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Editors
of haiku magazines look at haiku from a different
viewpoint than that of haiku poets. Who are these editors?
Are they just one of us but only doing an extra work?
Or, are they a totally different species? Apart from the
knowledge and skills which go with the job, are they
anyone special? Do they have feelings, frustration,
joy and sorrow, like we do? Do they fashion our haiku way
and trend, or do they follow them? Do they set standards
and styles of what we write, or do we tell them what to
do?
World
Haiku Review will visit leading editors of the world's
major haiku magazines and ask them to talk about
themselves. The first such editor is Matt Morden, the
Associate Editor of Snapshots (based in the UK), who is
going to talk about himself and his magazine in this and
the next issues.
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Kicking,
Kikaku and Kerouac - A Welsh Haiku Path (Part One)
Matt
Morden
Wales, UK
While
searching through my parent’s attic for the missing link in my
soccer stars card collection, I came across my old school exercise
books. In an English book dated 4th March 1974, there
are six haiku between my accounts of scrumping for apples and a
description of my uncle Stan. Why Mrs. Preece, the English
teacher, chose to inflict the works of Japanese masters upon us on
that day is unclear. But a light went on in my head on that day
and although it has flickered on and off since, it has never quite
gone out.
Twenty
seven years later, despite knowing little about the technicalities
of season and cutting words, possessive apostrophes or syllables
in any language, I find myself the associate editor of a
well-known haiku magazine, published in magazines around the world
and with a collection to my name. All of which would suggest that
if I can achieve this, anyone can.
Prior
to my revelatory haiku experience, I had been crowned as bard in
the Llanyrafon Junior School Eisteddfod of 1973. This had left me
with the idea that I was a poet of some local standing. This
fallacy manifested itself in my first attempt at the form during
the week following Mrs. Preece’s introduction to haiku:
The
Mountain
Capped
in white with cloudy neck,
Stands silhouetted high,
And rules over its domain.
This
attempt was not as bad as some of my later efforts, but retained
my trade mark inability to count syllables correctly.
Since
confessing to being a poet in a 1970’s Welsh comprehensive
school was a good way to guarantee a sound kicking, I kept quiet
about my literary ambitions for most of my school life. My
interests drifted to rugby, football, cricket and fishing. Beer
and girls came a little later.
These
formative years were important as throughout school and much of my
adult life, I have been among circles of friends and colleagues
for whom the very British (and particularly Welsh) culture of
making fun of other people and being made fun of, is an every day
activity. While this culture of ‘mickey-taking’ has a negative
side (a kind of tall poppy syndrome), it enables the development
of an ability to take criticism and not to take oneself to
seriously. I believe both of these qualities are important in the
development of any kind of writer and haiku poets in particular.
However,
I retained an ambition to write something throughout this period,
though I was unsure just what it might be. In particular, one of
the translated haiku in my exercise book remained with me:
Full
Moon
Bright the full moon shines
on the matting of the floor
shadows of the pines
Kikaku* (translator unknown)
The
image of the shadows of the pines in this haiku struck a chord
with me. I have a short attention span and am curious to the point
of being nosey. I also have a great affinity for natural things
and the melancholia of the seasons. So in the classroom back then
or in meetings now, I will always be the person looking out of the
window at the horse chestnut blossoms or watching the ice melt in
the water jug. While this is a good breeding ground for potential
haiku, it is not a great one for promotion.
During
my years in agricultural college, I began to read more seriously.
Travelling around the USA one summer, I came across a copy of Jack
Kerouac’s "On the Road" which seemed so much more real
than the classical and contemporary English books and poetry I had
been forced to study at school.
In
"Dharma Bums", Kerouac describes a summer spent as a
fire lookout in the forests of Northern California and it was here
that I came across haiku again. Around this time I also read Peter
Mathiessen’s "Snow Leopard", which also features haiku
extensively in a haibun like text. This book, which combines
travelogue, natural history, Buddhist thought and account of a
personal journey remains my personal favorite. It lead me not only
to Basho and the Japanese masters, but also to the truthful
narrative style found in American nature writers such as Aldo
Leopold, Barry Lopez and Annie Dilliard. The effect of the
combination these authors influenced me to write.
Like
everybody beginning to write haiku, my first attempts at the form
were terrible. However, since I have never enjoyed much English
poetry or fiction I had the advantage of not bringing my poetic
baggage to my attempts at haiku. One of the major hurdles that
those attempting haiku have to overcome is the idea that it is
poetry in the conventional sense. British poets in particular need
ten bales of poetic sensibility kicked out of them before they get
anywhere near writing decent haiku. Previously published British
poets are those with the biggest mountain to climb.
My
own climb continued while working in London in 1989. I came across
a leaflet for the British Haiku Society in a local library and
joined the organisation soon after. Reading the early issues of
Blithe Spirit encouraged me to try to develop my own writing style
and my first efforts were published in 1991. Seeing my "
haiku" in the magazine was a great boost, though in
retrospect, the quality of my work was poor. It has been the
policy of the BHS to try to include one haiku from each submitting
member in the society’s magazine. This is admirable in terms of
supporting members, but can affect the overall quality of haiku
within the magazine. It also can lead to writers thinking that
they have ‘arrived’ when in fact they have some way to go.
Membership
of the BHS also proved useful in meeting other British haiku
writers. Following my move back to Wales in 1992, I attended a
number of events, most notably a day walking on the Offa’s Dyke
Footpath as part of the Society’s 300th Anniversary
Celebration of Basho’s death. On this walk I met a number of
haiku poets including Martin Lucas, Fred Schofield and Steven
Gill. (An account of the walk is contained in ‘Rediscovering
Basho’ by Stephen Gill and Andrew Gerstle, Global Oriental
Press, 1994). Three of my haiku appeared in the haibun that was
co-written by those who took part in the event. I began to write
haiku of sorts more frequently following this walk, with my
attempts appearing regularly in Blithe Spirit and Martin Lucas’s
Presence.
In
1996 and 1998, I organised a four day walks for society members
along the Pembrokeshire Coast and North Norfolk Coast Paths (my
first meeting with John Barlow) and attended the BHS conference in
1997. The process of exposure to other and discussions about haiku
helped develop my own ideas about the possibilities of the form in
an English medium and encourage me to write more seriously.
However, living in Welsh village remote by UK standards meant that
my contact with other haiku writers was sporadic. Not being a
great letter writer, I swam for the most part in my own little
pool.
The
event which really sparked off my haiku writing was the purchase
of a computer in October 1997. I immediately joined the Shiki
mailing list, which proved to be a revelation. The exposure to a
community of haiku poets around the world, with the opportunity to
post and receive feedback on poems was a great spur to my efforts.
In particular, feedback from haiku poets such as Paul MacNeil,
Ferris Gilli, Andrea Missias and Mary Lee McClure (to name a few)
served to greatly improve my understanding of haiku forms.
Feedback
in all its forms is essential for any writer and provided that the
author is able to take constructive criticism, I cannot recommend
haiku mailing lists highly enough as a means of improving writing
style and understanding of the form. My greatest regret is that I
do not have sufficient time to give the level of feedback to list
newcomers and Snapshots contributors that I was given when I first
gained access to the Internet.
Greater
awareness of the world haiku community lead me to subscribe and
contribute to magazines in the US, Canada and beyond. More
recently I have been assisting John Barlow in the capacity of
Associate Editor for Snapshots haiku magazine. This has improved
my understanding of haiku in all its forms still further. It has
also informed my view that this form of poetry could be a unifying
force across cultural and international boundaries.
While
regional variations between haiku writers are not always easy to
understand, the celebration of these differences is to be
commended. The knowledge that there is someone in New Zealand
recording the rise of steam from a rugby hookers head, a poet in
the US watching a child search for a baseball in a cornfield, or a
Japanese haijin contemplating salt scattered across a sumo ring is
reassuring. We share the same experiences, but the accents are
different. If the world is to be made a better place, we have a
duty to understand.
thirty-ninth
birthday --
a taste of wild strawberries
lingers in the mouth
*
With great thanks to Charlie Trumbull for the detective work.
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