbole is an effective exaggeration.

References:

Koji Kawamoto, The Poetics of Japanese Verse: Imagery, Structure, Meter, University of Tokyo Press, 2000.

-- “The Use and Disuse of Tradition in Basho's Haiku and Imagist Poetry,” Poetics Today, 20:4, Winter, 1999, pp. 709-721.

One Man's maple Moon: Lips Tanka by Motoko Michiura

English Original

from the lips
that sing
no lullaby
blows a spring wind
of sorrow

a long rainy season: haiku & tanka

Motoko Michiura
trans. by Leza Lowitz


Chinese Translation (Traditional)

那從未唱過
搖籃曲
的嘴唇
吹著一陣悲哀
的春風

Chinese Translation (Simplified)

那从未唱过
摇篮曲
的嘴唇
吹著一阵悲哀
的春风


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.

Butterfly Dream: Cricket's Song Haiku by Ji Bo

English Original

cricket's song shatters the Universe

Ji Bo


Chinese Translation (Traditional)

蟋蟀鳴聲粉碎了宇宙

Chinese Translation (Simplified)

蟋蟀鸣声粉碎了宇宙


Bio Sketch

Ji Bo lives near Iron Mountain, Alabama. Watches clouds. Waters the garden. Writes poems. One day Ji Bo plans to travel to Thatch Hut Mountain. For now, green tea is enough.

Butterfly Dream: Garden Haiku by Pravat Kumar Padhy

English Original

winter morning
two butterflies
warm the garden

The Heron’s Nest, 13:2, June 2011

Pravat Kumar Padhy


Chinese Translation (Traditional)

冬天早晨
兩隻蝴蝶
溫暖了花園

Chinese Translation (Simplified)

冬天早晨
两只蝴蝶
温暖了花园


Bio Sketch

Born in India, poems widely published and anthologized. Works referred in Spectrum History of Indian Literature in English, Alienation in Contemporary Indian English Poetry etc. Poems awarded high acclamations by Writer’s Guild of India and Editors’ Choice awards. Pravat Kumar Padhy's Japanese short form of poetry appeared in many international journals and anthologies. Songs of Love: A celebration is his third collection of verse by Writers Workshop, Calcutta. Featured in The Dance of the Peacock: An Anthology of English Poetry from India, to be published by Hidden Brook Press, Canada, 2014