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.
• 1st Sailing
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2nd Sailing
presented by
Peter Yovu
“What do you read again and again? Why?”
— John Stevenson
Some of you may recall this question having been posed by John Stevenson in Frogpond (Volume XXVII:1, p 81). He was then Jim Kacian’s associate editor, and was shortly to take over as editor on his own. I believe this question, good then and just as good now, is a wonderful follow-up to our first question, “Why do you read?” John has given me permission to reprint here, modified only slightly, his introduction to the question, an introduction in which he elegantly provides his own response. I could not do better, or equal it, so here is what John wrote:
“There are a few books that I find myself reading periodically as a means of renewing my efforts to write true haiku. Some of them were written by poets who are still living and whose company is a great comfort. And some are the works of poets no longer with us and who may have departed before there was any opportunity to express my gratitude to them. This is the case with John Wills, and particularly with his 1987 collection, Reed Shadows. The book contains haiku of a consistently superior order, imbued with extraordinary restraint and uncompromising simplicity and directness. He seems to have faith in his readers and to leave them the task of discovering for themselves what he has experienced. This is a tonic after reading (and writing) so much haiku that tells more than it should. For [many years], I have read Reed Shadows at least once a year and I believe it has steadied me . . .
I would like to hear from [Troutswirl] readers on the subject of which haiku collections serve them in this way. Which individual collections of haiku have proven themselves a continuing influence and inspiration for you? What do you read again and again? Why?”
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On the Pacific side, the collections I return to over and over again are the following:
Volumes 1-4 of R.H. Blyth’s Haiku, plus his History of Haiku in two parts, and some other rare treasures of his work I managed to acquire. These are probably the most important books in the development of English language haiku and they highly influenced Jack Kerouac and Gary Snyder. I also love Santoka Taneda’s “Mountain Tasting” which is now back in print thanks to White Pine Press. Every time I read it, I find another jewel. Such richness for a mendicant Soto Zen monk. I also love Saito’s haiku in “The Kobe Hotel”. Saito was one of the “non-traditional” poets that Kyoshi’s side tossed in Jail during WWII. Burton Watson’s translations of Shiki, masterful, and Ueda’s translations of Issa and Buson, also masterful. So we are blessed now with some powerhouse translators. Unfortunately most of them are emeritus and are impermanent like all things.
On this side of the pacific, I return to Karma Tenzing Wangchuk’s “90 Frogs”– a modern classic. I also return to work by Raymond Roseleip, J.W. Hackett, Bob Boldman, Jerry Kilbride, and vincent tripi. There are others such as John Martone, George Dorsty, Larry Kimmel, Bruce Ross, they all have contributed in their own way. The are original voices, not followers/imitator’s, but bring something from the past haiku poets, but walk their own path. A true poet’s company is from the past and present.
I know I’m not including everyone, just too many to mention here. It is also so subjective, but the key is to respect each poets take on life and poetry.
May the haiku gods shine upon us! Stanford M. Forrester
Merrill Ann,
I also have that Japanese poetry collection, The Country of Eight Islands . John Stevens has two book translations out of Ryokan’s writings. I have the ‘One Robe, One Bowl’…wonderful poetry. Thy are both still availible.
best wishes, Ron
Paul Reps’ Zen Telegrams is described on its inside cover as “79 PICTURE-POEMS”. Here is one picture-poem to which I return again and again when the tumult of living “inside the beltway” proves too much:
drinking
a bowl of green tea
I stopped the war
My thanks to Stan Forrester for my copy of this wonderful little book.
My son, when he was 4 or 5, referred to milk as “ocean white”. When I was that age, many people ago, cream cheese, especially on rye, was oral heaven. Once in a while even now it has that fullness of flavor that recreates for me the golden merger of infant with mother, or childhood with early summer… Perhaps cream cheese was better in those days, but more likely, my taste buds have worn down somewhat, and the sensorium of my being has dulled.
But the soul, if you will, retains its keen receptors, something I am well aware of when reading certain poems, most often haiku. Maybe I come back to some of Lippy’s poems because they bring me, in full simplicity, to some essence of Vermont, particularly to late summer and fall feelings, so that I come to believe that his experience was both personal and essential, and meets me where mine is also essential. It may simply be that he appears to have a melancholy temperament, and is drawn, as I often am, to the seasons and times of day that reflect this.
But on another level, I am drawn to his work because he is capable of doing something which seldom realizes itself in my own work: he makes, or should I say, discovers, subtle connections between things, between senses, and locates them in a season in ways that utterly transcend technique or any imperative to include this or that in haiku.
summer dawn
coolness
of the egg’s taper
Ron, I love Ryokan too. I only have a few of the poems in the anthology
From The Country of Eight Islands: An Anthology of Japanese Poetry. In that one volume is a treasure trove of fine Japanese poets.
Why do I come back to certain poems/poets??? Basically since I am verbally challenged myself…I think in terms of lines…literal lines drawn to
a shape that catches my eye…I came to haiku/poetry through art. When I come to poets who do that with words, it catches me in mid-air…fills me with the excitement of the mute finally speaking!
I am
along the hedgerow
honeysuckled
Jim Kacian from SIX Directions
Japanese garden
in the fog
—the shape of parting
In Memory
Wilma M. Erwin
vincent tripi from between God & the pine
Thanks Alice – so glad someone else loves SIX Directions. There is something quite wonderful about a plain simple word…a normal every day stone that you tread upon each day …when caught by the poet reveals the light inside and sings to you!
There are many qualities I prize in the haiku I love, but foremost is one which not all partake of, what I call indescribable rightness. There are poems about which I can say almost nothing, whose sounds, rhythms, images and interplays may be quite ordinary, but whose overall effect is immediately grounding, centering, and based on the truth of a moment. Burnell Lippy’s
deep in the sink
the great veins of chard
summer’s end
is one such poem, among others in *late geese up a dry fork*.
in response to Peter’s nudge-nudge:
every poet/collection of poems brings me back for different reasons.
as for Fay Aoyagi’s Chrysanthemum Love:
These poems teach me about kigo. They combine and pit images against one another with both whimsy and depth–hardly a cliche´ moment here. Some poems take flights of fancy and others dig in dark soil; some build a bridge between. They use words like “patriotism” and “e´migre´s”. They reflect experiences that I don’t think get a whole lot of airtime in haiku. Perhaps at the core, I can relate to this life she describes (experienced through a woman’s body in an urban area ) in the 21rst century when the boundaries between nature and culture have surely slipped and slided into an ever shifting construction that someone with Fay’s sensibility can point out to us: how deeply do we understand the interconnectedness between junkies and sparrows?
New Year’s mirror
I practice the smile
of a dictator
migrating birds
the weight
of my first voter’s guide
unexpected pregnancy
she spits out
watermelon seeds
Hiroshima Day–
a cat pokes and pokes
a cicada shell
lopsided moon
I count the syllables
in ‘patriotism’
yellow daffodils
the urge to
buy a banjo
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