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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. . . 5th Sailing . . .
presented by Peter Yovu
Sound?
The word seems a question unto itself. Composed of at least five sounds, it involves most of the mouth to say it. Comprising at least four distinct meanings, each with a separate etymology, its presence alone on the page leaves one uncertain if it refers to something which can be heard, to a sea channel, to health or to probing the depths. That is, until it is given context, and even then, all its meanings will swirl around it, and into us.
The context here is primarily sound as something heard and something made. So one question that arises is, how important to you is sound as a quality in haiku? How strong a factor is it in how you compose your poems, and in your enjoyment in reading them? Do you edit with sound in mind? We often celebrate the senses, and seek their renewal with haiku, but do you value the taste of words themselves and what they make your mouth do? (The poet Donald Hall refers to this pleasure as “milktongue”). Or do you regard it as a poetic device to be downplayed, or avoided?
As always, I encourage you to find your own point of entry into this Sailing. But what I would encourage most, is that you (and I will do the same) present for our pleasure and consideration a haiku (or two, or three) which you feel is greatly enhanced by the play of sound, whose meaning perhaps, is inseparable from its body. Can you say a thing or two about it? I look forward to seeing which haiku you choose to show us, and to the sounds you make on the subject of sound.
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What marvelous music! I’m glad Allan notes that someone like me could get tied in knots trying to obtain the effects of some of these truly gifted haiku poets achieve. This post has me scanning some of the journals to become more aware of some of the artistry I’ve been missing. Since I think in images, there is very little sound…so I have a lot to learn. Thanks.
Regarding sound and birds, here’s one by Anita Virgil:
holding you
in me still…
sparrow songs
Scott Mason mentioned assonance as a more subtle use of sound repetition than alliteration. I find sibilance can also satisfy that aim. I enjoy the way
still…
segues into the much quicker rhythm of
sparrow songs
I’m delighted Sandra Simpson cited Christopher’s “foghorns” in this context, with its lovely play on the word “sound” itself. I also hasten to agree with Scott Mason that subtlety is often the best course to pursue. If haiku poets tried to emulate the complicated sound patterns of Bashō’s “karasu” or Spiess’s “Lean-to of tin” on every outing, they’d tie themselves into knots and become paralyzed. Such haiku, I think, cannot be forced or manufactured; they happen when they do…and they will do so only rarely. What has to be balanced against craftsmanship in haiku, I think, is a strong element of spontaneity. Still, if one is receptive, sound often “happens” of its own, so to speak, arising naturally from the elements that have presented themselves to the poet as the basis for a haiku.
I’d like to offer three more notable exs. of sound in haiku:
beads of dew
cling to ripe blueberries
the sinking moon
(Jack Barry, The Haiku Calendar, 2007, Snapshot Press)
Note here how the poem is bound together by assonance in the final word of each line. That round “oo” sound also fortuitously evokes the three types of spheres the poem presents. And to me it seems underscored by the repetition of cavernous nasals, “n” and “m”.
lifting mist…
a flock of knots fans out
across the creek
(Matthew Paul, Presence 33, 2007; reprinted Wing Beats)
A personal favorite of mine. Here the sound patterns work horizontally rather than vertically. Each line is bound together by its own “key” (if you will) and differentiated from the others.
thunderheads offshore
the osprey coming early
to its nest
(Peggy Willis Lyles, To Hear the Rain, 2002)
In terms of rhythm, this one has always stood out for me. The last two lines actually form a perfect iambic pentameter unit, the alternating unstressed and stressed syllables suggesting the steady wing beats of the approaching osprey. Also note the repetition of the “aw” vowel of “offshore” and “osprey”, helping bind together the poem’s two elements in an inevitable-seeming way. There is something about the experience of birds, it seems to me, that often brings out the most lyrical vein in our haiku.
Speaking of Christopher — a musician, incidentally –, he wrote something that I found very interesting in describing his selection criteria for a contest he was judging. When it came to the matter of sound, he cited its critical role in contributing to the felt BELIEVABILITY of a poem. This was a startling notion to me, not least because, once articulated, it immediately struck me as true.
To second (or third) Gabi’s and Merrill’s comments above, I believe this credibility-enhancing effect applies as much to “flow” or “rhythm” as it does to individual or collective phonic effects.
Most believable, in my view, are those sound treatments I’d characterize as “present but subtle”. This probably accounts for my usual preference of assonance, say, over alliteration, though each (and others) can be used to great effect in the right context.
That said, I’d offer the following wonderful haiku by the late Claire Gallagher as it originally appeared in The Heron’s Nest:
the laughter
of elderly friends
magnolia rain
I think sound is a very topical matter in haiku – no doubt why you chose to bring it up here.
Perhaps it’s possible to divide haiku into two broad categories (with a possible two sub-categories) on the basis of sound:
1)haiku in which sound sometimes has a notable impact and contributes to the poem’s effectiveness.
1a) haiku in which sound plays a pivotal role in the effect of the haiku – strong rhythm, strong alliteration, strong assonance, etc.
2) haiku which contain no noticable sound-based effect.
2a) haiku which purposely seek to eliminate any such effects from the poem in order to “let the images speak for themselves”.
Looking online I already found some good examples of these variations such as:
1)
in the darkness
of womb, a life swims
into my life
by _kala at http://www.simplyhaiku.com/SHv7n2/haiku/DT1.html
1a)
we are what we eat crow caw
by Jim Kacian at http://www.roadrunnerjournal.net/pages92/haiku92.htm
2)
february sun —
a can nods through
the water’s reflections
by Frank Williams at http://www.simplyhaiku.com/SHv7n2/haiku/Solo.html
2a)
in front and behind are cows: wanting cows to the right and left, too
by Hashi Kageo at http://www.modernhaiku.org/essays/nagatakoihaiku.html
I don’t think any one way is the right way – each of these approaches can still produce excellent haiku (which isn’t necessarily a direct statement about the one’s I’ve chosen here – they were all easy to find and that was the main reason I used them here! I am rather fond of a couple of them though.)
Anyway, just some thoughts.
foghorns
we lower a kayak
into the sound
Christopher Herold
Marvellous.
I was just reading Allan’s haiku:
a redtail’s echo…
the reservoir the color
of surrounding pines
How round the sounds are encompassing the opening up and surrounding the whole scene…and the rhythm of the whole piece resounding again and again … like an echo…
This is one topic I intend to just sit out and listen to…I can feel the sound reading your posts…wonderful. I’m also glad that Gabi added rhythm to sound. I could feel the incantational effect of the haiku given in her post’s link. Hopefully if there are enough posts I’ll learn to sing.
青田にはあをき闇夜のありぬべし
aota ni wa
aoki yamiyo no
arinu beshi
Hirai Shoobin 平井照敏
あざみ あざやかな あさの あめあがり
azami
azayaka na
asa no
ame agari
Santooka 山頭火
More is here:
http://wkdhaikutopics.blogspot.com/2009/08/rhyme-and-rhythm.html
too-in とういん【頭韻】 alliteration, consonance, is used in Japanese haiku.
My Japanese sensei always says:
read it out loud and hear how your haiku sounds. Sound and a smooth flow is very important in traditional Japanese haiku.
Gabi
Lean-to of tin;
a pintail on the river
in the pelting rain.
– Robert Spiess, The Turtle’s Ears (1971)
Here’s a relatively “early” ex. of a splendid use of sound in ELH. The number of sound patterns here is truly remarkable!
* The initial “L” recurs in “tail” and “pelt”.
* The “n” of “Lean” recurs in “tin”, “pin” (and there’s an internal rhyme!), “on”, and “rain”. The final “n” of “tin” and “rain” bind lines 1 & 3 together in a kind of near rhyme (reinforced by the eye rhyme of the repeated “i”).
* There is a very notable pattern of “t” sounds: “to”, “tin”, “tail”, “pelt”.
* And there is the crucial repetition of the plosive “p” sound in “pintail” and “pelting”.
* The double “r” of “river” is also echoed by “rain”.
Most of these patterns are exs. of consonance (repetition of consonant sounds) and alliteration (repetition of consonant sounds at the beginning of stressed syllables). Following the internal rhyme of “tin” and “pin”, there is also the additional assonance provided by “river” and “in”. That short “i” is the dominant vowel sound.
But it’s the consonance that does most of the “work” in this poem, I feel. Can you not hear, esp. through those “t”s and “p”s, the needles of rain pinging off the tin lean-to and falling more softly into the river?
I feel sound is extremely important to haiku composition. It’s an expressive resource and part of the *poetry* of haiku. And it’s very much part of J tradition, as Kenneth Yasuda pointed out long ago. Spiess’s haiku follows in the tradition of Bashō’s famous
kareeda ni karasu no tomarikeri aki no kure
(“on a bare branch a crow has settled — autumn nightfall”)
No translation can begin to do justice to the rich pattern of /k/ and /r/ and /n/ sounds in the original.
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