The Lives of Poets, No. 4: Sanjukta Asopa

Sanjukta Asopa is the first of my interviewees (just as a quick reminder, the first three were Peter Newton, Susan Diridoni, and Christopher Patchel) that I have never met in person, and this is because she lives on the other side of the world from me, in India, where there are so many fine English-language haiku poets. But I feel like I know her from our online interactions — well, I feel like I know so many of you from our online interactions, and I’m not wrong, am I? She is relatively new to haiku (well, so am I) but I have been admiring her poetry for quite a while and have been impressed with her rapid recent development as a poet. And I’m not the only one to notice how good she is — in the September 2011 issue of The Heron’s Nest, she won the Editor’s Choice award for her striking haiku:

shanty town —
the jagged edges
of moonlight

         Sanjukta Asopa

I felt I should do a little quoting of Sanjukta’s haiku for her since she seems to be a little shy in this interview of doing it herself. But from here out I’ll let her speak for herself. She does a very fine job.

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Sanjukta Asopa: The Interview

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Name/pen name:

 

Sanjukta Asopa / sanjuktaa

 

Day job/occupation:

 

Rushing about the whole day doing precious little.

 

Website/blog/Twitter feed (if any):

 

Blog:  wild berries

Family, pets, non-poetry hobbies, etc.:

 

I live with my husband in the somewhat sleepy city of Belgaum in the southern part of India, not too far away from the coast, surrounded by wooded hills and just opposite an eucalyptus forest. One daughter, married, studying abroad. No pets. My other hobbies include reading, music, birding, sitting glued to the TV watching cricket (or tennis or soccer) and occasionally letting out warcries if my team happens to be winning, though such occasions are not very frequent, I admit.

 

How long you’ve been writing haiku and what gave you the idea to do such a crazy thing in the first place:

My first introduction to haiku was when I happened to attend a workshop on a poetry site way back in 2006. Until then I had been writing light verse and had only the haziest notion about haiku as being a three line poem written only in Japan. I am afraid most people still do have the same notion of haiku. However, I was published in a journal named ‘Cloudspeak’ and in ‘The Heron’s Nest’ the following year. But after that there was a long hiatus of more than two years during which I wrote almost next to nothing. I have been back on the haiku scene again since mid 2010 and hopefully, this time I don’t have to leave.

Anyway, after the workshop I started to read up on haiku and the more I read, the more I got fascinated. Perhaps what appealed to me was the brevity of the form and the challenge to capture a passing moment with so few words. I don’t understand abstraction in ideas. I had done my master’s in philosophy and that traumatic experience was enough to put me off any kind of abstruseness for life. The emphasis in haiku on concrete images appealed to me. (To be perfectly honest, I also must have thought something like ‘only 3 lines and I’m through’! Though I knew better soon.) I felt I could express myself best in this form.

So that’s how haiku happened.

wild mint
in the spring forest
a chance encounter

 

Do you have a personal philosophy of haiku or a particular vision of haiku poetics? What do you think haiku are, or should be, in English? What do you think they should look like? What do you think their purpose is?

 

What should haiku look like? I think that could be best answered by the experts. Personally, I like all the forms in which haiku are being written – from the 1-liner to the 4-liner or more. I love the juxts in haiku as much as the much-maligned simple shasei which can be breathtakingly lovely. Gendai interests me, though I cannot claim to understand it fully. I read this essay by marlene mountain (http://www.cddc.vt.edu/host/haikumania/marlenejapanesehaiku.htm) some days ago and realized that I completely agreed with her. Techniques are necessary. Like many others, I, too, had started my haiku journey by reading Jane Reichhold and that has been invaluable as far as techniques are concerned, but beyond that, and here I am speaking only for myself, I prefer not to be steeped in too many technicalities. I have noticed too much education is not good for me, it kind of stultifies the spontaneity. Who was that who said, “Water which is too pure has no fish”?

Purpose of haiku? I agree with ‘discovery’ (Anita Virgil ?), I also think ‘oneness’. The world around us is so achingly beautiful and language or words can only get this far. If as the zen saying goes that “Speech is blasphemy and silence a lie. Beyond speech and silence, there has to be a way out,” then haiku is probably the striving of the poet to find that way out, to attain the unattainable.

Anyway, need there be a purpose to everything? Some of the most joyous activities in the world are purposeless.

What does your haiku writing practice look like? Do you write daily or regularly? Do you have special times or places you like to write? Do you write longhand or on a computer? Do you revise extensively? Is there anything in particular you do to put yourself in “haiku mode”?

 

 I used to be pretty undisciplined with my writing, but since I joined NaHaiWriMo (here, I have to thank you, Melissa, for inspiring me through your blog to join this site, and, of course, Michael Dylan Welch, who created this site), all that has changed. If not daily, at least, I try to write regularly. Whereas earlier I would write maybe two to three haiku a year!

Late afternoon or late evening is the time I curl up on the couch with my writing paraphernalia or prop myself up with pillows and cushions in front of the computer. I type as well as write longhand, but the final draft is always done on paper these days, after I lost quite a few of my poems when the computer crashed once.

Revisions are a must, of course; not once, but many times. On a few occasions I have sent submissions without revising, only to regret it later!

There is nothing special I do to get in the ‘haiku mode.’ Solitude is all I ask for, but never quite succeed in getting. I am careful to switch off the phones and the doorbell though! Not sure how and why the inspiration happens when it happens. A word, a phrase totally unrelated with poetry, a song , an image, anything can trigger it off. Sometimes it just falls out of the blue in my lap in the middle of the most mundane task I might be doing.  (And let me tell you, being armed with a notebook always, just doesn’t work. One cannot whisk it out and start writing just anywhere! People tend to look askance.) But such inspirational moments are rare. At times, I am sure there is a haiku lurking here somewhere, but it goes on eluding me forever and ever. So mostly, I am slogging for poetry. One thing I love to do though is to buy myself lots of new notebooks and pens all the time; not only it makes me feel like a proper writer, but just looking at them somehow motivates me to write.

What does your haiku reading practice look like? Are there poets you particularly appreciate? Journals you find especially inspiring? Do you read haiku daily? Do you read mostly English-language haiku or do you read a great deal of Japanese haiku (in translation or not) or haiku in other languages? Are there books you would recommend, either of haiku or about haiku?

 

 It is very difficult to get haiku books here in India. I am constantly asking my daughter to buy books for me or to subscribe to this journal or that. Even then I don’t have too many books on haiku. But thanks to all the online journals and the blogs of various poets, there is no dearth of reading material online. I could spend the whole day reading haiku and never tire of it. Apart from haiku, I read a lot of other kind of poetry as well, though not the very long ones. (Nor can I finish the scholarly essays. I bookmark them, promising myself to return later, but never get down to doing it. This is no reflection on the essays, but on my own limited intellectual capabilities.)  There are a lot of brilliant poets writing in Bengali, which is my mother tongue. Although sadly, none of them writes haiku, their poetry is an inspiration, nevertheless.

In haiku, along with all the standard online and print journals, whenever I can get them, I find Mann library’s archives an especially rewarding place to browse. There are poets there whose work is worth going back to again and again. My favourite poets? Not possible to name only a few, because there are so many of them whose work I admire. Many of my fellow NaHaiWriMo poets are also writing unbelievable.

 

Is there anything else you’d like to say about writing haiku? Or about how annoying these questions are?

 

 My only regret these days has been why I hadn’t come upon haiku much earlier in life? I hope the genre continues to flourish with more and more poets from different countries and cultures joining in and that I could continue to be a part of it in however small way, for as long as I can, because to describe the way I feel about haiku, I’d probably have to borrow the final words of Steve Jobs: Oh wow. Oh wow. Oh wow.

 

Any final haiku you would like to share with my readers?

I really don’t think I’ve written anything memorable as yet. Could I quote a favourite poem of mine by another poet instead?

most of
what is
right

in

a wild
flower

patch

– Scott Metz

Finally, thank you a lot, Melissa, for giving me a chance to answer these questions.

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The Lives of Poets, No. 3: Christopher Patchel

Having, in previous installments of this series, sought wisdom from poets on the East Coast and the West Coast, I decided it was time to hang around my own neck of the woods and spend some listening to a Midwestern poet. Chris Patchel lives in northern Illinois, not too far from me, and I’ve enjoyed talking to him at a few Haiku Society of America events. Before I ever met him, though, I’d admired his haiku, having noticed that his were likely to be among the few that lingered in my mind long after I’d finished reading a journal. I figured he’d have something to say worth listening to, and I was right, not to mention that he brought some much-needed graphic design expertise to this blog (needless to say, any remaining graphic design crappiness is my responsibility, not Chris’s).

(By the way, has anyone else noticed how many haiku poets are also visual artists or graphic designers? Somebody write something about that, will you?)

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Christopher Patchel: The Interview

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Name/pen name:

Christopher Patchel.

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Day job/occupation:

Freelance graphic designer

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Website/blog/Twitter feed (if any):

Limiting my time online is enough of a challenge as it is.

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Family, pets, non-poetry hobbies, etc.:

I’m single, and presently living in Mettawa, Illinois. Besides my interests in the arts and sciences I’m into biking, walking, pounding on an old Gibson guitar, dancing West Coast Swing, and fretting about things.

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How long you’ve been writing haiku and what gave you the idea to do such a crazy thing in the first place:

Writing was about the last thing I expected to get involved in. Nevertheless, I enrolled in a poetry class, and tried my hand at composing free verse. Shortly after that (as the millennium turned) I happened upon haiku for the first time. What struck me was the evocative power of so few words. That more-with-less aesthetic matched my graphic design approach, and I also appreciated the quiet perceptions, unassuming language, grounding in nature, and temporal/eternal resonance. It added up to a rare eureka experience. I read everything I could about the genre and took up the challenges of learning to write it.

One of those challenges was, and still is, working bottom up instead of top down, starting with concrete images (show don’t tell) and gut instincts, so that abstract thinking (my default mode) doesn’t dominate.

As time goes on I’m becoming increasingly involved in other haiku-related forms as well: haiga (haiku and art), haibun (haiku and prose), rengay and renku (collaborative haiku sequences).

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Do you have a personal philosophy of haiku or a particular vision of haiku poetics? What do you think haiku are, or should be, in English? What do you think they should look like? What do you think their purpose is?

The world of literary haiku in English should look like it does, in all its diversity of aims and approaches, from scenic shasei to experimental gendai, with lots of arguing between and among the various schools of thought (as has always been the case with haiku in Japan). Otherwise the genre would become static.

As an artist I’m open to all forms of accomplished haiku. But what most interests me are slice-of-life moments of perception (whether trivial, profound, or impossible to categorize) which become memoir-like over time as one’s body of work takes shape as a whole.

I like the idea that what is most personal is most universal, and would prefer my work be accessible on some level to everyone, though I accept that haiku is an acquired taste for many.

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midlife…
my car radio
on scan
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What does your haiku writing practice look like? Do you write daily or regularly? Do you have special times or places you like to write? Do you write longhand or on a computer? Do you revise extensively? Is there anything in particular you do to put yourself in “haiku mode”?

Creative process is fascinating to me. Perhaps because my methods (or lack of methods) leave much to be desired, I never tire of hearing gifted creators describe how and why they do what they do. I’ve come to picture it in three main stages—inspiration, perspiration, and appraisal—which also operate in unison at any given time.

Is it ninety-nine percent perspiration and one percent inspiration? In my estimation, though Edison’s emphasis on the work ethic is well taken, inspiration is not only just as essential, it’s the life-breath of art and literature. And whether it comes by way of brainstorming, hard work, or out of the blue, it comes as a gift.

Such gifts of the Muse are sporadic for me, but more frequent during bike rides and walks (and car trips, with the downside of missed exits). Reading and research can often lead to serendipitous ideas. And specific challenges, such as rengay linking, tend to get my neurons firing, so I would like to find ways to incorporate that kind of motivation into my process.

The writing phase—getting syntax, sound, rhythm, juxtaposition, images, and what have you, to give rise to an experience—is the perspiration part. In spite of (or because of) the brevity of haiku the degree of difficulty involved in the word-craft is ridiculous. And my word-by-word, piece-by-piece adding, subtracting, arranging and rearranging (even articles and prepositions keep me up at night) is more like assemblage than the flow of words I tend to associate with the craft of writing. Rolling up sheet of paper after sheet of paper and tossing them at the wastebasket is sometimes the closest I come to feeling writerly.

When a poem does come together I transfer it to computer. Any initial sense of euphoria will likely turn to dismay the next time I read it afresh and notice the problems. With luck and further revising I may eventually reach a point of contentment. Rewriting is a perpetual in any case, even with poems published years ago.

In addition to time’s role in the appraisal of work, feedback from others is invaluable (and quicker). I was tickled to learn how Nick Virgilio would solicit perfect strangers to get their reactions to his work. I feel pesky enough asking friends what they think.

An editor’s acceptance or rejection of a haiku for publication, though not the final word on its worth, is also part of my evaluation process.

And needless to say, whenever a poem connects with one other person, or many, the creative process finds its completion.

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writer’s block
I clean out
the refrigerator

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last night’s
brilliant effort
in daylight

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What does your haiku reading practice look like? Are there poets you particularly appreciate? Journals you find especially inspiring? Do you read haiku daily? Do you read mostly English-language haiku or do you read a great deal of Japanese haiku (in translation or not) or haiku in other languages? Are there books you would recommend, either of haiku or about haiku?

My reading list of journals and anthologies is typical, albeit limited by my low saturation point. Scholarly volumes mostly sit unfinished. Translated poetry requires more effort for less return, given the divide, so I don’t read a whole lot beyond what the journals publish (shame on me). What’s most lacking on my bookshelves are haiku collections, which I purchase whenever the budget allows.

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Is there anything else you’d like to say about writing haiku? Or about how annoying these questions are?

“Why do you write haiku?” is a question Curtis Dunlap asks on his blog, and I can easily identify with most of the answers given: heightened awareness; living in the now; connection with oneself, others, creation; To participate. (Peggy Lyles); To preserve, share, and savor… (Curtis Dunlap); …because I can… (Charles Trumbull); god only knows (Jim Kacian).

Widening the question: Why engage in any form of art or literature, given the labor involved in such labors of love? In my case it’s apparently part of a larger obsession with meaning, which is apparently as necessary as air.

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Any final haiku you would like to share with my readers?

Thanks for the invitation to process these questions, Melissa.

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catching a maple leaf
just before the ground—
Indian summer

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nameless longings
a floating seed
eludes my hand

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Credits: the skip of my heart—unpublished; midlife—Heron’s Nest v10.2, 2008; White Lies: Red Moon Anthology 2009; writer’s block—RawNervz 9.1, 2003; last night’s—Modern Haiku 41:2, 2010; catching a maple leaf—Frogpond 25:1, 2002; A New Resonance 3, 2001; Haiku Calendar Competition 2007 (November runner up); nameless longings—Heron’s Nest 10:1, 2008; Seed Packets (Flower Anthology) 2010

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The Lives of Poets, No. 2: Susan Diridoni

(For the first interview in this series, with Peter Newton, and a more in-depth explanation of what it’s all about, look here.)

After having admired Susan Diridoni’s poetry for a while and gotten to know her a bit online and through email, I had the great pleasure to meet her in person at Haiku North America in August. We share an interest in gendai and other modern developments in haiku and had many stimulating discussions on this and other topics. I knew that with her unique poetic voice and her pronounced and fascinating opinions on so many poetic matters, she would make a great victim for my “Questions to Annoy Poets With.”

And I was right. Susan took my questions and shaped her answers to them into a coherent essay detailing her development as a poet, her reading and writing habits, and her haiku aesthetic. I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I did.

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The Interview: Susan Diridoni

[Note: For a thorough detailing of my path into the writing of haiku, please see “Three Questions—Susan Diridoni” at Curtis Dunlap’s blog, Blogging Along Tobacco Road. For my essay titled “My Accidental Slip Into Gendai Haiku,” see the next issue of Modern Haiku (43.1 Winter-Spring 2012).]

The most salient feature of my haiku-reading practice is my alertness to find haiku poets whose work thrills me, whose work I admire. This includes years of reading printed journals such as—Modern Haiku, Frogpond, Bottle Rockets, Presence, Acorn, etc.—and online journals such as—Roadrunner, Simply Haiku, Chrysanthemum, The Heron’s Nest, etc., and blogs such as—Don Wentworth’s Issa’s Untidy Hut, Melissa Allen’s Red Dragonfly, Fay Aoyagi’s Blue Willow Haiku World, etc.

I also purchase numerous recommended books such as—titles from Red Moon Press [individual authors as well as anthologies], Poems of Consciousness by Richard Gilbert, The Haiku Universe for the 21st Century edited by Gendai Haiku Kyokai, multiple titles by Makoto Ueda, Hiroaki Sato, Haruo Shirane, Esperanza Ramirez-Christensen, etc. Also, I find good leads to pursue in the periodic book reviews posted by Don Wentworth and by Melissa Allen in their blogs.

In my search for poets who thrill me, I survey features on poets which appear in Roadrunner and Chrysanthemum and Simply Haiku [both its earlier and its current versions], and happily these sometimes spotlight foreign poets, such as: Chrysanthemum’s [#9, April 2011] feature on German poet Udo Wenzel, and Roadrunner’s [X:2] brief interview with French poet Alain Kervern.

These profiles provide a real service, their translations allowing access to international poetic sensibilities. Ever more online haiku journals are opening language borders—including the varied blogs of Johannes S.H. Bjerg—and I welcome them all. In the years since my teenage discovery of Rainer Maria Rilke, I have—with passionate hope!—tried countless translations, including intriguing finds of new Rilke translations [Martyn Crucefix’s translation of Duino Elegies (Enitharmon Press, 2006) and Damion Searls’ translation, The Inner Sky (Godine, 2010)]. Needless to say, the flow of better Japanese translations of both past and present poets and commentators offers the international English-language  haiku community a stunning platform of worthy reconsiderations! How felicitous is progress with translation!

This diverse and continuing reading accomplishes several goals. First and foremost, my reading allows me to elevate my poetic aspirations (about which I will say more, later). My eyes are being opened to stylistic discernment. For example, some of the haiku poets whose work frequently employs metaphor can be quite beautiful to me, but also so different from my own tendencies that I can only marvel at their work—these include the relaxed and sensitive work of Marjorie Buettner, the lovely work of the tragically deceased Svetlana Marisova, the lyrical work of Robert Wilson and Claire Everett, etc.

In addition to style, I have found myself noticing certain content. After reading a few appearances of Eve Luckring in Roadrunner, I emailed her to express my appreciation of her socially-conscious haiku. Her answer was bracing: that I would not believe how many virtual waste-baskets she fills before arriving at those published haiku. Wow, o brave new world!

Peter Yovu’s haiku has intrigued me, including some brilliant social commentary. Though finding so trenchant the social focus in haiku by Eve Luckring, Peter Yovu, and occasionally Scott Metz, I never expected myself to be writing such haiku. My first venture into this territory was occasioned by a seemingly enormous full moon, as if sitting upon the Berkeley (California) hills, looking dull since the sun had not yet set in the Pacific. I worked with this dull moon coinciding with December 1st, long-designated as World AIDS Day. This was published in the final online issue of 3LIGHTS:

unlit moon World AIDS Day

My strongest social impetus early this year was the “Egyptian Spring”—the February ‘11 pro-democratic events in Cairo (and later, elsewhere). My visit to Cairo five years ago had deeply sensitized me to social circumstances there. Yet only one month later, on 3-11, the world was shocked by the enormous quake and resultant massive tsunami in Japan’s Tohoku region (and subsequent nuclear reactor risk). I could not address the tsunami for several weeks, I found it so distressing, but when this door opened, it would not easily close. [See the soon-to-be-delivered Frogpond (Vol. 34:3/2011) to read my tsunami haibun, “was that river”.] Examples from these events:

texting dissimulation under an eroding sphinx

[Frogpond 34:2, 2011]

hard lessons fill the train where goes life as-wave

[Roadrunner 11.2]

The “gang” of more-or-less regulars in Roadrunner (including the poetry of co-editors Scott Metz and Paul Pfleuger, Jr.) include many poets I pay close attention to. Sometimes I have had the impression that poets in Roadrunner occasionally take something—a feeling, a visual, something physical or even temporal—and they “translate” it from a simple description into a new realm of perception, as if it were delineated in slow motion, molecularly or in some other modality.

This brings to mind the way that Virginia Woolf’s descriptions through the lens of a character’s mad spells could turn simple visual details into distracting grotesqueries. The gendai haiku may take recognizable aspects of life, but these may then explode or unfold or wax lyrically into unsuspected dynamics. I might be hard pressed to analyze one of mine—

arsenal reduced to ruins just bright your speaking

[Roadrunner 10.2]

–but this haiku jives for me, its atmosphere crackling with a surprisingly up-beat closing comment. While Richard Gilbert was offering the first-ever “William Higginson Memorial Lecture” at the HNA Seattle, August 2011, he occasionally screened haiku from a recent Roadrunner [11.1]. A strikingly dense haiku by Cherie Hunter Day elicited a question from the audience, “What does it mean?” Cherie answered, “I don’t know, it came intuitively.” A definite group of like-minded poets nodded and smiled appreciatively, while a muffled groan rose from another segment of the audience!

When I abandoned poetry to begin psychology studies and forge a career, I found a way to keep alive my creative lyricism. I used the writing of cards to friends and family as a serious effort to pour out lyrical prayer for circumstances of suffering or to construct lyrical wishes for celebratory occasions. Those years of careful writing taught me that making an intention can start the simmering process, a simmering that can be on-going for hours until pen and paper must be sought. Sometimes a person’s affliction for which I intended to write was daunting, so taking time for the simmering, deliberately, was actually needed.

Almost always, welcomed revision would occur as I copied my writing into the card I had chosen. This revising was so inevitable that just re-typing something into a typewriter (later, PC) would accomplish improvement. This is still true, to such an extent that if I start with one brief phrase (for a one-liner) that attracts me [in other words, that begins the “simmering”], just typing it and seeing it on-screen may bring me nearly spontaneously to the rest of the one-liner. I might “hear” the completion, faster than I can type it. This is how the following pair occurred [both appeared in Don Wentworth’s “Wednesday Haiku” (#6 and #19), a feature in his multi-faceted blog, Issa’s Untidy Hut]:

this brimming reddened west your heart today

step back into the fragrance our histories mingling

My life has featured only sporadic periods of routine; thus, creativity—when I have desired productivity—can occupy center stage for a spell. I’ve had time to notice that certain circumstances are strong triggers for writing. Among the strongest triggers are emotionally charged events, but almost as compelling are very strongly registered perceptions—registers that may be emotional, visceral, visual, intellectual, or memories.

So for me, haiku is not the traditional “haiku moment” though some important haiku of mine have emerged from powerful moments. As Scott Metz recommends, why not bring all of who we are—now, in our various cultures and histories—into our haiku! A closing haiku from “Wednesday Haiku” (#37):

the sum of our visit the stars cluster

“ … to elevate my poetic aspirations”—these inspiring-muses [the poets who thrill me] can form a kind of gallery of supporters, exhorters, and models who I celebrate & by celebrating sometimes gain an approach into that air, that high, fine air, the quickening places that we are sharing, here at Melissa’s Red Dragonfly!

— Susan Diridoni, September 2011

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The Lives of Poets, No. 1: Peter Newton

A while back I conceived this idea to harass all my favorite poets by sending them an interminable list of questions and whining until they answered them all so I could post the answers here. I immediately sat down and drew up the list of questions and saved it as a Word doc entitled “Questions to Annoy Poets With.” But then I wasn’t brave enough to actually do anything about it for a while. Because, you know, I might annoy someone.

Then over the summer I met Peter Newton, whose poetry I’ve admired for a long time, at the Haiku Circle in Northfield, Massachusetts. He was friendly and kind and since we’ve exchanged cordial email messages off and on for a while, it occurred to me that he probably wouldn’t actually bite if I sent him this long list of troublesome questions and audaciously invited him to lay bare his poet’s heart. Plus, with school starting again today, I needed to come up with some way of formulating interesting blog posts without actually writing them myself. The idea of making other people write them was getting more attractive all the time.

And to my delight, Peter not only responded to my request but did so at great and thoughtful and illuminating length. I’m so pleased to present his words to you and hope I’ll have the opportunity to do the same with many more poets in the future. But for now I’ll just get out of the way and let Peter speak.

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Peter Newton: The Interview

The Basics

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Name/pen name:

Peter Newton

Day job/occupation:

Stained glass artist.

Website/blog/Twitter feed (if any):

Generally, I’m a low-tech person. I work with my hands all day. I’ve never owned a cell phone and I use my laptop as a typewriter that remembers everything. However, the idea of the Twitter stream interested me a few years ago. I think I’m up to a whopping 300 or so tweets, mostly poems of mine and poetry related information. Twitter.com: @ThePeterNewton

Family, pets, non-poetry hobbies, etc.:

Partner of 27 years is Mark Pietrzak. No kids. A dog named Possum. Since I’m self-employed and work at home, my hobbies include working on my old house (1883) and dabbling in yardwork (cutting the lawn).  I’m pretty active in my small town of Winchendon, Massachusetts (aka “Toy Town”). I belong to the Historical Society, community volunteer groups, etc. One of the great things about living in a small, remote place is that one person can make a difference.

Love to plant things, just as long as they can take care of themselves after awhile. I spend two months a year up in Vermont where I work at The Bread Loaf School of English and The Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference. Something I’ve done for two dozen summers. Not much of my free time is non-poetry related, I must admit. Though I went to college and got my M.A. to become an English teacher I now spend most of my days in a small glass workshop making fun, funky, 3-D creations for the mass gift market. And I feel like I’m right where I need to be. What’s that zen saying: “No snowflake falls in the wrong place.”

How long you’ve been writing haiku and what gave you the idea to do such a crazy thing in the first place:

I started writing haiku in the early 90s while I was living in Atlanta. I was struck by a reading William Matthews gave up at Bread Loaf around that time. He opened his reading with a dozen or so one-line poems (with titles, which I always thought was kind of cheating) and they were great. I was impressed with how much could be conveyed in a handful of words. They were funny and serious but all were almost philosophical. And surprising.

Matthews got me thinking about words in a new way. If they were the right words in the right order, they were like seeds in the reader’s mind that could grow and grow. I think that was my first interest in really exploring short form poems of my own. Then of course came the long and tedious tutelage of Robert Spiess at Modern Haiku. I say tedious because as many out there know his criticisms were even shorter than the poems he wrote. And I say tutelage because he was very patient and kind toward me and my early efforts at haiku and senryu. I spent years re-teaching myself how to write. Re-thinking how I look at the world. Learning to pay attention. Still at it.

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The Nitty-Gritty

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Do you have a personal philosophy of haiku or a particular vision of haiku poetics? What do you think haiku are, or should look like, or should be, in English? What do you think their purpose is?

A haiku is a poem and far more than a poem. It’s the road and the destination at the same time. I know that sounds a bit vague and Zen-ny but the point is that haiku have allowed me to see the world with “fresh eyes,” as Basho said. A world that I had spent many years observing closely as a poet but in some ways never really lived in. Some sort of barrier was removed between me and the rest of the world when I started reading, writing and studying haiku seriously. Through my awareness of ordinary things and occurrences I feel like I am able to appreciate my place in the world. The haiku poet learns to look at life very democratically. A blade of grass can equal many things. Birdsong becomes the soundtrack for your life. Along with the wind, the swell of tides, a person’s voice. You get the idea. Haiku means going green. Not just back to nature, but back to your roots as a human being. Fresh eyes. Picasso had a saying: “It takes a long time to become young.” Makes sense to me.

Haiku has been a kind of reincarnation in my poetic life. I had given up on the whole mainstream poetry publishing game. Haiku allowed me to see poetry as something new and exciting. To see poetry for what it is and always has been, for me anyway, a small song about the world I live in. A glimpse. An elevation of the pedestrian detail—the dog asleep in her strip of sunlight, the cardinal’s red, the sunflower’s bow. Haiku are the way I make my real life imaginary. And my imaginary life real.

If I have any haiku philosophy it is: say it from the start. Don’t hold back. No one else can say whatever it is you have to say. Even if they wanted to. If you don’t say it, no one else will. As Emerson said “writing means hurling yourself at the mark when all your arrows are spent.” My approach to haiku is my approach to life, which is also short.

Rediscovering haiku has been like finding a homeland I didn’t know I had. Each day is another adventure on Haiku Island, to borrow Jim Kacian’s analogy. Here on the island, I am free to wander like a curious kid who’s old enough to know there’s always more to learn. Haiku are the lessons you teach yourself. Bookmarks in the good parts of your life you might want to come back to, or share with someone else. A chronicle of perfect moments, I’ve said before. And that remains true.

What should haiku look like? Not for me to say. Whatever can be imagined. They probably should fit on a bumper sticker though. A t-shirt, maybe. I do believe in the underlying principles of Japanese haiku construction: our relationship with nature, collaboration with the reader, a wabi-sabi appreciation. A less is more approach. Less intellect and more sense. And that haiku be the poetry of the people. Inclusive, not exclusive.

I like to tell the story I either heard or made up at this point but the one about the famous old poet being interviewed by a reporter. The reporter asks: “So, what made you start writing poetry in the first place?” And the famous old poet answers: “The question is not what made me start writing poetry. It’s what made everyone else stop?”

The Haiku Society of America has an Education Committee but really it includes each of us reading and writing haiku today. We need to help spread the word about the risks of confusing haiku with the limerick, for example and the rewards of noticing something in your own back yard, for the first time, and setting it to words.

As far as the purpose of haiku? Discipline, restraint, gratitude. These are not bad life lessons just in case we didn’t get enough growing up. Basho set out on his 1,500-mile field trip for a lot of reasons, many of which we’ll never know. But one thing is clear to me. Basho sought a greater awareness and enjoyment of the fact that we, as people, are more alike than we are different. Certainly, all poetry tells us this.

So I say haiku is a way of life and people sometimes ask: what do you mean by that? Like some kind of poetry cult? Not exactly. It’s just that no matter how many times I hear the red-winged blackbird skip its stone song across the pond. I stop. Keep quiet. It’s the only proper way I know how to answer. That’s the haiku way of life.

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What does your haiku writing practice look like? Do you write daily or regularly? Do you have special times or places you like to write? Do you write longhand or on a computer? Do you revise extensively? Is there anything in particular you do to put yourself in “haiku mode?”

Again, working backward toward the truth. I have to start from now, just like in haiku. It’s more a matter of what I don’t do in order to get into the haiku mode. I try to back away from the fray. I’m a bit of an ostrich in that I stick my head in the sand when it comes to the goings-on of the world at large. That reminds me, I really do need to cancel my satellite dish service. The world will go on with or without me. Better for me to focus on the tasks at hand. This poem. This breath. Okay, that yard full of leaves. That woodpile to be stacked. “Haiku mode” is synonymous for living well. Life is full enough without being plugged-in 24/7. Am I sounding like a Luddite yet?

Writing haiku is a daily practice for me, in the early mornings, usually, sitting in the same spot with a cup of coffee and the same view that only changes with the seasons. I have stared out that east window toward the cupola of our old barn for so many years I feel part swallow, part squirrel – the one we never seem to be able to get rid of. I give up. And discover that the state of surrender is a pretty cool place to live. I continue to strive toward that home anyway. The next haiku I write starts out as an invitation to sit awhile. Be quiet. I am a witness to generations of yard fowl. I watch the hemlocks grow into themselves.

I write on my laptop from notes I scribble on pieces of paper that I carry around in my pockets. I’m not obsessed but more automatic when it comes to carrying a pen and paper. I learned early on that the role of the writer is to write what you know. So, it’s a good idea to take notes along the way. Life’s distracting. I’m sure there are many wonderful poems out there that got forgotten by me and many others. We should arm ourselves with writing utensils. At the ready.

Haiku revision? Absolutely. Only after days or weeks or longer of repeating words, committing some to memory do the real words emerge. Imposters fall away. They can’t hold on long enough. True haiku stay with you. Kerouac said “Haiku should be plain as porridge.” Maybe he also meant that the good ones fill you up, stick to your ribs.

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What does your haiku reading practice look like? Are there poets you particularly appreciate? Journals you find especially inspiring? Do you read haiku daily? Do you read mostly English-language haiku or do you read a great deal of Japanese haiku (in translation or not) or haiku in other languages? Are there books you would recommend, either of haiku or about haiku?

Read people you love. And, of course, I mean that figuratively. Read people whose poems you love. I keep certain books close by at all times. And a pile by the bed, a few on the shelf, some in the car. It’s silly almost. Books are scattered throughout my life. No one would ever guess that I actually know where and how they are “filed.” How I look at Peggy Willis Lyles’ haiku as a kind of touchstone. At Stan Forrester’s as the perfect gift. John Stevenson as a friend I never met. And many others. I have relationships with books and look at libraries with a reverence some reserve for church.

So, I read haiku everyday. A few, dozens or maybe a hundred. By all different poets. All in English. None in translation unless they are published in the handful of journals I check in on regularly: Acorn, Chrysanthemum, Frogpond, Modern Haiku, The Heron’s Nest, Notes from the Gean, Roadrunner. And a few blogs and websites I admire aside from this one include: Curtis Dunlap’s Blogging Along Tobacco Road, Kuniharu Shimizu’s haiga site See Haiku Here, Don Wentworth’s Issa’s Untidy Hut, The Haiku Foundation’s various forums, Cornell’s Mann Library’s Daily Haiku, Tinywords, and occasionally Twitter, which streams a surprising number of true talents if you don’t mind wading through a little drivel, some of it, no doubt, my own.

One thing’s for sure. I could spend my life reading the work of all the haiku poets out there. And I think that number is growing. Hope it is.

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Is there anything else you’d like to say about writing haiku? Or about how annoying these questions are?

Just a reminder to myself to always be open to new voices—my own and those of others just arriving on Haiku Island.

Rumi said: “You become what you love.” And I believe him. I like to think that I’m part haiku by now . . . open, unfinished, imperfect.

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Which of your haiku would you like to share with my readers?

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over my thoughts the hush of pines

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in the cat’s mouth
a handful of feathers
& how many songs

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mid-argument
wind chimes
we gave each other

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whatever I was thinking the cardinal’s red

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— Peter Newton

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Across the Haikuverse, No. 12: The Imperative Mood Edition

I’m feeling a little bossy this week, maybe because I’ve spent so much of it being bossed around now that I’m back at school and work after my long winter break. “Read this! Write that! Discuss! Answer these questions! Learn this XML syntax! Go to this meeting! Hand in the proper forms! Scan these photos!” Yes, yes, I know it’s the way of the world. And of course, all these things I’m being commanded to do are tons of fun and highly educational. It’s for my own good, really. But it does get a bit wearying. And I start to think, “So why can’t I give people orders to do things that are entertaining and edifying?”

So as your tour guide this week I will be issuing firm commands rather than making quiet observations or gentle suggestions. Obviously, you’re always free to ignore me and wander away to find a cup of coffee and a slightly more soft-spoken guide. But try to just go with it, okay? Pretend you’re taking, I don’t know, Haiku 101, and if you don’t do your assignments, a door will be opened and a man-eating tiger will be released … no, wait, that’s a Monty Python skit. Well, whatever. Humor me, is all I’m saying. I’m tired.

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Read These

That is, the haiku (and tanka) I stumbled on this week that made me stop and go, “Wait…what? That was cool. Say it again!”

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From Morden Haiku:

winter rain
sometimes it’s hard to know
if it’s ending or beginning

— Matt Morden

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From Daily Haiku:

twilight
the silver statue of a man
i don’t know

— Dietmar Tauchner

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From scented dust:

biting an apple

the silent sky

of midwinter

— Johannes S.H. Bjerg

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Two tanka from jars of stars:

Who is to say
that the restlessness
will end

after I tear a few pages
and break a few things?

@sunilgivesup

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I love you
she’d said until
the words were hieroglyphs
faded, in need
of interpretation

@myearthgirl

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From Mann Library’s Daily Haiku:

monarch
folding and unfolding
its shadow

– Christopher Herold

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From Blue Willow Haiku World:

毛糸編はじまり妻の黙（もだ）はじまる            加藤楸邨

keito-ami hajimari tsuma no moda hajimaru

knitting starts
my wife’s silence
starts

— Shuson Kato, translated by Fay Aoyagi

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From The Outspoken Omphaloskeptic:

the past
lives
where lightning bugs flash

— Max Stites

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From Beachcombing for the Landlocked:

old obsessions
fall away, and yet …
pine needles

— Mark Holloway

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From Yay words!:

raspberry jam
grandma asks
if I’m still
doing that
poetry thing

— Aubrie Cox

A note about this one: As with all good poetry, you can easily understand and appreciate this piece without having any additional knowledge of the backstory. But in this case, the backstory happens to be really fun. And there is actually a long tradition in Japan of publishing haiku with explanatory commentary (according, anyway, to Abigail Freedman’s The Haiku Apprentice, a book I’ll talk about more in “Dead Tree News” today). I’ll let Aubrie do the explaining, since it’s her story:

 

“My grandmother has never understood much of anything I do. On several occasions when she asked what classes I was taking I’d say something like, ‘Haiku writing roundtable,’ being exceptionally vague. I’ve always been apprehensive about showing her anything, because I know she’d take everything at face value. A couple times she picked up one of the collections I’d made of my work and opened to a random page, only to grill me for answers as to what the micropoems meant. So when I published my first haiku:

confessional
alcohol breath
from his side of the grate
(bottle rockets #21)

I wrote a senryu that reflected how I thought she’d react:

first serial publication
grandma asks
when I started drinking
(bottle rockets #22)

“One day she said she had Googled me and found my haiku. For a moment, my brain just shut down. It’s not that I don’t love my grandmother, but I had a really hard time trying to think where to begin when she started asking what this and that meant. Even more so when she asked, ‘So how do you write a haiku?’ She noted on her own that all of them seemed to have two images, but couldn’t figure out the significance. Mum and I tried to explain it to her, but I felt hard pressed where to start. That was probably about a year (or more) ago.

“This last Friday, I went over to my grandparents’ to pick up some dishes my mother had left at Christmas. While handing me the dishes (saying there was a surprise for me inside), my grandmother asked about school. I glossed over my tanka and renga courses by calling them, ‘Writing classes.’ That’s when she asked, ‘So are you still doing that poetry thing… sudoku?’ Immediately, she caught herself when I started to crack up and I told her the word she was looking for. I told her yes and left it at that. When I got into the car, I peeked inside the bag to find a homemade jar of raspberry jam. And thus a kyoka was created.”

— Aubrie Cox

Me again: I think from now on whenever anyone asks me what kind of poetry I write I will say “sudoku” and see how many of them register any kind of confusion.

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Check It Out

The journals published recently, that is. First, Contemporary Haibun Online. This is one of my favorite places for haibun, always worth perusing for an hour or three. Most haibun are really too long to post here in their entirety (I mean, you already think this column is way too long, don’t you?), but my favorites in this issue by author’s last name were these: Baker, Coats, delValle, Felton, Harvey, Kessler, Lucky, Myers, Rohrig, Rowe.

Oh, okay, you talked me into it, I’ll just throw in one here because it’s really short.

Mindfulness

Nothing lasts. Closet doors, light bulbs, refrigerators, paint, jeans – they break, burn out, quit, fade, fray. Even the breath dies. In my fifth decade, I try to pay attention, but mostly, my lungs go unnoticed.

crescent
waxing moon disappears
in a wisp of cloud

— Deb Baker

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LYNX also published this week — you may have noticed. This is the journal edited by Jane and Werner Reichhold, and I am thrilled to be published by them since Jane was so instrumental in inspiring me to write haiku and helping me get started learning about it.

LYNX focuses on collaborative and linking forms of poetry, as well as sequences by individual poets, but it also publishes some stand-alone poems. I’ll start with some excerpts from the collaborations — although they are well worth reading in their entirety, again, they’re a little too long to post here. Consider this an amuse-bouche. (I had dinner at a fancy restaurant last night, can you tell?)

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From “Four Elements Cycle: Cleaved Wind” by Claudia Brefeld, Heike Gewi, and Walter Mathois:

Traffic jam
at the lilac bush
breathing deeply

— Heike Gewi

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From “Doors” by June Moreau and Giselle Maya:

the name
I was trying to remember
came to me
just as I put my hand
on the doorknob

— June Moreau

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From “Making Soup” by Alex Pieroni and Jane Reichhold:

only the best tea
is drunk
from an empty bowl

— Alex Pieroni

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And some verses from solo efforts:

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From the sequence “The Woods Road“:

the woods road
never going
to the end of it

— Jenny Ward Angyal

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And a couple of untitled tanka and haiku:

my mother and I
in fading summer light—
stand still, she says
adding a pin
to the jagged hem

— Lisa Alexander Baron

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first frost—
the last of the roses
have lost their names

— Alegria Imperial

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Be There

In the Chicago area, that is. So close to where I live! Charlotte DiGregorio, the Midwest Regional Coordinator of the Haiku Society of America, has announced a couple of fun events to take place there in the next few months. In all likelihood I will be at both of them. Come see me! Really. I’m not scary at all, except sometimes when I’m really tired and first I start bossing people around and then I cry. But I probably won’t be doing that at these events.

Here’s the scoop, from Charlotte’s press releases:

Jan. 12 event:

 

“You can learn to appreciate and write haiku in English from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m.,  Saturday, Feb. 12 at the Winnetka Public Library, 768 Oak St., Winnetka. The program is free and open to the public. …Pre-registration is required.

“Three haiku poets will speak on topics for both beginning and experienced haikuists. …[The presentation ] ‘Learning The Fun Art of Haiku’ [will be given by] Charlotte Digregorio. The second presentation will be ‘Hey, Sparrow! The Poetry of Issa,’ given by poet Heather Jagman. … Haiku poet Michael Nickels-Wisdom will speak on ‘Beneath The Waterflower: Currents of Haiku in Lorine Niedecker’s Poetry.’ … After the presentations, participants may read some of their haiku to be critiqued by the group.

“For more information and to pre-register, contact Charlotte Digregorio, 847-881-2664.”

 

May 7 event: Haikufest

 

“Beginning and advanced poets will learn to appreciate, write, and enhance their haiku skills, from 1 to 5:30 p.m., Saturday, May 7 at the Evanston Public Library, 1703 Orrington Ave., Evanston, IL. The event with lecture, discussion, and exhibition of poetry and art, is free and open to the public. … [P]re-registration is required.

“The first presentation, [by diGregorio], ‘Haiku: A Path Leading to Conservation Thought,’ will integrate a lecture on haiku style, form, and history with a discussion of the underlying thought of reverence for nature. … ‘A Writing Life in Seventeen Syllables or Less,’ will follow, by award-winning Iowa poet Francine Banwarth. She will discuss what inspires her to write haiku, and her methods of writing with multi-layers of meaning. … Subsequently, Randy Brooks … will speak on ‘The Role of Kukai in The Haiku Tradition.’ … Preceding Haikufest, attendees may submit from three to five haiku by April 23 to Brooks at brooksbooks@sbcglobal.net. These haiku will be exhibited at Haikufest and judged. … The last presentation will be ‘Haiga: History and Technique.’ Poet and artist Lidia Rozmus  will  reveal the art of haiku accompanied by an ink painting. She will exhibit and discuss her work.

“For more information on Haikufest, and to pre-register, contact Charlotte Digregorio, 847-881-2664 or the Evanston Public Library, 847-448-8600.”

 

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Enter Here

Just a reminder … The Haiku Foundation‘s HaikuNow contest is still going on, deadline March 31st, and you want to enter because if you win you could get money for nothing and if you don’t, all you’ll be out is the three minutes of your time it will take to paste your best haiku into the submission form. Don’t be lame, enter.

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Listen Up…

… to this brand-new podcast from The Haiku Chronicles about (YES!) Issa! I don’t think I should really even have to say any more than that, unless this is the very first time you’ve read this blog, in which case you should click on the picture of the dragonfly off there to the right and get the scoop on my relationship with Issa. (We’re very close.)

This edition was written and read by legendary haiku poet Anita Virgil (it was originally published in the Red Moon Anthology in 1998 and is available at the Haiku Chronicles site as a PDF download). It is both scholarly and profoundly moving, in the details it reveals about Issa’s life and in Virgil’s response to his poetry. While deeply admiring of much of Issa’s work, Virgil feels that the extreme difficulty of Issa’s life (wicked stepmother; lifelong poverty; the early deaths of his wife and children) and the fact that he tended to use his writing as an emotional catharsis as often as an artistic outlet means that many of his haiku are either second-rate or can’t be properly considered haiku at all:

“Issa’s sheer volume speaks more of catharsis than of craftsmanship. Of the variety of Issa’s poems available to Western readers, it appears to me he wrote three very different kinds of poetry. Unfortunately, it is all presented under the umbrella of haiku. One kind manifests the aesthetic constraint which does belong to the special province of haiku. Another whose primary focus is clearly on human nature (whether treated humorously or not, containing so-called season words or not) is senryu. And the third which, no doubt, is responsible for Issa’s broad appeal as a vulnerable human being to whom all can relate, is a pure cri de coeur that cannot seriously be considered as haiku when characterized by unrestrained emotionalism, intellectualization, and a failure to stand alone without explanations. These run counter to Bashô’s advice: ‘But always leave your old Self behind, otherwise it will get between you and the object.’ Too often, Issa cannot.”

— Anita Virgil

I can’t say I really disagree with Virgil on these points — I am one of Issa’s biggest fans, and I too think that the vast majority of his 20,000 haiku are not really worth reading. But I guess I tend to think that the same is true of most poets. Maybe the effect is magnified with Issa, because he wrote so much and has had so much popular appeal, but really, poets tend to get judged by their greatest hits, and get forgiven (thank God) for the bulk of their work, which is usually not nearly to the same standard. Most of us aren’t “on” most of the time. Most of us, to one extent or another, use our poetry to help us work through what’s going on in our hearts and minds. Most of us probably feel, in retrospect, that the majority of our work would better not have seen the light of day. (Or is that just me?)

Still, this is an amazing listen and read and I highly recommend it.

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Think About It

Okay, here we are back at The Haiku Foundation again. This time for Essence #6, the latest installment of a column that “explores the roots of the ‘haiku movement’ in North America.” And, wow, is this amazing stuff: Carmen Sterba interviewing Canadian haiku poet Rod Willmot. I must humbly admit that I’d never heard of Willmot before but he appears to have lived a fascinating life and he certainly has plenty of fascinating things to say, some of which you may find controversial. I’m just going to quote a whole bunch of it and make you think about it. Discuss. Optional: Three to five page essay, properly cited, due next week.

“Let me emphasize that I never had any interest in things Japanese, that romantic enchantment that infects haiku circles across North America. Discovering haiku, for me, was like coming across an old tin can at a time of need. I need a drum—there’s my drum!  I need a scoop—there’s my scoop!  I need a knife, an amulet—there they are!  I’ve got no need for an old tin can from Japan, to be preserved and worshipped and imitated.

“The best readers know how to let themselves fall apart as if they knew nothing.

“Haiku takes the four dimensions (including time) and smashes them into a point; well, it may not always seem that way, but when it does, it can make you feel as if you’re trying to spend your life standing on one foot. This is when poets bust out of the box and start stringing haiku together, whether alone or with others, to create a kind of living-space. In the early days we didn’t need that, were incapable of it. We had to start by getting to the point. But gradually a need evolved that was not mere imitation of Japanese renga, but rather a sign of maturity: an insistence on taking the point and extending it, giving it context, connecting points and connecting poets. In this vein, I consider the haiku sequence to be an American invention, from the hand of Marlene Mountain.

“Canadians have always had a more individualistic, experience-based approach to haiku. Americans have a tendency to be dogmatic, traditionalist, rule-oriented. I first saw this when [Bill] Higginson came to Toronto in the late sixties, making himself out as an authority because he could read Japanese. Fast-forward to the bunk about season-words, and the proliferation of Japanese terminology in writing about haiku. I’m talking about the overall picture; the brightest lights in haiku have been American, but they are an infinitesimal minority, swamped and drowned out by the noisy religiosity of dead-tradition preachers. Unfortunately, the fog has drifted into Canada. The amount of publishing activity is incredible, but for quality and originality—will any of it be remembered?

black dog
snatches a tulip bulb
and tears off down the street

“This is my version of Blake’s ‘Tiger, tiger, burning bright.’ It is the seething energy at the heart of existence, the source of everything, death as well as life. It’s the wild joy I live for. And looking over my work, I see something emerging in my haiku that gives me hope, what I think I’ll call a nexus of narrative. This is different from haiku as distillation, experience imploded to a point. A nexus of narrative is the intersecting shafts of multiple dimensions, not just the four of physical experience but our countless human dimensions and others besides. Narrative, because in each shaft you sense a ‘comes from,’ a ‘oes to,’ the possibility of an entire person, a story, a mystery. This gives me hope, knowing that where I am in life now, I can write haiku as a witness, seeing with all my eyes, attentive to haiku that do not implode, do not stand still, but extend in rich and unpredictable ways . . . the ways of this reality.”

— Rod Willmot

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Save the Trees. But Wait, Aren’t Books Printed on Pieces of Dead Tree? And Aren’t We Supposed to Revere Books? Oh, God, The Moral Conundrums of Modern Life Make Me Crazy.

I didn’t get around to reading any more of Donald Keene on the development of haikai this week, because I was too busy reading textbooks and stuff, but I do have some stuff from Abigail Freedman’s The Haiku Apprentice I’ve been meaning to discuss with you all for a while, so I will seize this opportunity to do so.

I’ve mentioned Freedman’s book several times before, but apparently not for a long time. This seems strange to me, because I’m constantly thinking about it and rereading parts of it and, you know, planning to write about it, but I guess I always get overwhelmed by how much I have to say. I need to stick to one topic at a time. And the topic that feels closest to my heart right now is what Freedman (or really her Japanese mentors in the art of haiku) have to say about making sure that haiku are “the vessel into which you pour your feelings.”

That phrase comes from Momoko Kuroda, Freedman’s haiku master, who critiques one of Freedman’s haiku about cooking noodles for a family dinner by pointing out, “It isn’t just the noodles, but what they evoked for you that is worth pointing out, in this case a feeling of family harmony.” She also refers to haiku as “a piece of one’s soul.” These things are clearly even more important to her than the technical details of writing haiku — the syllables, the kigo, the kireji — though she also takes these very seriously. For her, a haiku can meet all these technical requirements and be highly proficient, and still fail at the deepest level if it does not express something that is meaningful to the writer.

Another haiku poet friend of Freedman’s, whose haiku name is Traveling Man Tree, tells her that “if you write a haiku about your personal experience, it’s impossible to express the whole experience. So you have to think about what is the most deeply impressive part — the true essence of the thing or the event — and write about that.”

And later, yet another poet friend called Professor Kotani, in trying to decide why one of her haiku had been judged a failure by Momoko, finally realizes, “Perhaps I have put too much intellectual rumination into this poem. … It lacks the sensibility of a really good haiku.”

Various other people Freedman meets tell her about the experiences and, most importantly, feelings that led them to write some of their best haiku. They don’t talk about how they chose the kigo, or made the syllables come out right, or used the kireji to good effect. They talk about a profound emotional experience — love, loneliness, severe illness — and how a profound haiku grew out of it.

So. Here’s where I abandon my humorous, carefree air and admit that I have been feeling, for quite a while, that haiku have become too much of an intellectual exercise for me, something I was using to display verbal virtuosity (insofar as I possess such a thing, which is not very far) and superficial cleverness, rather than digging down inside me to get to the really good stuff that makes poems living things instead of dead artifacts. I really need to change that, both because I have a lot of other outlets for intellectual achievement and relatively few emotional outlets, and also because haiku means too much to me for me to treat it with so little respect.

There will probably be a few changes around here in the near future, is what I’m saying. In fact, one change that I am going to announce right now is that this column will be posted less frequently — it’s been every seven to ten days, and I’d like to make it fortnightly. (You know I just really needed an excuse to say “fortnightly.”) So the next edition will be Feb. 13. Don’t worry, it will still be insanely long. Probably even longer. More stuff to write about. But this will hopefully give me a little more time to, you know, write haiku itself, rather than writing about it.

Then I’ll need to be thinking about how else to adjust my life to make more room for the writing of non-trivial haiku. I don’t have much time to think, but I’ll try to get back to you soon with my plans. I’m sure you’ll be waiting with bated breath.

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Okay, class, that’s about it for this week. I really enjoyed our little time together — the sharing, the learning, the giving out of onerous assignments, the stern warnings about academic honesty and citation procedure…I think we’re going to have a wonderful semester. But the tour’s over, so get back on the shuttle and go home. Shoo. That’s an order.

Across the Haikuverse, No. 7: Please Don’t Make Me Go Christmas Shopping Edition

Yes, it’s that time again — time to check your booster rockets, lay in a supply of freeze-dried sushi, and climb into the shuttle for a whirlwind tour of the Haikuverse.

I am going to try to make this snappy since, in anticipation of the Holiday of Boundless Capitalist Delight, I’m planning to swing back by Earth later this afternoon in an attempt to observe this planet’s December ritual of purchasing an overabundance of material goods to honor the birth of someone who spent a lot of time talking about how stupid money was. If you joined me, we could amuse ourselves by trading senryu about the foibles of our holiday-crazed fellow human beings and then repairing to a tea shop to eat cookies and regain a Zenlike state of tranquility. Wouldn’t that be fun? Oh, well, maybe next year.

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If you’re as stressed out by Chrismukkwanzaa as I am, you should go check out The Haiku Foundation’s new user forums. They have kind and helpful moderators, interesting discussion topics, opportunities to get feedback on your haiku from wiser and more experienced poets, and a generally happy, relaxed atmosphere, which we can all use this time of year.

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Chris Gordon from ant ant ant ant ant stopped by here this week and left a brilliant comment that made me very happy, which reminded me that I hadn’t visited his wonderful blog in a while. Lots of great poetry there, including this lovely one-liner of Chris’s from his 2007 book Echoes:

the rain warmer than the air around it I find your scar

— Chris Gordon

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Fiona Robyn, who posts her own lovely writing at a small stone and other peoples’ at a handful of stones, has gotten on the “write a whole bunch of stuff in a month in the company of other people” bandwagon (see: NaNoWriMo, NaHaiWriMo).

Her version is called “International Small Stones Writing Month,” and it’s headquartered at a river of stones. In a nutshell, the idea is to sign up to write one of the tiny poems Fiona calls “small stones” every day in the month of January. This seems like it would be a lot of fun for someone who, unlike me, had some extra time on his or her hands in the month of January. So if you’re one of those people, go make Fiona happy and hop on her bandwagon.

And speaking of a handful of stones, here’s one of my favorite posts from last week:

the fog finally
lifted, revealing distant
condominiums

— @HaikuDiem

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I’ve really been enjoying the haiku that George O. Hawkins has been posting lately on Facebook and Twitter. Like this one, for instance:

open water
the icy countenance
of a swan

— George O. Hawkins

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Speaking of Twitter, CoyoteSings has created a blog featuring some of the best Twitter haiku and tanka, so if you’re wondering what’s going on over there on Twitter but you don’t want to actually get an account, you could check out Jars of Stars. Here’s a ku you might like, for instance:

such heat
then snow

our lives

— @PerlyGates

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I liked this Daily Haiku entry last week:

first raindrops
an inaudible voice
on the answering machine
— Robert Epstein

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I am so glad to see that Alan Segal, who had been on hiatus from his blog for a while, is back to posting fairly regularly at old pajamas: from the dirt hut. Alan’s poetry is surreal and challenging but I like the interesting things his images do to my brain. Example:

my horse dreams
of tracing the pattern
between stars…
and, ironhooved, shape,
sew his wooden kimono

— Alan Segal

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I don’t pay nearly enough attention to haiga (there are only so many hours in the day) but every once in a while one really grabs me, like this illustration of a Ban’ya Natsuishi ku by Kuniharu Shimizu from see haiku here. (Go look at it. It’s a picture, see?)

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“Issa’s Sunday Service,” over at Issa’s Untidy Hut keeps on making me happy. Last week there was a Grateful Dead song (“Althea”) that so, so geekily references both “Hamlet” and a 17th-century poem by Richard Lovelace (and, interesting to nobody but me, I just noticed that the version of the song linked to here was recorded in 1981, when I was twelve, at the Hartford Civic Center in Hartford, CT, about fifty miles from where I was living at the time).

Then there were several poems and ku on the subject of temple bells, including:

the praying mantis
hangs by one hand…
temple bell

— Issa, translated by David G. Lanoue

Really, what’s not to like?

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At Haiku Bandit Society the monthly Full Moon Viewing Party is coming right up on the 21st. Go on over there and share your ku on the subject of the full moon. All the cool kids are doing it.

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On Michael Dylan Welch’s website, Graceguts, there is a great Lee Gurga interview, from 1991 but still well worth reading. (Michael reminded us of it on Facebook this week.) Here’s an excerpt:

My personal destiny is somehow intertwined with haiku, and has been since the dawning of consciousness in adolescence. I don’t feel this with any other kind of writing, nor with any other activity with the exception of planting trees and wildflowers. But please don’t misunderstand me: this is not to say that I suppose there is anything “special” about my work, or that it is better than the writing of those differently related to haiku. But then, of course, the aim of haiku is “nothing special”—that special “nothing special” that somehow touches us at the core of our being.

— Lee Gurga

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Over at extra special bitter, Paul David Mena blew me away with this one this week:

December rain —
the long night
longer

— Paul David Mena

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At Tobacco Road Poet, the “Three Questions” this week were answered by Jim Kacian, who is the founder and president of The Haiku Foundation and also one of my favorite living haiku poets. He wrote this, for example (and I had a really hard time choosing this one from among many other favorites), so you see what I mean:

just now
as my life turns crazy
forsythia

— Jim Kacian

It’s worth reading Jim’s answers to the Three Questions and also worth reading much of the copious other material by and about him that is available out there on the Interwebs. There is this index that can get you started. I love the first essay it links to, “Haiku as Anti-Story”, which starts out this way:

Haiku are not really difficult, once you are willing to take the words at their own valuation. … So why is it so hard? Why does it need explanation? Because the mother, friend, reader is looking for story. “Yes, it’s a lily, but what is it really?” Your audience is looking for story, but you’re giving them — anti-story.

— Jim Kacian, “Haiku as Anti-Story”

Oh — so hard for those of us who love stories so passionately to let go of that narrative pull. This makes me wonder if I am guilty of wanting haiku to do too much — if I want them, too often, to be tiny stories. It also makes me wonder if it’s really impossible for haiku ever to be tiny stories. So much to think about…
But if you really want to be blown away by the comprehensiveness of Jim’s thoughts about and understanding of haiku, you’ll have to set aside a little time to read his magnum opus: First Thoughts: A Haiku Primer. This covers everything about haiku, from history to form to content to technique to language, in exhaustive, sometimes exhausting, but exhilarating detail. (If for some reason you’re a little short on time this week and want to read a short excerpt to get an idea of what the Primer is all about, you could just read “How to Write Haiku.”) Try it, you’ll like it.

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Dead Tree News: During the same used-bookstore visit in which I picked up the Johan Huizinga book on play I wrote about the other day, I found a thick tome by Donald Keene entitled World Within Walls: Japanese Literature of the Pre-Modern Era, 1600-1867. It covers poetry, fiction, and drama. I am making my way through it slowly. Very, very slowly. Okay, so I’ve only read two chapters. But they were great chapters!

These were two of six chapters on the early development of “haikai,” which are what we know today as haiku (in case you weren’t aware, no one called them that until Shiki coined the term in the nineteenth century). Keene doesn’t even get around to Basho until chapter 5, so this is the really early development of haikai.

Some of this story was familiar to me — I knew that haikai originally were the first verses of renga, a linked verse form which at the time was primarily a kind of parlor game or a form of court entertainment, often employing crude humor or at best clever word play. But I didn’t know that no one took them seriously as an independent art form until a guy named Matsunaga Teitoku came along. He wasn’t a great poet or anything and he seems to have been a little OCD-ish in insisting that everyone follow the Official Rules of Haikai, which he kind of made up himself. (Some things never change.)

However, Teitoku did haikai the great favor of saying that it was just as valid a poetic form as renga or the fancier poetry known as waka, and also of saying that it was all right to use a simpler, more ordinary vocabulary — “haigon” — in haikai, compared to the more elevated, literary vocabulary that writers of waka usually employed. Here’s what Keene says about this development:

[Teitoku’s] insistence on haigon not only enriched the vocabulary of poetry but opened up large areas of experience that could not be described except with such words. Haikai was especially popular with the merchant class which, though it retained a lingering admiration for the cherry blossoms and maple leaves of the old poetry, welcomed a variety of poetry that could describe their pleasures in an age of peace and prosperity. … [W]ithout his formal guidance haikai poetry might have remained forever on the level of the limerick.

— Donald Keene, “Matsunaga Teitoku and the Creation of Haikai Poetry” from World Within Walls: Japanese Literature of the Pre-Modern Era, 1600-1867

So there you have it … the next time you are writing a haiku and striving to keep it simple, stupid, you can thank Teitoku.

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Okay, off to brave retail hell in the name of peace on earth. As ever, it was a joy circumnavigating the Haikuverse with you this week. I wish you many silent nights in which to read, and write, haiku, unless you are the kind of person who prefers the company of merry gentlemen this time of year, in which case, by all means, go for it.