Jul
Montage #20
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Montage #20, presented by Allan Burns, is now up here on The Haiku Foundation website. This week’s theme is “Moonstruck” and features the work of Margaret Chula, Taneda Shōichi 種田 正一 (Santōka 山頭火) and Natsume Sōseki 夏目金之助.
Walking under the moon, carrying moonlight
Sōseki has forgotten into the house
All about his wife. the white peony
—夏目金之助 — Margaret Chula
Moon’s brightness I wonder where they’re bombing
— 山頭火
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On a moonstruck theme, but from both an Earth and space perspective:
sputnik satellite
a solar flare picks out
a rivet
Alan Summers
This is Sputnik 1 opening the way for space exploration and for eventual future moon exploration.
“Rocket Dreams” commission.
Read/performed U.K. National Poetry Day October 4th 2007 with Space Historian Piers Bizony and NASA images, as part of World Space Week: http://tinywords.com/haiku/2007/10/04/
escape velocity
the moon pulls oceans
behind Apollo 11
Alan Summers
“Rocket Dreams” commission.
Read/performed U.K. National Poetry Day October 4th 2007 with Space Historian Piers Bizony and NASA images, as part of World Space Week.
mars landing-
a tendril of red dust
shifts from a footfall
Alan Summers
Tinywords November 2007
http://tinywords.com/haiku/2007/11/29/
SFku (which is my term for predominantly ’science haiku’ but not excluding ’science fiction’ haiku but not necessarily including science fantasy haiku.
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Just like to point out one small change over at Montage. All galleries, both current and in the archive, are now listed with the names of poets (in parentheses) following the titles. So now it’s easier to find the work of a specific poet who has been featured. Thanks to our webmaster, Dave Russo, for helping me with this improvement.
night of the new moon
I crave nothing, no one
frogs croaking, croaking
–Margaret Chula
(New moon: the phase when the dark side is toward the Earth, used particularly well here.)
tsuki ga akarukute kaeru
the moon bright i go home
i like the openness of this kind of work and it’s ability to allow the reader their own interpretations and meaning, where to pause, where to break (or to place those pauses/breaks), regardless of the original Japanese. i find that fun and worth revisiting.
in a literal/realistic sense, as a traveler in the first quarter of the century in Japan, in the countryside, i doubt there were electrical lights, streelights, or anything of that kind (those areas are still poorly lit, worldround) for Santōka. so the light of the moon was probably especially important and essential for Santōka to get places, especially at night. no light to travel by or see where he’s going. it’s pitchdark—darkness, depression and melancholy having had such a strong presence in his life and family; the light of the moon, which is the light of the sun, having special significance then perhaps, or maybe having a lot of importance for him spiritually as well as physically.
“home” also seems especially potent/powerful in that Santōka was a constant traveller and a poor one at that, with an actual home few and far between. whether one knows his life story or not, “home” still represents something strong—shelter, loved ones, security, rest, peace of mind, etc. the fact that he was able to go there, because of the moonlight, brings the taste of happiness, satisfaction, a moment of ease.
the ku is simply stated, radically terse, but with powerful words (even more so because there are so few) that had great importance in his life and wellbeing. the moon made it easier for him to travel, follow his chosen way/path. it was something to cherish and get him to where we wanted to be.
there is also the sense that he has been filled with the light (in the translation): “bright I.” not as something that has happened already, but something that is happening, something that will nourish and sustain him as he travels home, that he will be filled with. which reminds me of another Santōka ku:
tsuki no hikari no sukihara fukaku shimitōru nari
the moonlight pierces my empty stomach
(Stevens p 118)
so, those are areas i find poetry in that one.
i find two of his others in this installment of Montage especially satisfying and provocative, challenging and inspiring:
moon’s brightness i wonder where they’re bombing
which has an (unfortunately) timely quality to it and, from the time it was composed, will probably always be pertinent. i take it he was criticizing his own country’s government which, for him, really was something. haiku poets were jailed for that kind of thing.
the other one i really admire is:
there in front of death i put the moon
which really engages the imagination, memories and our own mortality. what an image—which asks us to create our own individual images for death. again, an engaging openness.
i always find Sanokta’s straightforwardness and simplicity to be a breathe of fresh air. though they do go to an extreme of haiku composition. he was radical in his simplicity and hunger for freedom, something i find quite satisfying and admirable. he took chances.
I don’t seem to have as strong a need as some to find context and continuity in a haiku. I don’t need to find its “story” or mine. My first take on this poem was that it is slight. I know that some of Santoka’s poems taken alone give that impression, and do better when seen on the page, or heard spoken, along with other poems. That is my experience of his work in *Mountain Tasting*.
Following something Paul said, however, if I were given just the poem and knew nothing about its author, or even that it was a translation from the Japanese, and were perhaps encouraged to live with it awhile, to recall what Keats termed: “Negative Capability, that is when man is capable of being in uncertainties, Mysteries, doubts without any irritable reaching after fact & reason”, then I might take an existential approach, and allow the poem to play very simply on my imagination. When I do that, what I find are two qualities juxtaposed, or interpenetrating–
the moon (being) fully what it is: brightness
and
I (being) fully what I am: homewardness
No cause and effect; just an interpenetration of aspects of Being. I am not sure what else is given here. I’m not saying this is the way to go with this poem. Maybe I’ve done no more than show a preference of approach; others
may find satisfaction in imagining situations and story lines, but to be honest, I don’t think that’s what this is “about”.
As to the matter of diction, again, if I didn’t know the poem was a translation, I’d probably get stuck on “the moon bright”. This brings up, for me, the matter of many ELH sounding like imitations of translations of haiku, but I don’t want to get my hackles any higher up than they currently are, so, next paragraph…
My hunch, not knowing Japanese, is that, though more natural, “the moon is bright” would not be quite right. “Is” in this case may be too narrowing, too objectifying. The sense, as explored above, may more closely require a combination of “moonness brightens” and “brightness moons”. How ya gonna do that?
Was Hiroaki trying to avoid the bullying, confining verb “to be?”. I think the Japanese language does things we just can’t touch, which may be why “versions” work better.
Paul (& all),
Just a quick response. I of course respect anyone’s right not to “dig” this or that. Why do I like this haiku myself? And what poetry do I find in it?
Obviously, Santoka took a risk with such a minimalist poem. But it pays off (for me) in the juxtaposition of two such archetypal images–moon & home–with the implied but somewhat mysterious connection between them. Lots of connotations and space for the reader who so chooses to play with. Certainly, as Gabi Greve’s latest version makes explicit, the light relates to finding one’s way. And I suspect “bright” will suggest to most readers a full moon, no clouds to obstruct it–that’s at least what I’m seeing. Also: I tend to view haiku at the level of the oeuvre as much as at that of the individual poem. So for me there’s enjoyment in it being “very Santoka”, in the relation between it and his other moon haiku and the whole body of his work, not to mention his life as a wanderer (which context invests “home” with a different shading than it might otherwise have).
P.S. I didn’t call explicit attention to it before, but do click on the new Wyeth image linked to my name (to the left). Speaks to the poetry.