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Editor's
Choice -
Symbiotic Poetry Select
Poetry from the Members of the World Haiku Club This
hot summer night, In
his search for "a way to assimilate as much essence and traditional
expectation of Japanese haiku while meeting the need for a natural form for
English language and poetic tradition," WHC member, Denis Garrison,
developed a haiku analogue. He has called his experimental, 17 syllable
fixed-form, the "crystalline." The poem's couplet form, a two-line
versification, serves the function of the Japanese kireji or cutting word. Our
poets of the "Editor's Choice: Symbiotic Poetry" selection for merit
and commentary, have employed a "linked verse" format, participating
together to build a larger poem out of several linked crystalline poems. Oftentimes,
on WHC's and other haiku and haiku-related mailing lists, poets are inspired by
another member's verse, resulting in spontaneous linked verses -- written in
much the same manner as "free-renku"; each subsequent verse links to
the previous one by association, and then shifts to a new subject. At the same
time, the linked poems are not bound by any other rules of Japanese renku except
those which its participants might wish to employ. In
a spontaneous "series," the poems are often written intuitively rather
than according to any agreed upon format. Like renku, the larger poem in a
free-linked collaboration develops out of several associated poems -- but
differently than renku, in that
free-linked poems are usually made up of a number of poems which are complete in
themselves. An internal renku link may be dependent on its preceding verse for
completion. The vast majority of renku verses are "uncut," i.e., have
no kireji. Kireji usually translates into Western haiku as a caesura, a major
pause. An English-language haiku could employ a punctuated or unpunctuated fragment/phrase.
The hokku, or beginning verse in traditional renku, is what we think of as
"haiku," and can employ a punctuated cut. The hokku, a free-standing
seasonal verse, is the genre from which haiku evolved. Sometimes,
in free-linked poems, two or more poets will decide beforehand to pair two
complementary finished poems as starters for a longer series. Such is the case
of "Sinking Into Dusk," where Marjorie's and Maria's linked
crystalline poem was inspired by their first and second place verses, awarded in
WHC's July 2001 Shortverses
Crystalline Kukai. These two winning crystallines became the primary verses
in the series. Communicating
through these kinds of poems in an internet setting, we can, with extra
immediacy, feel how linked we are as human beings, though living far apart and
in different cultures. While separated by time, distance, language and various
aspects, all are part of an entire creation. Let's look at this poem as both
separate [crystalline/haiku] poems, and as joined parts within the whole
[series]. Thus, we can see how a free-linked poem relates to and is, as it were,
an "offspring" of renku, while being something very different, a
hybrid of East and West. This blending is evident in both the experimental form
of haiku called the "crystalline," and in the linking of the separate,
but associated crystalline verses in a renku-like series. As with the linking
verses of a renku, each crystalline is a "slice of life" as seen from
the poet's perspective in a certain time and place. Each verse will be linked to
the previous one by some relative association: This
hot summer night, The
same stars are ever-moving in the heavens above Maria's and Marjorie's faces and
our own as they have since "the beginning." Both visual-tactile
crystallines compare the far distance of space and sky with the nearness of
human face and body. "Heat lightening" and "bones beneath your
fragile skin," as contrasted images, suggest the brevity, the transience of
our lives. If there is a weakness to this poem, particularly in relationship to
renku, I would find it in the aspect that the linked crystallines are somewhat
too closely related to each other by subject matter, as are the words
"hot" and "heat lightening." The poems are rather, by their
similarities, a set -- a pair of "like-verses," even more beautiful
when placed together. The rhythms of the verses complement each other...and
stars have a way of spinning song and story... Heat
lightning in the distance; Windchimes
at the studio window; Here
is the point where the spontaneous linking has begun between our poets. Maria
associates "hands" to Marjorie's "feeling the bones,"
retaining the exquisite delicacy inherent in the first pairing. If considering
renku "rules," an alternative word for
"lightness" might be a possibility to consider, in that the
repetition of "light," in addition to the association between
"feeling" to "hands," may create a "double
link," although the two words are different in meaning and context. Stars,
heavens, a breath of wind combined with the potter's hands shaping clay and
bones beneath skin, cause me to reflect on God, man, genesis, death and
regeneration; the spiritual stories and verses from the Bible in my Judaeo-Christian
tradition borne of an Asian land, Israel.
"...the Lord God formed man out of the clay of the ground and blew into his
nostrils the breath of life, and so man became a living being."
(Genesis 1:2 NAV) Windchimes
at the studio window; Again,
if this were renku, there would be a double link -- 1) "hands" to
"weeding," as an activity of the hands, and 2) "shaping
clay" to the "beetle burrowed", i.e. its shaping the earth into
roundness. As a free-linked series, however, the two poems and the
image-transitions between them are finely matched, balancing airiness and
earthiness, making a lovely pair. The hands that so skillfully and artfully
shape the clay also nurture and protect that which they have planted in the
garden.
"And the Lord God planted a garden eastward in Eden; and there he put the
man whom he had formed...And the Lord God took the man, and put him into the
garden of Eden to dress it and to keep it." (Genesis 2:8,15 KJV) The
underworld hole where Marjorie's beetle burrowed, burying itself in earth, is an
archetypical resurrection image. Considered, by Mosaic dietary law, an
"unclean" creature to those ancient Hebrews who exiled from Egypt just
prior to the giving of the commandments, the beetle, in Egyptian mythology had
long been associated with death and resurrection. Khepri ("he who rolls the
sun") is the scarab-beetle god identified with Re as a creator-god, often
represented as a beetle within the sun-disk. While the crystalline, as a form of
Western haiku, is objective in its imagery and wording, refraining from direct
metaphor and simile like much traditional haiku, the cultural scents or flavors
of words and images can layer the poems with hidden meanings, associations and
emotions. The author and reader may see the the imagery alone, or may recognize
further depths through those associations called up by their own cultures and
experiences. Weeding
the flower garden; The
associative link between these verses is found in comparison of the roundness
and warmth of a bird's nest to the insect's burrowed home. The theme of this
particular linkage is absence, loss and fragmentation. Whereas the absent beetle
had broken into the earth to make a nest or haven, the bird's nest has fallen,
and probably broken apart upon the earth. A sense of sadness enters with this
transition from the coziness and security of one home to a "small"
tragedy of loss concerning another. But not so small after all, the falling
apart of a home, a life, a family. In
haiku and other Japanese arts, what is not said or pictured, i.e. the
"negative space" around the "positive space" is of enormous
importance. This is the quiet space in which reality or truth may be recognized,
defined or understood. If there is an elusive "aha! moment" which is
widely discussed and often valued by Western haikuists, but not thought of (at
least, by that term) by Japanese, this would be the place of its occurrence. It
could be that the phrase "haiku moment" gets in the way of
understanding, especially between cultures. To me, the so-called "haiku
moment," and the implications of what is left unsaid, i.e. negative space,
are one and the same - and recognized in both Japanese and Western cultures by
whatever name, or no-name by which it is understood. An author or artist either
intuitively or purposefully paints it into the picture (by leaving it out!).
This is why a suggested metaphor or simile can make a haiku stronger and more
attractive than one in which the similarity or underlying meaning is spelled out
in direct terms. In any endeavor, it is what is half-hidden, waiting to be
found, which is alluring to us. As a learning tool, we remember best what we
discover ourselves rather than when facts are simply presented from a secondary
source as truth. I believe this is what is meant when it is said that art is
more truthful than factual or scientific truth, as mysterious as that may sound.
To unwrap and discover truth is profound and satisfying. And
here, in Maria's picture of the bird's broken nest, there is an unspoken
comparison in which a hidden truth awaits: the universality of broken homes
within humanity's history. Add to that, disasters: birds, beetles or humans,
none of us are immune. "Branch shadows across the path" further
illustrate fragmentation. Yet these are only tangled shadows which would seem to
break and block the path, a way toward a destination. The
broken warmth inside a fallen nest; The
sadness of brokenness deepens. To me, this pairing of verses is the strongest in
the series, followed by the final pairing. Marjorie moves intimately into the
family home, associating the falling of a nest to the failing of a parent's
physical life. An oxygen mask would seem, by visual appearance, to block air
from the lungs, but in fact, it is breath-giving, prolonging the last days of
the patient. I sense a correlation between the branch shadows and the oxygen
mask -- Mother's path toward the inevitable ending of her physical life seems
blocked temporarily, and maybe illusively, by that medical treatment which is
meant to give her a measure of help and comfort in her transition from the
physical world, through death, to the next. In these two verses I can hear
echoes of a song of David, the Hebrew psalmist and shepherd-king:
"Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear
no evil, for Thou art with me..." (Tehelim/Book of Psalms 23:4) ...and
the later words of his descendent, the itinerant Jewish prophet, Jesus,
preaching on faith, truth and situations which require great courage under
threat of death: Are
not two sparrows sold for a farthing? and one of them shall not fall on the
ground without your Father. But the very hairs of your head are all numbered.
Fear ye not therefore... (Matthew 10:29-31a KJV)
Mother
failing with each grasp of breath; Here,
I might not choose the word, "face", in that it is a major noun
employed at the very beginning of the poem. An oxygen mask is in the shape of a
small hill over nose and mouth, giving the breath of life to Mother, but as in
the shifting movement of a night-dream, the mound has now translated into the
snowy summit of a mountain (a symbol of the eternal and the heights of
spirituality). What becomes clear is, that while based in environmental nature,
the entire series is about humanity. In every verse except the last, the
presence of people is evident. This may have happened intuitively, rather than
being thought out, but it is intensely sensed and "right." A mortal
life is being "given up" while the world remains. Maria has remarkably
provided an equally gentle and powerful ending: The heights of the vast heavens
are seen above the eternal mountains as the end of day sinks into a "faint
glow of ancient redwoods." It is a burial of the sun, that giver and symbol
of light and life. Through the linkage, a hidden metaphor for Mother or Parent
and the last day is sensed. Heaven's ever-moving stars of the first line will
soon re-appear (is that glimmering star over the horizon Mother's?).
Not only does the ending of the series echo the closure of a life, it suggests
closure of the poem by subtly circling back to touch on its beginning - night
becomes day and returns with dusk. The life-blood color fades away while the
poem climaxes with the majesty of a biblical Psalm -
What is man, that thou art mindful of him? or the son of man, that thou
visitest him? Thou hast made him a little less than angels, thou hast
crowned him with glory and honour." Psalm 8.4-5 (Septuagint) A
few thoughts on new linked poetry forms There has been,
among WHC's poets, quite a lot of interest in, and activity with, "new
forms" or contemporary styles of linked verse derived from renku. As Werner
Reichhold (who coined a term for collaborative poetry: "symbiotic
poetry") had observed in his essay "A
Few More Words About Symbiotic Poetry," (Volume 1, Issue 2, August
2001, World Haiku Review), rengay, colorengas and many other of the newer linked
poem formats are themed. To employ a set theme, collaborating poets depart
radically from renku, while at
the same time, retain renku's "link and shift" from verse to verse. It
has been said that renku is fun to write, but difficult to read, which may, in
turn, make a themed symbiotic poem, while not as challenging to write, a
pleasure to read as well as compose. Participating in
renku with its subtle associations and surprising turns offers elements of games
like dominos or chess, in which players must exercise concentration and focus,
more and more as the game progresses and the poem lengthens. It can be all at
once exhilarating and intensely challenging. It is this author's surmising that
symbiotic verse, i.e., collaborative linked poetry, could easily become a major
new Western genre. Poets of Asian forms often become "hooked on
haiku." Those who use the internet quickly discover the joy of
spontaneously linking their verses to others on haiku mailing lists. Along the
way are found haiku's related forms including traditional Japanese renku and its
newer experimental Western variants. Recently,
while looking up some information on the internet about Reginald H. Blyth, who
is the subject of James W. Hackett's column
in this issue, I enjoyed reading, once again, a thread of a
scholars' discussion of R.H. Blyth on the PMJS mailing list of the Meiji
Gaukin, a university of Japan. Adrian
Pinnington of Waseda University, and author of Britain and Japan:
Biographical Portraits (1994; Folkestone, Japan Library, Kent) was invited
to participate in the thread. He spoke of Blyth concerning zen and haiku,
although his statement, quoted below, surely encompasses a broader sense of the
arts and other endeavors common to mankind: Traditions
only survive with innovation - it is surely very naive to think otherwise. Denis
Garrison, developer of the "crystalline" haiku analogue, in his essay,
"The
Need for Experimentation," published in the August 2001 issue of World
Haiku Review, wrote these observations which have been echoed by poets and
artists throughout different eras and lands: When
an art form is adopted by a different culture than that which originated the
form, it becomes the new culture's own property and it is made over in the
cultural context which it has entered... It
is a delicate balance that one must strike. One must not discard the past in
ignorance, but one also must not be constrained by the past. One must
assiduously study the rules of poetics and then ignore them. The rules of
poetics are not for writing the poem; the rules are for forming the craft of the
poet. Every time a poet puts pen to paper, poetry is reinvented - or should be! To
this end I would encourage poets to allow new offshoots of traditional forms to
develop, and to enjoy the creativity. At the same time, preserve the root with
diligence, for both are important parts of the same plant. It behooves us to
learn poetry history: its seed, and to become firmly grounded in traditional
practice and technique: the root. Of course experimentation, by its nature, will
necessitate stumbling, mistakes and many failures, but on the the other hand,
makes for new life and growth. At times, the result may even be something
successful and truly lasting. - DWB Read more about traditional renku by Paul MacNeil in the WHCrenku column
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