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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The sound of a poem is one way to name its ultimate “meaning.” We can’t separate meaning from the sound of the words that communicate meaning. Nor can we separate the sound of words from the syntax: the rhythm of the speech act comprised of the words. Which is not to say that a good haiku, like any good poem, can’t be paraphrased, only that the paraphrase reduces the poem to a statement (rather than a certain sound). Jim Kacian’s haiku: calm evening/the ballgame play-by-play/across the water– the “calm” of the repeated “a” sound is broken up by the hyphenated “play-by-play” much like the calm of the evening is broken up by action on the diamond. Calm returns with the final line, but not before the hard “c” closes the link between “calm,” “ballGame,” and “aCross.” Interweave is counterpoint to the classic form of this haiku. Here we see the poetic virtue of the bi-form, the “verticality” of the superposed line in tension with the contingent world of baseball. So much energy, it’s hard not to laugh. I recall a contemporary of Issa’s defending his poems against an attack that they were just jokes: a good haiku has the energy of a joke. The sound of this haiku can’t finally be separated from the sound it makes in the body, or how it “sounds” the body of the reader, echoing still, across the water.
For this haiku, I was present the evening that must have inspired it. Hilary can certainly speak for herself, I’ll just look over her shoulder, figuratively…
sweet grapes
the conversation passes
between friends
Hilary Tann
The table had a lot of things we passed around … wine, three or four cheeses, several kinds of crackers, nuts, dried fruits, usually some prepared or cooked hors d’oeuvre, maybe a country bread and several olive oils to try for dipping . . . Hilary could have chose other words to “pass.” She could have had it as around the table, across the table, among friends. Any # of things. All in her control. But the big, ripe, red, seedless grapes were captured in her language. “sweet grapes” reads slowly and ends open-mouthed. Language matches the adjective and noun… and she made it plural. Control. 2nd part of the haiku … more Ss but I do not think them noticeable, as a separate thing. They blend into the whole. Grapes passed; conversation passed, but she doesn’t hit you over the head with the repetition of motion, of the fruit and the speech.
I also chose one by Ferris Gilli. It is _about_ sound and also has sound and music of its own. She took a risk… used an uncommon word; “serrated.” It is the perfect word, to me (who knows these little frogs from living in Florida — peepers are also annoyingly persistent in Spring up north, slightly different calls).
The over and over rasp is like sawing. Repeated shape.
night rain–
the small serrated song
of a frog
Ferris Gilli
Hear the contrasting actual sound of the random drumming of the rain, contrasted with the serrated song. Rain and this song are related… the frogness of these frogs. They come out to spawn because of this rain. But the rain goes all night— the frogs likewise. That lines 2 and 3 end with a similar single letter?
The construction is only seen, to me, upon dissection. Doing this to a haiku is not a good thing except to explicate. Ferris puts it all past you — smoothly. Two actual sounds — and words to match.
Not to ignore Peter’s request about my comment with Hilary Tann’s haiku, first off, Peggy Willis Lyles, Mistress of Music in haiku, has left out any of her own.
This very morning I was typing to a haiku newbie and used this as an example (to listen to haiku, even if only in your mind’s ear):
first a smooth-to-say line that matches the welcome weather, all smiles . . .
Indian summer
a turtle on a turtle
on a rock
Peggy Willis Lyles,
first pub. in The Heron’s Nest, I guess
The rhythm done three complete times in but two short lines… looks like turtles, looks like piled turtles. Humpy, unlovely looking reptiles. Four hard Ts in a row, ending with rawKUH. So hard! Yet the suchness of turtle is captured. This is what turtles are, and what they do… seek the sun. Peggy loves her creatures, but will not show it directly. Language Master? You bet.
I also agree with Peggy that if “technique” shows it is too much, applied too thickly. As she points out with the Father Roseliep, a fine haiku need not be musical at all (or pay much heed to sound). But, when the haiku lets the author . . . ?
Sound is of considerable importance to me in haiku. At minimum, the sound of the poem should not interfere with its meaning. At best, meaning, to quote Peter, “is inseparable from its body.” Haiku already posted under this sailing suggest a wealth of subjects and moods available to the genre. Sense dictates sound; sound conveys sense. For the most part, I prefer a certain restraint, veering away from devices that might overwhelm content
Rhythm and repetition of sounds (alliteration,consonance, and assonance) are the techniques we think of most often, but sometimes a different sort of music serves the poet’s pupose. Here is an example:
the black hen
eating outside
her shadow
Raymond Roseliep
Listen to Light, Alembic Press, 1980.
Roseliep was an accomplished poet even before he found haiku, skilled enough to join ear and eye with a progression of vowels in which only the “a” sounds in “black” and “shadow” match. I think the poem would be far less successful if he had substituted “pecking” for “eating.”
In a different vein, strong accents and repeated “t”s and “st”s are essential to this haiku by another master poet:
i take the strongest
of my walking sticks
first cherry blossoms
vince tripi
monk and i, Hummingbird Press, 2001
I feel the stick meet the ground four times in the strong strides of the first two lines and then twice more slowly, maybe three times, in the last line, with the feminine ending prolonging an appreciative moment.
I’ll offer several more examples in varied moods.
buffalo bones
a wind less than a whisper
in the summer grass
Chad Lee Robinson
The Heron’s Nest IX:3, 2007.
in from the cold–
only my hands
to warm my hands
Penny Harter
Global Haiku: Twenty-five Poets World-wide, Mosaic Press, 2000.
stones in the rootmass
of a fallen tree–
winter stars
Peter Yovu
The Heron’s Nest IX:2, 2007.
saw-tooth peaks–
leave my body
to wild dogs
paul m.
Called Home, Red Moon Press, 2006.
trail’s end
the taste of wild onion
still sharp on my tongue
Billie Wilson
The Heron’s Nest, VII:3, 2005.
Paul MacNeil, I can’t help but ask you to say something about “controlling the sound of the words”.
I think that could be helpful.
moonlit snowflakes
cling to a tuft of
milkweed fluff
Michael Ketchek Modern Haiku Vol.39.3 Autumn 2008
this heat
the old Moravian gravestones
flat to the gound
Bruce Ross Modern Haiku Vol.39.3 Autumn 2008
Controlling the sound of the words, the haiku:
sweet grapes
the conversation passes
between friends
Hilary Tann
The Onawa Poems 1999-2008, Ship Pond Press, 2009, p. 21
and, that sound, plus sound(s) alluded to in the haiku:
night rain–
the small serrated song
of a frog
Ferris Gilli
The Heron’s Nest, Vol. II, #1, ’00
***
a pig’s memory
it leads to colours
of hesitant hills
—Stanley Pelter
(Blithe Spirit, vol.13 no.2, June 2003, 34)
Friends, this I believe is a good Sailing in which to dangle your feet and get them wet: all that’s asked really is to contribute a haiku whose sound quality somehow impresses you. No need, even, to comment.
Here, I’ll do it myself with a haiku by Peggy Willis Lyles from the recent Roadrunner:
uprooted —
thorn buds stud
the devil’s walking stick
(Geez I wish I could comment).
Marsh hawk here. Just thought this might be a good time to mention that, while we read perhaps ninety percent the same language in English, we speak a less universal language. Any consideration of the sound of a poem needs to be informed by the dialect / accent of the English spoken by the poet (and reader). I’ve had the experience, many times, of having a poem that hadn’t registered for me in print come alive in the recitation of the poet or some reader more fortunate in dialect than I.
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