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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What a lovely place to come and read conversations between friends with a common love. I would have to say in response to both questions that reading haiku is the backbone of my own practice.
The Haiku Anthologies edited by Cor van den Heuvel and the selected poems of Nick Virgilio (sent to me by my good friend Gene Murtha) always set me on the path when I become a little wayward and have been my atime favourites. There is something about the feel, rhythm and taste of good quality haiku that can’t help but inspire one to push their own boundaries through sheer enjoyment of the form. My favourite poets published by Brooks Books, Red Moon Press and Snapshot Press are always on my shopping list.
I have collected books from the authors if possible and I have always found them willing to share their work and bend over backwards to help me find an out of print copy of their work. I have always thought I would bring out a collection of my own when the time was right. I have never felt doing so was an ego thing, more of a wondrous way to add a little back to the stream. My own writing would have been so much poorer if other poets had never published their work, which we then can all study and be inspired by if we wish.
I have always enjoy the hermit poets and in particular Santoka and Ryokan. Another book I hold very dear is Mitsu Suzuki’s Temple Dusk, she was the devoted wife of the late Shunryu Suzuki who encouraged and helped her to write haiku as a practice…..one that always effects me deeply is this one below and a good place for me to finish.
In haiku friendship….Ron Moss
haiku mind
soaking through
red grass
Mitsu Suzuki
Great responses – thanks folks! I’ve noted many of my favorites already listed, most notably Peggy Lyles’ “To Hear the Rain” and John Wills’ “Reed Shadows.”
Others I’ve read far more than twice are the collections of work by Charles B. Dickson and Wally Swist. I’m especially drawn to haiku poets who never fail to remind me that haiku is poetry, even if “poetics” might be frowned upon in today’s ELH world.
Aside from the individual collections, one of my all-time favorite resources is “A Haiku Path: The Haiku Society of America 1968-1988.” I’ve read it cover to cover three times and return to it repeatedly as a reference book. When I discovered the haiku community, I was immediately enthralled and wanted to “catch up” with what I’d missed. I wanted to know everything I could possibly learn, and this amazing book made me feel as though I was right there with all the North American pioneers who brought us to this remarkable place we are today. If this book is still available from the Haiku Society of America, it is worth four times its price.
Response to Eve Luckring, Sailings #2. You bet we can ” expand this discussion to what poetry we read over and over again that falls outside the genre of haiku”. Feels connected, certainly, to the current question, but also separate. I’ve already considered it, and have thought the question will be framed around looking at poets who do not write haiku but whose poetry might be considered to have a haiku sensibility. When that question is posted (in the near future I suppose), I will encourage people to take the extra step and articulate ***why*** you come back to a particular book or poet. But for now, nudge, nudge– ***why*** do you come back to Fay Aoyagi, or John Martone, or vincent tripi, or…
Just a few thoughts about anthologies, prompted by Alice Frampton’s post:
The anthologies edited by Cor van den Heuvel and the one by Bruce Ross have undoubtedly played a significant role in the educations of many haiku poets. THA 3rd ed. and Haiku Moment were the first elh books I owned, and I used them primarily to get a sense of “who’s who” and to identify poets whose works I wanted to explore in greater depth. So I see anthologies, above all, as offering invaluable orientation to newcomers and those not actively involved in the haiku scene. It has been a decade since Cor’s 3rd ed. was published, so I feel we’re really in need of an updated anthology at this point, one that reflects the explosion of elh on the Internet and globally.
Many of the poets in THA 3rd ed. have done a lot of important work since 1999. And obviously quite a few significant haiku poets have emerged (or emerged more fully) since then and would now probably be deserving of anthologisation. For starters, I think of poets who have had a substantial impact on recent haiku history through critically-acclaimed collections and/or new stylistic approaches, often supplemented by major publishing, editing, and critical work that has had an impact as well–figures such as Fay Aoyagi; John Barlow; Roberta Beary; Stanford M. Forrester; Carolyn Hall; John Martone; Scott Metz; Marian Olson; Peter Yovu. You won’t find any of them in THA 3rd. And there are quite a few others newer to the scene (relatively speaking) who are accumulating large bodies of high-quality haiku and would no doubt merit at least being considered for inclusion in a new anthology.
In addition, a historical anthology might reach further back to include at least small samples of pioneering efforts by the Imagists, Paul Reps, the Beats, Richard Wright, usw. (The only figure along these lines included in THA 3rd ed. is Jack Kerouac.)
It would be nice to have a new anthology that gauges where we are, roughly, at the end of each decade. Inevitably, though, such anthologies would probably have to grow simultaneously both bigger and more selective. Above all, it’s important that they reflect the diversity of the contemporary scene. That’s something I think Cor was able to do quite admirably in the past.
These posts have been most illuminating.
How core this relationship between the practice of writing and those poems/poets that beckon our return over and over.
Since it is impossible to cite all of the work that holds me in this way, and since so many have been mentioned already, I will restrain from making a big list.
Two collections that jolted my sense of what haiku can do and inspired me through the mastery of its form:
•Chrysanthemum Love by Fay Aoyagi
•Far Beyond the Field: Haiku by Japanese Women, translated by Makoto Ueda
And for poems that give me a good work-out as a reader for their understated-ness, baffling me as often as they go straight to the depths of me:
•Right under the big sky, I don’t wear a hat: The Haiku and Prose of Hosai Ozaki, translated by Hiroaki Sato
Peter,
someday, might we expand this discussion to what poetry we read over and over again that falls outside the genre of haiku ?? I would find it most
fascinating to also hear what people are reading in other forms of poetry outside the japanese traditions.
I’m with Merrill, this is a great list from which to draw many more fine reads. Not mentioned yet, I believe, are the Red Moon Anthologies. So many great poems from so many different poets from around the world — different voices on every page. I go back to them repeatedly. All poems and longer pieces are nominated and voted on by 11 outstanding editors, reaching journals, books, and contests I could never hope to keep up with on my own.
And then my personal favorite “Six Directions” by Jim Kacian. It’s a treasure and I never lend it, as it’s out of print. It doesn’t ride in my back pocket, either. For when I want to get down and dirty with the land I reread it cover to cover. Very soothing!
Bruce’s “Haiku Moment” and Cor’s “Haiku Anthology #3″ are my bibles. When I need to research a poem from ‘ago’ it is most likely in one of those two books.
Allen, I’m glad you like my drawing for vincent. I had a lot of trepidation about doing it…He’s done so much for so many poets. My favorite book of his is “monk & i”. Here’s a few things that mean a lot to me from that book: “Poems are our bridge to where we’ve come from…are going. Get lost there!” vt.WJ. “We walk in grace. All of us who walk the haiku path.”
“It is grace that brings the moment, is the moment…allows for the moment’s imperfection.” “Imperfection, paradoxically speaking, is a circle. In this circle we are alone…we are together with our wildness.” vt.2001 Watching Journal.
Somewhere,
someplace in the galaxy,
first cricket song vincent tripi from “monk & i”
Then from “paperweight for nothing”
Pine woods…
i look for the perfect place
to be a Christmas tree
All change is wild
vincent tripi
He’s been like “papa tripi”…all giving like Christmas. I have two copies of “monk & i” andif I knew where to send one to keep for all poets to read I’d love to do that. vincent’s helped me to wonder at my own “wild” things.
Peter has asked two questions. Books that influenced me & books I go back to. They overlap, of course.
There is always a primacy v. recency dichotomy. And pushing it, perhaps the book I get next. Sure to be several at HNA Ottawa! My first two were Hass and Higginson (Handbook). I have my snout in Bill’s saijiki: Haiku World all the time as I am a playuh of Renku. Early on, came the anthologies ed. by Bruce Ross and Cor. Eye openers to the English Masters. Opened repeatedly.
As I shifted to other English-language collections when they came available and as I “came of age,” were books by Gurga, Gay, Kacian, Lamb, Herold, Evetts, Spiess, Gilli, Dickson, Hall, Stevenson, and Beary (and others not mentioned but no slight intended). I packed some of these in my luggage to bring with me to Maine this summer. The smaller ones — smile.
I have read and reread all of these. Yet, just exactly as K. Ramesh extolled . . . To Hear The Rain by Peggy Willis Lyles is my favorite collection by a single author. As Allan mentions, I also have no connection to Brooks Books, but I am glad to count Peggy as a close friend — and teacher. Spiess was one of my first teachers. Of course he was a major Editor . . . and was kind to this raw newcomer. Sometimes it was years before words in his ballpoint scrawl (as he rejected a poem) came into sharp focus — and I found the flaws he did.
This brings up another “book” no one has yet mentioned. Journals of haiku. Modern Haiku certainly. Among the other current ones: Acorn, Frogpond, and I hope folks will put The Heron’s Nest up there. It is a bridge to the electronic, but always in print, too. The electronic journals? Yes, if they have an Archive to scroll through. Many folks, I as well, do like paper in hand . . . not a mouse and keyboard.
Texts about haiku have been listed — I too. Professor Ueda’s Basho and His Interpreters gets opened often enough. I have 6 volumes of Blyth, but only open them to search for a specific haiku — I have not reread much from them. Good reference. Paul O. Williams collection of haiku essays and speeches (Nick of Time) is one I have read several times. Above all in this category is Professor Haruo Shirane’s seminal work on Basho — his life and times: Traces of Dreams. It was published just months before the 1999 HNA in Evanston, IL. I had bought the book, ingested it figuratively, and it and his speech and question session in Evanston (Northwestern U. right on the Lake) seemed to explode onto the haiku scene, and blew it up, too. Wonderful translations, but the theory of haiku (and renku) is covered most importantly. He shocked me and some of the audience by reporting that Zen was hardly known in Japan or by Japanese haiku writers and editors. He also downplayed its influence, there was one and he so acknowledged, on the Classic Masters. His “vertical axis” as cultural referent awakened the audience and filled in a lot of blanks about Japanese haiku, kigo, allusion, and the success of brevity in our chosen poetic form of study. Part of his speech was later requested and published in Modern Haiku.
I have left out, some other writers here did not miss, though, books of related forms. For me it is Burton Watson’s bio and translation of waka by Saigyo: Poems of a Mountain Home. He lived in the 12th Century! Ever so readable today — I can see why Old Basho was influenced and even visited some of the same Saigyo places as did pilgrims of Basho’s day. Today, there is a trail of Basho sites. Both hermits.
Reading through my old notebooks keeps me humble! Some of the pages I turn very quickly.
So: Shirane, Saigyo, Spiess, Higginson, and Lyles. Good starting places at least.
– Paul (MacNeil)
Deep Shade Flickering Sunlight , O Mabson Southard (Brooks Books, 2004)
some favorites of mine from the collection:
So my eyes may rest–
my comet-watching sister
lets me comb her hair
In our dark tryst-spring
my sister shows me her self–
and a dawn-tipped spruce
By her childhood name
I call and call my sister–
and so do the cliffs
Allan invited me to suggest books that have influenced my writing. When I started out one of my first books was Harold G. Henderson’s An Introduction To Haiku (I actually have two copies, why I don’t know). Also I read Haiku by R.H. Blyth Haiku and A history Of Haiku right after Henderson’s book. Cor’s The Haiku Anthology was of course a big influence. I felt very lucky to later get into the third edition. I found The Wordless Poem by Eric Amann a must read. One book I look at now and then is A Hidden Pond edited Koko Kato. Its an anthology of modern haiku masters. I have a copy of Four Seasons also edited by Kato and its a small thick season word anthology in both English and Japanese. I have an old copy of Season Words In English Haiku by the Yuki Teikei Haiku Society (1980) although I am not a must use kigo guy, I still like to look and see what seasons some words belong in. I enjoy reading and rereading Fig Newtons Senryu To Go as I love senryu (hey I’m in it too). As someone has said Fay Aoyagi’s Chrysanthemum Love is a favorite book. She’s a great writer. So many books in my library its really hard to single them out.
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