1st Sailing

8
Jul

Sails is a section of troutswirl that is devoted to presenting questions for discussion and debate on the nature and possibilities of haiku. Sails will be overseen by Peter Yovu. For an introduction to this section, see Sails.
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1st Sailing

by Peter Yovu

Why do you read haiku?

In interviews, writers are often asked: “Why do you write”? I don’t think I’ve ever come across the question: “Why do you read”? For us, the question is: “Why do you read haiku”? If you are a writer, do you bring a poet’s sensibility to reading, or something different? If you are that rare person who does not write but only reads haiku, please tell us what your experience is. If anyone wishes to tell the story of their first encounter with haiku, please do. What effect does it have upon you? What would you tell others to encourage them to read haiku (or perhaps you could change the question slightly and say how you like to read—while listening, for example, to Debussy, or to Led Zeppelin)? There are of course many questions within the question presented, and that will likely always be the case. And by the way, in a few weeks a new “sail” will be hoisted, but that does not mean this subject will be closed. In time, I hope, there will be an accumulation of many questions and many responses which may be visited and revisited at any time. Okay then, I look forward to what you have to say. I’ll drop a line or two myself at some point.

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Category : Sails

35 Responses to “1st Sailing”

Gabi Greve July 8, 2009

Why do you read haiku?

I read haiku (Japanese haiku in Japanese) to improve my knowledge of the Japanese culture, mostly via the many kigo that carry so much cultural reference.

My haiku boat and my sail is firmly rooted in the Japanese culture (although I am German by passport … ).

Thanks for starting this forum, Peter,
and hajimemashite from Japan!

Gabi

Peter Yovu July 9, 2009

Dear haikunauts, please note that a number of responses to this “Sail” have been posted under the *Sails* introduction. Like Gabi’s post, they are good reading.
And Gabi, please say how hajimemashite translates.
Bon Voyage?

Peter

Allan Burns July 9, 2009

I think of four interrelated reasons, some touched on already:

1) For aesthetic pleasure. There’s a special jolt an effective haiku delivers, unlike any other use of language. Call it what you will, suggestiveness, implicitness, disjunction, resonance, multivalence. Any haiku worthy of the name requires “entering” and cannot be read at a glance. It’s that pleasure of engaging so few words so carefully selected. Loving what genuine haiku do is the first and most important reason for me.

2) To share in the experiences of others. Real, synthesized, imagined: It doesn’t matter. It’s the words someone put on a page that I never would have myself. A window into something beyond the self that expands & enriches our sense of the world.

3) To learn the craft. If you’re writing haiku, reading them keeps you sharp. So much to be assimilated from reading the work of any quality haiku poet–the way words are placed on a page & the silences between them. Handbooks have their place, but there’s no substitute for reading good haiku.

4) To know what’s out there. Every journal issue delivered to the mailbox is a snapshot of living haiku history & practice. Many individual poets’ works interest me–far too many to be listed here & more all the time. Reading widely in haiku gives you a sense of what has been done, what is being done, what’s maybe left to do. Each haiku reader maps the territory, creates his or her “star charts” as another poster neatly put it.

your cold hands
those first stars
were already there
–Jack Barry, All Nite Rain (2009)

Mick Toffyd (lanternfish) July 9, 2009

Please see: http://thehaikufoundation.org/2009/07/06/viral-2-3/#comment-256

Roberta Beary July 9, 2009

When the vicissitudes of daily life overwhelm me, I turn to haiku. Good haiku has a calming effect on the heavy bear who goes with me.

Merrill Ann Gonzales July 9, 2009

As an artist I read haiku (poetry) to help me verbalize the images,as a pretty isolated disabled person, I read haiku for an intimate exchange with other people whose lives enrich mine by sharing their haiku experiences.

There’s an old figure that goes something like this: “Frog at the bottom of the well thinks the sky is the size of the pot’s lid” . . . and so for me to see the sky in its full dimension I come to haiku. In a haiku, especially when I have some idea who wrote it and where they are in the world, I have a fuller and richer understanding of the human state. Now as I age and find my eye sight is not as sharpas it used to be and my disability keeps me from doing some of the paintings I used to do, I find myself engaging in haiku more and more. I must confess I do read haiku more than I write it since I find language really a second and alternative thought process.
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Now where else would we have the privaledge of being introduced to
Roberta Beary’s “bear”? I owe her a deep debt of gratitude for teaching me how to dance with my own!

Claire Richardot July 9, 2009