. . . 6th Sailing . . .
presented by Peter Yovu
How do we write about Nature?
This Sailing honors Robert Spiess, featured in Montage #32. To be thorough about this, I should say it also honors Henry David Thoreau. Here is one of Spiess’ many “speculations on haiku”:
“Haiku poets should give full consideration to Thoreau’s observation: ‘How much is written about nature as somebody has portrayed her, how little about Nature as she is, and chiefly concerns us.’”
“Full consideration” of this observation will undoubtedly open up numerous questions, not only about the nature of Nature, but also, of course, about the role of the haiku poet in portraying “her”. (Interesting that Thoreau anthropomorphizes Nature, and yes I realize it was, and to some extent still is, customary to do so. I’ll continue in that fashion to maintain his tone).
One question: is it possible to portray Nature “as she is”?
Another: what is it about Nature, nearly 150 years after Thoreau’s death, that “chiefly concerns” you, and how is this reflected in, and engaged by haiku?
And one last, prompted by a word I used twice above: do we portray Nature, write about her, or do we seek, bridging the gap between Nature and human nature, to write as or perhaps through her? Is there a gap?
I realize this is an enormous and possibly daunting matter, but I trust you will find your own question, your own exploration. As with the previous Sailing, I would strongly encourage you to post poems which you feel somehow embody this consideration of “Nature as she is” and not “as somebody has portrayed her”. Perhaps something from Spiess himself, or something from Thoreau.
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Sails is a section of troutswirl that is devoted to presenting questions for discussion and debate on the nature and possibilities of haiku. Sails is overseen by Peter Yovu. For an introduction to this section, see Sails.
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Perhaps, there is a bridge between what we are each saying.
Let’s say space existed before an awareness of it. Yet, it had no categorical existence, no essence or identity, until it was named or known.
Things can exist in such a way that they do not exist until they are known.
I agree with you that the nameless and quality-less “existed” before consciousness. However, it did not exist as such until there was consciousness to reflect it. There were no discrete entities, nor could there be, before the mechanism by which they come into existence existed. To differentiate planets, stars, solar systems, organisms, etc., is the methodology of consciousness and language.
Yes to develop eyes there has to be light and objects of site; yet, without eyes and consciousness there is no light or objects of site. Everything you name and give in sequence is a categorical existence and did not have any categorical existence before the organ (mind, language, consciousness) of its making came into being.
In other words, without the appropriate concepts to differentiate things, the things you say existed (the light of a star shining for millions of years) could not have any qualities and therefore for all intents and purposes did not exist.
somewhere along the line in this discussion i was reminded of poems by Robert Grenier. i guess i started thinking about nature and language (the nature of language/language as nature) and the words we choose to create poems, and how we put them together. the nature of this. the nature of language. to create hai/ku (which are built of words)—the words chosen to make sense of things and the way images and feelings come to us, or we come to them.
what i dig about Grenier’s work is the playfulness of language as well as the sense of openness for the reader he creates (something i feel is missing far too often in so many english haiku: weak cuts/kire; and, therefore, no ma [sense of "betweenness" or suspension]). and how he attempts to put into words the way things “happen”/occur to him and his mind/consciousness; or, what goes on in his mind with language. it’s very stream-of-consciousness—and in that sense a way of presenting things as they are (a kind of objectivism of language maybe), or how they feel in the mind, in a really straightforward, minimal way (which also creates a sense of openness, and an invitation to partake in the poem and complete it on our own, to complete the circle). they’re not just pictures/photographs of things (like the Dickson piece mentioned about the fossil, which I think would have been better left as a fossil for people to look at). they don’t, basically, say everything for us. there’s something raw and honest about the way Grenier writes. and i find that much more natural. or at least as an attempt at trying to convey the way our nature works—how words, and groups of words, come to us. how language forms. he creates suspension, betweenness, openness, but also a bit of awkwardness. the awkwardness and the jarring and the disjunction and the bits of confusion create the openness and spaces (for me). with an element of play. there’s a harsh, raw reality in that (a kind of realistic objectivism; instead of things though it’s the words and the language as it comes that are real). and it brings to me more of a sense of nature and realism than just taking a photo, or painting a pretty picture (without an explicit “I”) with words. and doing something with them. he creates a reality of both what he sees, as well as what’s going on mentally/consciously, realistically, with language. he lets the messiness in. the fun. the results, i think, pack punches that resonate.
a few examples from his Sentences:
at to smooth the walls around
*
can’t have a mosquito
*
south on Monday and sleep over
*
clouds interested in some adequacy
*
now he’s
behind a
tree
*
except the swing bumped by the dog in passing
*
crater in
over the
sea Meyer
*
once those clouds moving toward the horizon
*
call I’ll
dark it
place back
in trees
*
if you take a look at that link above, many of the poems might remind one of John Martone’s work.
anyhoo, a recording of Robert Grenier speaking at Naropa University in 1992 recently popped up on Silliman’s Blog. the sound ain’t so hot, but the talk is great and engaging and titled “Drawing from Nature”
about half way through, he changes the lecture’s title to “Drawing Form Nature”
http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/20031
“the origin of space/time is coincident with consciousness/language/mind”
Here’s the thing, though: Unless you want to reject the findings of modern physics/ astronomy/ cosmology, the origin of spacetime in this universe was the Big Bang, approx. 13.7 billion yrs ago. It took quite a long time, obviously, to get from there to human consciousness, and a great deal happened in the meantime, such as the formation of stars and planets and galaxies and so on, all of which involved spacetime even when no one was there to observe it.
In fact, it takes a lot of spacetime to arrive at organisms, and organisms first need to evolve sensory organs before they can arrive at consciousness of their surroundings (much less language).
On Earth, organisms eventually arose who “learned” to exploit preexisting information in the environment for its survival value. If a creature evolves eyes (and they’ve evolved independently 50+ times), it obviously has a survival advantage over a creature who can’t see–which explains why most animals today have eyes. But the light was already there, moving through spacetime, before the eye was–it had to have been. In a dark universe, eyes would not evolve, and indeed there are some creatures today who live without eyes in deep caves–where there is no light to be exploited.
Significantly, some of the light we can see emanates from the past. Jim Kacian has a haiku on this subject:
long view to Sirius even the past isn’t past
When you look at Sirius, the brightest star in the night sky, you are looking 8.6 years into the past because that’s how long it takes for its light to reach us. I.e., Sirius is 8.6 light years from the Earth (51,600,000,000,000 miles). And as stars go, it’s very close.
The light from Sirius, moving through spacetime, has been striking the Earth since long before life emerged. In the Cambrian period, about 540 million years ago, when eyes first evolved, some creature saw Sirius for the first time. Later, the dinosaurs saw it. Later still, mammals and, finally, early humans saw it. Then, someone thought to give the star a name (not “Sirius”, but something, maybe just a grunt). But neither the perception of the star nor the naming of it caused it to exist. It was out there in spacetime shining since it formed billions of years ago.
Now, with the Hubble telescope you can look billions of years into the past, into a time long long before human consciousness existed and see what the early universe was like. That’s just one way in which we know–and can see for ourselves!–that spacetime existed long before consciousness existed because in some very precise ways “the past isn’t past”. The clues as to what the cosmos was like before we arrived are, in fact, all around us, if only we can learn to interpret them properly. That’s what science is all about.
I agree that the *concepts* of nature and spacetime (and everything else!) did not exist before consciousness and language; but irrefutable evidence shows that the things themselves existed before they were perceived and named. The material existence of the signified quite simply does not depend upon a signifier.
As for haiku, I think there’s no aspect of reality that cannot inform them. Certainly, Jim’s haiku above is informed by an understanding of how spacetime, light, and perception actually work.
Indeed, Lorin. Indeed it is!
‘Nature is an historical introduction.’ – Jack
…as ‘I’ must be, as well?
lorin
Yes, Cherie. The Galloway poems does it for me. I appreciate it.
Peter:
I can’t find the entry I sent you and because of my esteem for you and for the value of your question, I’ll do it again.
Many of my poems have been informed by the view I have expressed that nature is commensurate with consciousness. One comes to mind:
Inside of me/bison are stampeding/across caves
The poem arose from a conversation of Joseph Campbell’s about his first visit to the cave paintings in France.
I was deeply impressed and it struck me that in the deep darkness of the cave, which is the womb of being, in the light of a torch, one could suddenly see and hear the thunderous explosion of hooves and breath and the birth of existence; creation, in short.
And,it occurred to me that this cave was our mind, from where creation didn’t occur once, but was continually occurring. The mind, with its collective unconscious, contains all time and space and in it the creation of the world is ongoing and reached not only across time and space to the birth of the world, but that the birth of the world was happening every instant in our cave.
I wrote a whole host of similar poems, in which I identified myself with objections of sense or thought, as I believe the world is our mind.
Well, Peter, I’ve written a host of poems that are informed by the view I’ve expressed about nature as consciousness. Just as an example: Inside of me/bison are stampeding/across caves.
I was thinking of the cave paintings of bison in France and the impression Joseph Campbell spoke of when visiting the caves for the first time. In the darkness, the darkness of the womb of being, in the light of torches, one could see and hear the thunderous hooves, breath, etc. of life coming into existence in the world.
I realized and felt that this place, this cave, was, of course, my/our minds; it was a universal experience of our collective unconscious that contains the origins of all things.
For me, the creation, as exquisitely expressed by the paintings and Campbell, was going on indefinitely, had never stopped, and existed in me (and, therefore, everyone).
With a belief in linear time/space and of an “outside” as opposed to an “inside,” and with a belief in time as “having” occured rather than continuing to occur, I could not have written the poem.
Many of my poems at a certain point were of this same nature.
I wouldn’t engage in dialogue that didn’t directly impact writing of haiku. It wouldn’t be worthwhile then.
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