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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Ah! Peter and Paul…how I wish I could clip your comments and attach them to all my submissions. Plain speech…it’s been the only poetry I’ve known…but I must admit I do enjoy some of the lessons given with regard to some of the examples. Some of the points brought out so far have made my enjoyment of haiku even richer.
What I discovered about plain speech is that my plain speech is not the other guy’s plain speech. You are right about getting the rhythm right for the hearer/reader but everyone’s got their own internal clock unless they’ve been training on 5/7/5 or some other metre. But Paul’s point that to listen to a couple of hours of 5/7/5 haiku could be mind numbing. Personally, I like to find one haiku and live in it for awhile. As I do drawings for a particular haiku, you would not believe the layers I discover in dwelling on a thought at a time.
As far as having more haiku poets join in the conversation, tell your friends we’re here…and we miss them!
Paul. I’m happy that as in previous postings, you have grabbed on to a few balloons that in their excitement (if you will forgive my anthropomorphizing a balloon) would otherwise
slip off into the ether and burst. So I will amend my thoughts about “padding” as it relates to “lilac in full bloom”. I will hold to my notion that the sounds made by the words “in full bloom” add to the richness of the poem, despite, as far as its meaning goes, being unnecessary. But it may be truer that the rhythm they provide is, for reasons our bodies know better than our minds, necessary for the health of the poem. Rhythm, one might say, is the delivery system for sound. It will seem dissonant to any puritanical notions about haiku, but in some way it feels true to say about it that: “It don’t mean a thing if it ain’t got that swing”. And the swing will vary, of course, depending on the child sitting in it.
For myself, sound is only important to the poem in that it read naturally. I do not count syllables or look to add repetitive consonants for effect. It is more important that a poem can be read aloud with a natural rhythm. But I don’t think I can define that rhythm. In selecting poems for my inclusion in Dim Sum both John Stevenson and I withheld a nice poem because it needed a word, an extra beat, in a line. I couldn’t explain why other than it “felt” like it needed one. I am probably too focused on what is being said, rather than how it is being said; and often as the fine examples above show to my own detriment.
I was interested in Gabi’s comment about the emphasis on the 5-7-5 ‘backbone’ in Japan. I would think all poems would have a similar sing-song effect when read, and would all have the same rhythm. I would not like to be the 20th poet at a reading. I prefer each poem to sound as its own, and not like others.
Additionally, I think too much of this game-playing can be distracting. The Spiess poem quoted above is a good example of that (to me). It is a tongue-twister. The first few lines with their consonants give a nice echo of rain on tin, but I find “pelting” to be too much. He went too far. I think you lose what is being said by how it is said. One covers the other.
I am making the following request under this Sailing because of the sounds that are *not* being made here or elsewhere throughout *Troutswirl*. A blog, you might say, is like an eco-system– the more varied it is, the richer it is, and the healthier it is. Right now we seem to have a small number of regular contributors– some deer and woodchucks that can’t resist the garden, and an even smaller number of owls and marsh hawks that scan the fields for mice, maybe grab one or two, then don’t come back for weeks. Well, who knows how owls think? And now and then a visitor arrives, weaves in and out of the light at the forest’s margins and is gone before we are quite sure what we have seen.
As eco-systems go, maybe it’s been enough, maybe there are creatures and orchids and fungi that seldom sprout mushrooms and are never seen but still are part of the whole. My analogy ends there, however, because I believe the life of this blog depends on visibility, on bear-hoots as well as owl-hoots, and sometimes on a willingness to display one’s colors, vocal and otherwise.
So the request is for participation– doesn’t have to be every day or every week– from poets and readers who have not yet done so. I make this request not in any official capacity (I don’t have one) but for personal, even selfish reasons. I find out about myself when I express myself (I can always admit to being wrong (wonderful discovery!) later on if necessary) and I also find out about myself in response to what others have found about themselves. I believe that in some sense we go out into nature to uncover our own dragonfly-nature,
stinky-fox-den nature, lichen-natures. (Or into the city to find out about our glass and concrete nature, our fear of the subway nature). Similarly, I hope many and more will come to this blog if not to discover, at least to engage with the nature of haiku as it ranges from traditional to avant-garde to maybe something we’ve yet to see.
Thanks Peter, you have answered a question that has puzzled me for a long time. This is the trouble with following the rules to the letter…I have been paring my haiku down to as few words as possible lately and it seemed natural but I’ve been getting some pushback that they are too curt in some instances. Now I understand why…you have to know when to break the rules!
…
Also, “ee” is right in the peeling…I used to get sun poisoning every time I was in the sun for more than 15 minutes as a kid. I spent many a summer day soaked in red wine vinegar to take the sting out (which hurt like the devil at first) and then the cooling. So that haiku just puts me back on the beach in my teens. I certainly feel this one.
Peter, thanks for the critical note of appreciation on this poem. It’s always been one of my favorites.
Sound is just one of many resources available to english-language haiku.
I appreciate sound in poetry and use it instinctively. And sound goes along with rhythm, equally important to me in such a small poem as haiku.
Also the use of reptition or parallism, another poetic device…would Virgilio’s poem ‘lily, out of the water, out of itself’, have succeeded without it?
I think assonance, consonance, alliteration, onomatopeia, etc. honor the beauty of our language and I recognize and appreciate it in haiku so long as if feels natural and not contrived.
I don’t see much ‘allusion’ though in our haiku, or maybe I haven’t looked around enough. But the Japanese used it a lot. My own tongue in cheek effort published in Croatia.
flu season. . .
to kiss
or not to kiss
Carole
Here’s another sound-rich insect haiku found recently over on the “Tobacco Road” blog, and as it happens, by a poet featured on this week’s Montage– Carole MacRury:
lilac in full bloom—
bees bumping
into bees
I present it not only for how the sound conveys meaning beyond the meaning of the words– the body of the poem is its own meaning– but also for how, in order to amplify this effect, it breaks what some may regard as a rule …
The rule is “no padding just to get a syllable count or other effect”. It could be argued that the first line would have been sufficient as “lilac”, the word itself conveying fulness. But how much would have been lost without the sumptuosity of “in full bloom” as it leads one by the lips down to “bees bumping/ into bees”? So put me down as bumptious on padding.
And over on his “lakes and now wolves” blog, Scott Metz has posted a one-liner notable for its sound:
after peeling my burnt skin new coolness
This is a poem of pure sensation, beautifully realized I believe. It may evoke personal memories for some, and thoughts of renewal and the like, but first of all, it will be felt, it will be understood by the body.
Here too it could be argued that the word “after” is redundant, but without it, something is missing. The “er” sound in “after”, repeated and reinforced by the same sound in *burnt*, to my ear provides a drone for the poem, an undercurrent or foundation against which the play of two principal long vowels, “ee” and “oo” can arise. The “oo” sounds in “new coolness”, in fact, are richer not only because of the drone, but also because of the contrast with that long “ee” in “peeling”. The coolness literally feels new.
As I think Allan said, you can’t plan this kind of sound-making. But it’s possible to develop one’s ear, and though it may irritate some, I think this kind of analysis can be seen as an appreciation, and a way to open the ear.
And here’s another from your own Viral 1.3
mosquito she too
insisting insisting she
is is is is is
— Peter Yovu
It contains lots of sound thanks to all the assonance and it is about sound, very cleverly written. Especially as the sound of a mosquito is one we instinctively don’t like!
Here’s a sound haiku that I found in Acorn by Paul MacNeil:
water lilies
the stiff stance
of a bull
Paul MacNeil
When I read short “i” short “i” and then came to the short “u” …
Uh! I could almost feel the bull…hear him grunt… What a wonderful play on sounds. The stiff stance “st” “st” sort of dumps you into it too.
Well, I see that Gabi’s post shows what the Japanese enjoy hearing in their haiku, emphasizing the last sound of each line –
letting the sound disappate before moving on to the next line,
but in this haiku I found it delightful to be tossed, light as a feather and then come to the ground with great weight. So once again I see variations of what language means to us from different cultures. This is all very interesting…
During Japanese haiku meetings, each haiku is read out loud twice, whith the emphasis on 5 7 5 as its poetic backbone. So the sound and flow is very important!
furu ike yaaaaaaa
kazwazu tobikomuuuuuuu
mizu no otooooooooo
this sort of voice …
So the cutting words help giving a Japanese haiku its rythm and punch when read aloud, something I really miss in English haiku.
end line three kanaaaaaa
Gabi
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