Poetry Friday: The Classic Tradition of Haiku

 Since 'The Classic Tradition of Haiku' is a Dover Thrift edition, I knew it would be cheap. What I didn't know was that it would be good--- better than many a higher-priced haiku book.

What's so great about it? First of all, each haiku is given not only in one or more English translations, but in the Japanese original, transliterated into our Latin alphabet.

The transliterations can be used to evaluate the sounds used in the original haiku, and to count the syllables. Though what Japanese poets are counting when they write haiku isn't exactly a syllable as we understand it.

There are over 40 haiku poets included in the anthology. The earliest one is Iio Sogi (1421-1502). He was known as a renga poet. (Haiku are a part of renga.)

Here is an example of Sogi's work:

ayafuki kuni ya
tami mo kurushiki

and will the land not fall in ruin
with its commoners in distress 

This haiku is 7-7 rather than the common 5-7-5, is not about nature, and lacks a season-word, and so is different from what we normally think of as classic haiku.

The most recent poet included is Masaoka Shiki (1867-1902), last of the four great historic haiku writers.  Here is an example of his work.

harusame ya
kasa sashite miru
ezoshiya

spring rain
browsing under my umbrella
at the picture-book store

This is more like the haiku we are used to, though by my count it's 5-7-4. It does have a season word, however.

This little book is a delight. Useful not only to the haiku poet and haiku fan, it's also a great book for a homeschooling mom teaching a poetry unit, or for a school teacher.

This is how I am using the book lately to learn to write haiku: each day I copy out one haiku into my composition book. I then use it for a model--- or just for inspiration--- to write one of my own. Here is one I did using the above haiku by Sogi as a model:

when tranquil deer mouse trembles
the whole field jumps at shadows

(c) Nissa Annakindt 2014

This is a post for Poetry Friday. Visit the others here: http://www.nowaterriver.com/a-child-can-be-the-poetry-friday-roundup/



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Poem: Don't Look At My Face

Don't look at my face.
No change, just large bills.
One wrong move will be your last.

(c) Paul Violi
haiku
Found in 'Haiku in English: The First Hundred Years', edited by Jim Kacian, Philip Rowland, Allen Burns.

Review: The poetry book 'Haiku in English: The First Hundred Years' is a fine collection of English-language haiku from Ezra Pound and Wallace Stephens onward. This poem is actually found in the Authors' Foreward.

This is the first poem other than my own to be featured in this blog. Since it is one I found in a book, this post is officially a review of that book and a sample of the delights to be found within.


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Poem: Cry of Cicadas

Cry of Cicadas
cry of cicadas
cover the sounds of the knife
slayer in night fog

9/6/2014 – haiku
5-7-5, autumn season words (cicada, night fog)
(c) Nissa Annakindt


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Poem: catpoem/claudius

catpoem/claudius
 
To my cat Claudius
there is a military force
at the nervous crane.


(c) Nissa Annakindt

NOTE: Poem from my book Opium Cactus. 
If modern poetry is drawing words out of a hat, this is the high-tech equivalent--- a Babelfish poem. Babelfish poems are created by writing an ordinary sentence, translating it into an exotic language (Asian languages work best) using Babelfish. You then cut-and-paste the Babelfish translation back into the Babelfish window, and re-translate it back to English. Or some other language. You use the resulting word-salad as source material for your poem.

'catpoem/claudius' came to be when I wrote the sentence 'My cat Claudius has a neurological disorder' and translated into-out of Korean using Babelfish. The translation it spat back is exactly what you see here, I only had to arrange it into haiku form.

My cat Claudius, by the way, was the best cat ever invented. He had a neurological condition and walked crooked and stumbled a lot. The vet advised me to let him live in the house. When the house cat Cheney had kittens, Claudius managed to stumble into the kitten basket and became the official kitten-sitter. One of the kittens, Germanicus, became his best buddy for life. Both Claudius and Germanicus died, I believe from drinking some antifreeze from a bottle that was cracked.

Claudius as a kitten