for:
WHCschools Hibiscus Petals |
 |
From
time to time, WHC's forums invite guests to present lessons or essays, and to
judge kukai. World Haiku Review is pleased to announce a new Feature Article,
"Guest Speakers' Corner", christened by Peggy Willis Lyles. A member
of World Haiku Club, Peggy was invited by WHCschools' Hibiscus School
instructor, Ferris Gilli, as a Guest Speaker to give a lesson in September 2001.
Peggy invited members to "kansho" (appreciate) a haiku by Mrs. Gilli.
The results of the kansho may be found in the WHCschools Hibiscus Petals Column.
Regarding
Poetry: the Shape of the Song
Peggy
Willis Lyles
Georgia,
US
Members
of The Hibiscus School understand that there are many differences between haiku
in English and most other Western poetry. In fact, on March 3, 2001, Ferris sent
you a message that included this directive:
Regarding
poetry. Folks, when you start to write a haiku, forget everything you know and
have ever been taught about Western-traditional poetry. Haiku is not like any
other form of poetry, and it is dangerous to think "poetically" or to
even consider using poetic words or phrases when you are ready to write a haiku.
Some
of you probably found yourselves writing better haiku the minute you began
taking that advice. Others may remember an earlier time when you recognized the
need to set aside poetic and figurative language--and preconceived notions in
general--so that you could meet haiku face to face and begin writing effectively
about your discoveries.
Assuming
that you are well-grounded now in the attitudes and techniques that lead to good
haiku of the Hibiscus School, I believe there may be some value in looking again
at basic discussions of English-language poetry and giving a little thought to
how English-language haiku fits in. In the Preface to his 1997 award-winning
haiku collection Endgrain, published by Red Moon Press, Dee Evetts wrote,
"Fundamentally, haiku is a literary genre. For all its brevity, it must
ultimately be assessed by the same standards as all other literature. That is,
by its aptness, wit, accuracy, felicity of language, and by its lack of
sentimentality and moralizing. The future of English-language haiku is
unknowable, but there is no escaping that such criteria will continue to
apply."
I
have been thinking recently about the place in Twentieth-Century British and
American literature of what we call "The Haiku Movement." It is much
more significant, I believe, than literary scholars have yet recognized. In
pursuit of this thought I have considered many anthologies of twentieth-century
poetry and also reviewed some standard Introduction to Poetry textbooks,
especially various editions of Literature: an Introduction to Fiction, Poetry,
and Drama by X.J. Kennedy; Western Wind: An Introduction to Poetry
by John Frederick Nims and David Mason; and Sound and Sense by Laurence
Perrine The latter, my favorite, is also included in Perrine's more
comprehensive Literature: Structure, Sound, and Sense.
Much
of what the various texts say about good poetry in general is applicable to
haiku. The language of poetry is compressed. Poets and readers of poetry must
pay close attention to the denotations and connotations of words. Poetry relies
on sense images to convey its meaning, and that meaning is more a matter of the
poem's total experience than something that could be summed up or paraphrased.
The dictionary meanings of a poem's words plus connotations that collect from
past experiences with them plus the immediate experience of sense images and the
complex associations they touch--all these things and more contribute to the
meaning of a poem--and a haiku. Haiku along with other poems deserve more than
one reading. If possible, they should be read aloud. While they often spark
immediate recognition and appreciation, they give up their full meanings more
slowly. They are, in fact, the most compressed of all poems. I like to think
that means they are charged with extra energy and vitality. Certainly, they
engage the reader as a co-creator. All good poetry is selective, leaving much
unsaid. As Yoko Sugawa tells us, "In order to say ten things a haiku
presents only two." Those two, though, are so carefully selected, simply
and clearly presented and so interwoven with rich textures of suggestion and
association that the receptive reader, willing to enter the poem and do his
part, has what he needs to find the other eight things and possibly even more!
Western
poetry often introduces additional sense imagery through figurative language. In
his valuable essay "Toward a Definition of the English Haiku" George
Swede examines various criteria or "rules" governing haiku and
concludes that the one which insists it "usually avoids poetic devices such
as metaphor, rhyme, etc." is unnecessary; Global Haiku:Twenty-five Poets
World-wide, edited by George Swede and Randy Brooks, Mosaic Press 2000, and
on-line at:
http://www.epiphanous.org/mark/haiku/swede.definition.html
Why,
then, are newcomers to haiku writing urged to avoid simile, metaphor,
personification and other traditional tropes? There are many good answers, I
think, but the most important is that haiku poets, certainly those who follow
the guidelines of The Hibiscus School, place high value on the creatures and
things of this world just as they are, each unique in its essential nature and
worthy of unobscured attention. Comparing one thing to another often seems to
diminish both. Consider Speculation 813 by Robert Spiess (Modern Haiku,
Vol. XXXII, No 2, page 89): "Although simile occasionally occurs in
Japanese masters' haiku, it is rather rare. Perhaps for us the main reason that
good haiku seldom use simile is exemplified by the proverb 'Comparisons are
odious.' Haiku is the comparison-less poetry of Suchness." On March 24,
2001, Christopher Herold addressed The Hibiscus School directly concerning
"Poetics and Personification in Haiku." Here is part of what he said:
"The haiku is capable of taking us to a place of simplicity and thusness
that cannot be even closely approached with the use of flowery Western poetic
devices. For the most part I find that those devices, used as lavishly as we
tend to use them, block our reaching to the very crux of an experience. Simile,
personification, overt metaphor, personal pronouns, narrative constructions, all
tend to be jeweled fingers. We gaze at them rather than the moon towards which
they point."
Please
don't get carried away, though, and start drafting a strict RULE prohibiting
figurative language in Hibiscus-worthy haiku. Instead, let's look at a
delightful haiku by Ferris Gilli herself:
night
rain
the small serrated song
of a frog
The
Heron's Nest
Vol.
II, No. 1
January, 2000
The
nine words tell me enough that I can recreate the essence of the experience. Can
you? I can imagine it as either an inside or outside moment. I am conscious of
darkness and of the sound of rain, and perhaps the sight, touch, and smell of
it, too. Then the frog song starts--small in the context of night and the rain,
but this is not a weak sound. Not a smooth one either. I would like the haiku if
it read "night rain/the small song/of a frog." I like it ever so much
better because Ferris has included the figurative adjective
"serrated."
How
can a song be serrated? It is not a thing with saw-like teeth or sharp
projections. A frog doesn't even sound much like a saw. Besides, don't we
usually trim adjectives from haiku whenever we can? I happen to know that Ferris
counts this among her personal favorites. Both the experience and the words to
record it came simply, clearly, and naturally as true haiku gifts. How do you
"see" the haiku? How do you "hear" it? Thoughts of patterned
roughness, and of ability to cut slowly, expand sensation and meaning. What
other associations do? What does the haiku say about nature and the poet's
response to it? How do you enter the poem and participate? What do you find
there?
I
invite you to write a brief kansho (appreciative commentary) about this haiku
and send it to me at:
plyles@worldnet.att.net
I
will save your notes until midnight eastern time on Monday September 10th and
then collate them to post to The Hibiscus School. I will include your name or
not according to your instructions. It should be interesting and informative to
compare the responses. As you are considering "night rain" and
collecting your thoughts, please have a look at this award winner which also
suggests more than it says:
June
breeze
a hole in the cloud
mends itself
an'ya
The Heron's Nest
Valentine's Awards 2001
Ferris's
essay about it might help you decide how to approach an appreciation of
"night rain." Even if you don't need that sort of model, reading
an'ya's haiku and Ferris's commentary side by side will be a fine experience.
You will find them here:
http://www.theheronsnest.com/haiku/0302V7935/thn_rc_2.html#POEM3
Now
let's think a little more carefully about the figures of speech we would want to
use sparingly, if at all, in haiku. Perrine describes them clearly and well:
"Metaphor and Simile are both used as a means of comparing
things that are essentially unlike. The only distinction between them is that in
simile the comparison is expressed by the use of some word or phrase, such as
like, as, than, similar to, resembles, or seems;
in metaphor the comparison is implied--that is the figurative term is
substituted for or identified with the literal term" (Literature:
Structure, Sound, and Sense, fifth edition, Laurence Perrine with Thomas R.
Arp, Harcourt Brace Jovanovich 1988, page 565. All page numbers in parentheses
refer to this edition).
Personification
gives "the attitudes of a human being to an animal, object, or
concept" (568). An apostrophe "consists in addressing someone
absent or dead or something nonhuman as if that person or thing were present and
alive and could reply to what is being said" (569). Probably you are
already thinking that you would not want to waste valuable words setting up a
formal simile in a haiku.
Maybe
you are thinking, too, that juxtaposition in haiku sometimes calls
attention to similarities between two essentially dissimilar things. That is a
much more compressed and efficient way of doing so, isn't it? It seems to show
more respect for the reader, too, letting her draw her own conclusions instead
of directing or spelling things out.
Are
you also thinking about Issa's use of personification and apostrophe? Maybe you
have some specific examples in mind from other haiku masters, too. There are
many of them. Such tropes are seldom used in contemporary
English-language poetry, though, except perhaps to create humor. Most of us
would feel awkward and a bit silly using them. That's probably just as well
because our readers would be likely to find direct address to an owl, lily, or
moose pretty far out.
Perrine
says, "a symbol may be roughly defined as something that means more
than what it is " (585). Then he goes on to clarify various figures of
speech in a passage that I find especially relevant to haiku:
"Image,
metaphor, and symbol shade into each other and are sometimes difficult to
distinguish. In general, however, an image means only what it is; the figurative
term in a metaphor means something other than what it is; and a symbol means
what it is and something more, too. A symbol, that is, functions literally and
figuratively at the same time. . . . Images, of course, do not cease to be
images when they are incorporated in metaphor or symbol" (585).
We
know the importance of sensory experience to the perception of haiku and the
value of concrete images in presenting those perceptions to readers so that they
can recreate the experience and share the feelings it evoked. We know too that
words and images stir associations in perceptive readers and suggest more than
the haiku says. Some simple words, "home," for instance, or
"forest," or "snake" may call up deep images with
associations that touch the universal or archetypal. Colors often mean more to
us than we can explain. Tastes and smells are powerful in raising memories. Some
haiku mean what they say and nothing more. If they recreate a given time and
place in clear sensory detail so that readers can go there again and again--and
continue to find value in doing so-- that is certainly enough. I don't think
good haiku mean something different from what they say. Haiku have a way of
being honest and true. They don't mislead us. Most, though, mean what they say
and more as well.
Let
me say that again: most good haiku mean what they say and more as well. Take
season words, for example. Frogs, herons, chrysanthemums, and snowstorms mean
what they are in haiku, but they also enrich the poems with a whole context of
the season they represent and whatever the poet and reader may associate with
that season. Spring suggests youth and beginnings; autumn ripeness and
completion--and we could write pages and pages about the connotative,
suggestive, associative, and symbolic possibilities of each season.
We
often hear comments about the metaphorical qualities of kigo. According to
Perrine's definition we would do better to think of them in terms of symbol. For
those who know traditional Japanese literature, season words stir memories of
earlier haiku, too. Sometimes a haiku alludes to a well-known earlier one that
uses the same kigo. Image, metaphor symbol, allusion? There is little to be
gained by quibbling over definitions and distinctions. What matters is that
season words can expand the meaning of a haiku and deepen its emotional
resonance.
Please
have a close look at another exceptional haiku:
a
curtain billows
before the rain
scent of roses
Ferris
Gilli
The
Heron's Nest Award
Volume II, Number Eight
August 2000
Beautiful,
isn't it? I feel the motion, sense the coming rain, smell the roses. If there
were nothing more to the haiku than that, it would be a gift and a pleasure. The
specific details create a strong sense of anticipation, too. Pleasant
anticipation. "a curtain blows" means what it says . . . and much
more. Christopher Herold's appreciative Heron's Nest Award essay presents a fine
reading of it. You will find it here:
http://www.theheronsnest.com/haiku/0208w6565/thn_issue.c1.html
For
enjoyment and to learn more about good haiku, I recommend all the Heron's Nest
essays. The haiku discussed are of high quality and are varied in subject matter
and technique. The essays underscore many ways that haiku can succeed and excel.
Other
excellent resources are the Kansho Column features at WHCacademia.
Susumu Takiguchi posted an especially fine one on July 26, 2001. It discusses Yamaguchi
Seishi's superb 1944 haiku about winter wind blown out over the sea and
unable to return, a poem of deep imagery and profound sadness. That universal,
perhaps archetypal, sadness of winter and loss deepens almost unbearably as we
realize the poet was thinking of young Japanese airmen flying toward their
deaths at sea. They were given enough fuel to reach their targets but none for
return or escape. I agree with Susumu that this may be one of the best haiku
ever written. Please find and study the Kansho if you haven't done so already.
There is, in fact, considerable value in each of the Kansho postings so far. I
intend to go back to them often and to watch eagerly for new ones.
Haiku
thrives world-wide. It can be both accessible and profound. It celebrates
moments of human life and establishes bonds among poets and between poets and
readers. For many, it is at least as much a way of life as a form of literature.
There is every reason to believe it will become even more popular in the
twenty-first century and that among the millions of haiku composed and shared
there will be many that should be recognized as great literature.
Is
it safe, then, for haiku poets to remember some of what they know about Western
poetry and even, perhaps, to have a fresh look at its characteristics? I think
so. If Hibiscus poets keep the school's basic criteria firmly in mind, they are
not likely to go astray as they consider the many ways that haiku communicate
experience and the many levels on which some of them can be read. It won't hurt
us either to review ways we can make sound reinforce meaning. But that is a
topic for another time. For now let me go on record as one who will continue to
use figurative language and other poetic devices sparingly if at all while
concentrating on openness, participation, and discovery. At the same time, I
believe that genuine haiku are likely to be multileveled and not easily
exhausted. I would expect perceptive observation, deep feeling, and fresh
insight to result in images that mean what they say--and much more.
English-language haiku is a valuable part of world literature with an audience
capable of nurturing great poets.
Peggy
Willis Lyles has been contributing haiku to such journals as Frogpond and
Modern Haiku for more than twenty years. Her work appears in a number of
anthologies, including The Haiku Handbook, 1985, by
William J. Higginson, with Penny Harter;
and Haiku
World, 1996, edited by William J. Higginson; The Haiku Anthology, 2nd
and 3rd editions, 1986 and 1999, edited by Cor van den Heuvel; A Haiku Path,
1994, the Haiku Society of America; and Global Haiku, Twenty-five Poets
World-wide, 2000, edited by George Swede and Randy Brooks; Haiku Moment,
edited by Bruce Ross; and several Red Moon Anthologies. She was a grand prize
winner of The Heron's Nest Readers' Choice Awards 2000, and a grand prize
winner in the 2000 Einbond Renku Competition. Peggy's chapbook Thirty-Six
Tones was published by Saki
Press in 2000 as a Virgil Hutton Haiku Memorial Award winner.
WHCschools
Hibiscus Petals Column
WHCschools
Hibiscus Petals Kansho
Yamaguchi
Seishi by Susumu Takiguchi
|
Back
| Next |
