Select Haiku from the Members of the World Haiku Club
Susumu Takiguchi

 

in the mountains
walking into and out of
the sound of the river

Rob Scott

 

How much does this author know about Santoka? Quite a lot, I presume. That he likes the mendicant travelling haiku poet, there cannot be any doubt. Is it a bad thing if we, the lesser haijin, wrote haiku a la past masters, from Basho to Kyoshi? Not in the slightest. However, it is a very difficult, tricky and courageous thing to do. Considering these masters having covered almost everything, it strikes one as a fresh surprise to see thousands of haiku being written anew, which do not seem at first sight to be something emulating a specific haiku by them. This may be like ourselves who are each different even if our DNA is nearly identical with each other.

wakeittemo wakeittemo aoi yama 

further in yet
further in yet
green hills

 1926, Taneda Santoka 1882-1940
tr. by William J. Higginson

For Santoka, life and journey became inseparable as his death wish and having to continue to live (i.e. failure to die) became one and the same. In between these inseparable things, he lived an extraordinary life and wrote haiku about it.

Scott is not Santoka. Nor does he wish to die. However, he goes into the mountains and walks and walks and walks. As he does so, would the act of walking take on a different meaning? If so, what? Basho walked in his journeys when he was not on horseback. To walk is to walk in the journey of life which is itself a journey. Scott has walked a long way. From his homeland, Australia, to Japan to the Netherlands. No doubt, he must have gone on many journeys to different places while living in these continents and islands.

Which mountains and which river the haiku refers to hardly matters. It is amazing that without showing any specific place names, this haiku gives clear, familiar and concrete situation and its image, sound, smell and even temperature. On the contrary, by not giving real names for the mountains and the river, Scott managed to elevate this haiku from a place-specific good poem to an excellent haiku of universal value. It appeals to Japanese sensibility as well as to the Western, which is rather rare. How is it possible?

One plausible explanation could be of the two factors in the history of his countries of residence. The first factor is that he is a Westerner who chose to live in Japan. The second factor is that he has now left Japan but did not go back to Australia, his motherland, to live but chose Europe instead for his next abode. My guess is that starting to live in the Netherlands with all her international perspectives as well as native Dutch tradition has given Scott a unique position to view both his homeland and Japan objectively. This detached position must have given him a position of universality. The sense of universality of his haiku under review is a natural consequence of this state of affairs.

We cannot use the phrase beginning, "the sound of ….", carelessly and mindlessly, because of Basho’s frog poem. Scott’s haiku is a rare exception whereby I could read it without even thinking about Basho’s sound of water. Part of the reason is that because Scott used the word skilfully and in the "best" order (abiding by Coleridge) the whole poem reads very naturally. In particular, the phrase "into and out of" is so well put that it flows smoothly into the third line which is a natural and continuous part of the second line.

If I compare this haiku with more haiku by other hands, the author may well become indignant but just one more poet – Ion Codrescu of Romania. Codrescu’s haiku comparable with Scott’s are packed in his fine anthology, Mountain Voices . Though based on his journey to Farrera Valley in Spain, the mountains in Codrescu’s mind are those he visited in Japan, America etc. all combined, i.e. the universal image of mountains anywhere in the world.

Never forgetting
to take the mountain stillness
on each new journey

Ion Codrescu

Understanding schools of thought of both haiku in Japan and in the West, Scott is quietly developing his own style, form and what he wants to say anew. A fine haiku poet, chiselling away to reveal his oeuvre at once personal and universal. Long live his endeavour! We could do with some more haijin like him in our world haiku community.

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The selections in our "Editor's Choice" column represent the various genres and styles of poetry practised within the membership and mailing lists of the World Haiku Club. Specific poems are chosen as outstanding contributions. In each issue, one haiku and one poem from another genre are chosen as outstanding contributions.

Mountain Voices by Ion Codrescu

Go to Editor's Choice: Shortverses

 

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