Religion tells us that the world is grounded in mystery—and cannot be wholly understood rationally or empirically. The Muslim scholar Muhammad Asad wrote, "Man is unable to explain to himself the mystery of life, the mystery of birth and death, the mystery of infinity and eternity."(1)
pulling light
from the other world ...
the Milky Way(2)
Yatsuka Ishihara
Flannery O'Connor wrote that the aim of writing is to embody this mystery.(3) We need not venture far to be touched by the experience; small daily events can open the door to us.
how deer
materialize
twilight(4)
Scott Mason
Mason appreciates how the deer seems to materialize from nowhere—almost as if by magic. He appreciates the unique, inbred skill of the animal. One can imagine the questions that follow such an encounter: How was this marvelous animal created? What about the countless other creatures in this world? For that matter, how was the world created?
Of course, the twentieth and twenty-first centuries have seen immense advances in science. Some have observed that modernity and science have predisposed us against mystery. But science, while shedding light on many unknowns, at the same time offers new avenues of wonder about the nature of life and the universe.
Venus and
the paying mantis
born from the foam(5)
Takenami Akira
How important is the element of mystery to your reading and appreciation of haiku? Is it a theme that crops up (or that you develop) in your haiku? The practice of suggestion is a hallmark of haiku. Rather than explicitly providing a meaning to the reader, the haiku approach encourages the reader to engage with the poem, and help contribute to its meaning. It can be argued that this approach makes haiku more hospitable to mystery than other poetic forms. Have you found this to be true?
Notes
(1) Muhammad Asad, Islam at the Crossroads (Gibraltar: Dar al-Andalus Ltd, 1982), 3.
(2) Yatsuka Ishihara, Red Fuji: Selected Haiku of Yatsuka Ishihara, trans. and ed. Tadashi Kondo and William Higginson (Santa Fe: From Here Press, 1997), 73.
(3) Flannery O'Connor, Mystery and Manners: Occasional Prose, ed. Sally Fitzgerald and Robert Fitzgerald (New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2001), 124.
(4) A New Resonance 6: Emerging Voices in English-Language Haiku, ed. Jim Kacian and Dee Evetts (Winchester, VA: Red Moon Press, 2009), 109.
(5) Takenami Akira. World Haiku Association website. http://www.worldhaiku.net/poetry/jp/a.takenami/a.takenami.htm (http://www.worldhaiku.net/poetry/jp/a.takenami/a.takenami.htm). Accessed September 9, 2010.
David, thank you for your thoughtful new discussions. With regard to this particular discussion, I would respond by acknowledging that I am especially drawn to haiku that contain an element of mystery. Not just that they invite the reader in to be part of the experience, but that even as the reader enters, they are not precisely certain that they can solve every aspect of the mystery that is there. The haiku remains open and inviting -- and mysterious.
I am not certain about the appropriateness of posting another poet's work here without their permission, but I'd point to a couple of pages in the Haiku Registry: Christopher Herold's "almost dawn" and Carolyn Hall's "so suddenly winter" are just two quick examples of haiku that continue to pull me into their mystery in a fully satisfying way.
Often, part of that element of mystery is a sort of minor-key melancholy that has always lured me, whether in music or novels or poetry. Certain poems by W. S. Merwin. The novels of Hermann Hesse. Too many examples to include here. Whether there was already something within me that responded naturally and inevitably to this mystery - or whether the mystery itself pulls me in - I do not know. But that it influences my work seems obvious to me when I look back through my notebooks.
I'll include one of my own that might be appropriate (or not):
what's left of my faith:
light from one star
in a blue-black sky
Billie Wilson
The Heron's Nest XII:2 (2010)
An interesting topic. Thanks for posting.
I believe it is a natural phenomena for us to be attracted to mystery. They say "curiosity killed the cat" but more importantly, "curiosity attracted the cat" ... lets leave it there for the sake of the cat! :) Mystery is a fabulous tickler of curiosity. It draws our interest. We wonder what more is there. Mystery stimulates us to ponder and to search.
Haiku are particularly great if they have an air of mystery. I'm not saying the others are less for not having so. But, there is a greater draw of the human psyche by the ones that do.
One to share:
settling ...
shadows deepen
in the lake
and on a spiritual note:
settling ...
His shadow deepens
in the lake
An enjoyable thread. I hope I haven't messed it up with my ramblings ...
all the best
Don
Hi Billie,
Thanks for your observations. Your comment about the haiku remaining "open and inviting" reminds me of an observation in an essay from Paul Williams, "Engagement and Detachment in Haiku and Senryu." Paul wrote: Haiku writers "know often that what they write hangs in the air, with the feeling of meaning, with what has been called mystery. We do not 'get it,' though we know something just out of reach is there to get, and this uncertainty, pregnant with possibility, swells with life and so with satisfaction."
I really like your haiku from The Heron's Nest. For me, it nicely reflects the fact that faith is a process -- sometimes fading, and sometimes strengthening.
Hi Don,
I like this idea of mystery as a natural attractive force for us. I hadn't thought about it in this context before.
I like both versions of the haiku.
David
You know, David ... this is a really attractive piece on many levels:
Venus and
the praying mantis
born from the foam(5)
Takenami Akira
When I read it on my visit earlier, it struck me: now that I read it again, it strikes me more. This poem is really something! I'm deeply enjoying your topics. If I'm not writing here, you can be sure I'm still reading. Thanks for an area for such special appreciation of these gems and ponderings.
all my best,
Don
I like mystery
for me that is the beauty of life. If it were possible to know everything then that would be truly dreadful because there would be nothing left to exist for.
Plato said "know thyself" and i believe that is the goal; if we can truly gain an understanding of self then perhaps we may just have some insight and empathy for the plight of others. Of course, the path to understanding self is to first deny self but putting others before yourself is contrary to modern living.
Anyway I am happy that I see through a glass darkly and God is unfathomable because if he wasn't then he would be redundant.
blue sky
before me
beyond me
colin stewart jones: A Seal Snorts out the Moon (2007)
Just as it is impossible to know everything outside ourselves, it is also I believe impossible to know all that is within ourselves, because we have imagination, and potential,and evolution if we doubled our lifespan, my feeling is we would still surprise ourselves every now and then. As above so below.... for me this speaks volumes for the intelligence and love behind the whole of creation and there is no way i can give it a name, I respect all other religions but to me they are flowers in the whole garden of all that is. There are times when my mind is idling and empty that a hint of this love and intelligence is felt and recognised and it feeds the love in me for it's unfathomable mystery and all within the totality. This probably sounds like rambling... so hard to put into words... like Colin somehow I am content to exist in this mystery and it brings to life more love and trust, more love for all...
ps
Quotebut putting others before yourself is contrary to modern living.
thinking about this... a question?
if love lies within self would it not be painful for self to deny that love inside ?
....and maybe more so if that love inside is unconditional love ?
mystery ...
a shadowless
shadow
Hi Don,
The Takenami Akira poem is a stunning one for me, too. He's able to address an intellectual, scientific topic -- something not usually approached successfully in haiku. And it's a simple, declarative sentence!
And thanks for the interest in the column!
Colin and Gael,
Thanks for the very good point about internal mystery. It reminds me of endeavors like psychoanalysis -- the time and work involved in learning about one's interior life.
And Colin's point that "if we can truly gain an understanding of self then perhaps we may just have some insight and empathy for the plight of others" is absolutely true. I also would say that this self-knowledge, and the capacity to empathize that is derived from it, is necessary for haiku poets. A haiku poet (or poet or artist in general) that cannot empathize with others will probably write one-dimensional poems.
These discussions of internal and external mysteries are interesting to me. It's one of the reasons I tend to navigate to haiku that's nature based...it allows a certain view point that seems to me to allow things to be shared and explored without knowing the answers.
For me, the best haiku/senryu are those that are multi-layered and have an element of universality and for which I keep returning because they remain mysterious. Like Chinese boxes fit one into another but never quite reaching the last one. The unknown is the mystery (once you thoroughly know something it is no longer a mystery ) I further believe that it is possible for me to know something--but it does require me to travel inward (I believe what I see outward is simply a reflection of what's going on inside.) For me, it's an involutionary journey --a matter of becoming who I already am by eschewing the obstacles that seem to separate me from the universe--and a multi-level haiku poem can bridge the gap.
diving inward
no distance now between
me and the moon
--hairy
Al, I like your Chinese box metaphor.
Read in the context of Japanese haiku, one of its poetic characteristics related to our discussions here is "yugen."
The compound "yūgen" 幽玄 (lit., depth and mystery) is made of two Chinese characters: "Yū" means "faint, dim," and also "deep;" "gen" indicates the black color, the color of heaven, something far away, something quiet, and an occult principle. We find the character "gen" used in the Tao te ching (Classic of the Way and Integrity) to describe the "Way:
These two—the nameless and what is named—emerge from the same source yet are referred to differently. Together they are called obscure (Ch. xuan; Jpn. gen), the obscurest of the obscure, they are the swinging gateway of the manifold mysteries.1
Thus, "yūgen" is something well beyond the reach of man's immediate perception and understanding, since it is too deep and too far for humans to reach, even conceptually. In ancient China, yūgen came to indicate the other world, as well as the Taoist Way and Buddhist enlightenment.2
-- Yūgen (http://simplyhaiku.webs.com/michaelmyugenessay.htm) by Michael F. Marra
The first book on this topic is Peipei Qiu's Bashō and the Dao: the Zhuangzi and the transformation of Haikai.
And the contrasts/comparisons in your haiku are impressive.
Here is my response haiku:
the distance between
my attic and the moon --
April rain
(alluding to T. S. Eliot's The Burial of the Dead)
Chen-ou
Thanks, Chen-ou for your contribution here and your thought-provoking response ku. I never knew that my Chinese Boxes metaphor had such a profound and far-reaching meaning beyond just the literal. The named issuing forth out of the nameless, both from the same source. Wow. Thanks for shedding some light on those Chinese Boxes--I realize now that they have a significance beyond the decorative. Live and learn.
Al
Quote from: hairy on January 20, 2011, 10:26:17 AM
The named issuing forth out of the nameless, both from the same source.
Al
Al, this observation is dao-esque.
Thanks for sharing.
Chen-ou
"But science, while shedding light on many unknowns, at the same time offers new avenues of wonder about the nature of life and the universe." David
Yes, indeed, it does. Mystery and more mystery. 8)
Here's one of mine, selected by Scott Mason for the 2010 HSA members' annual, sharing the sun.
a bubble trail
through dark water. . .
platypus genome
and another, earlier one:
a dream time
before theirs and mine . . .
Wollemi Pine
FreeXpresSion (Australia), March 2008
- Lorin
... and one for Chen-ou 8)
ever-moving mist. . .
another poet climbs
the Huang Shan
Simply Haiku, vol. 4 no.1, Spring (USA) 2006
- Lorin
these
cells
soon
done
w
me
john martone
Al and Chen-ou,
I too like the Chinese boxes metaphor. I love both haiku. I've heard anecdotally from a lot of haiku poets that they enjoy haiku that take a non-literal approach. I'm reminded of Robert Bly's discussion about the intuitive approach to poetry as "leaping" because leaps are taken "from the conscious to the unconscious and back again."
Lorin and Mark,
As I remarked earlier, I have a weak spot for scientific concepts in haiku. It can be difficult to use these in a haiku and still evoke a strong and visceral response. Both the "platypus genome" and "these / cells" do it well.
Lorin,
A string of little gems infused with evocative imagery and deep thoughts.
I love your Huang Shan haiku.
There is a Chinese saying: "Since ancient times, there has been a sea of mist and clouds over Mt. Huang Shan."
The opening line could be read literally and symbolically.
David:
Glad you mentioned Robert Bly's discussion about the intuitive approach to poetry.
I wrote an introductory essay (the first draft) on Robert Bly's leaping poetry, entitled Leaping Poetry: More Than a Leap from One Image to Another.
Share with you an excerpt relevant to our discussion:
In his most anthologized essay entitled A Wrong Turning in American Poetry, by making the comparative reading of the poems by European and South American poets and also some medieval Arabic poets against those of contemporary and recent American counterparts, Bly criticizes his fellow American poets that "these men have more trust in the objective, outer world than in the inner world," and quotes Rainer Maria Rilke's Letters to a Young Poet as a forceful suggestion: "You are looking outward, and that above all you should not do now. There is only one single way. Go into yourself." He proceeds to enhance his argument by continuingly juxtaposing passages from both camps of poetry for comparison, showing a stark distinction between American-centred conventional narrative verse and a European- and Latin American-dominated daring imagistic style.
Like Pound, Bly is highly interested in turning poetry away from a narrative style to one infused with evocative images, which would elicit a strikingly profound effect in the mind and heart of the reader. He firmly asserts that "the poetry we have now is a poetry without the image" by which he means deep image. He attacks Pound's imagist approach to the "image", which is, in his view, merely a "picture:"
"The only movement in American poetry which concentrated on the image was Imagism, in 1911-13. But 'Imagism' was largely 'Picturism.' An image and a picture differ in that the image, being the natural speech of the imagination, can not be drawn from or inserted back into the real world. It is an animal native to the imagination. Like Bonnefoy's 'interior sea lighted by turning eagles,' it cannot be seen in real life. A picture, on the other hand, is drawn from the objective 'real' world. 'Petals on a wet black bough' can actually be seen."
("Petals on a wet black bough" is taken from Pound's iconic imagistic poem entitled In a Station of the Metro, he demonstrates his imagistic characteristics in two lines: precision of imagery, clear, sharp language, and experimenting with non-traditional poetic forms. I wrote a review essay on how to read his poem in a contextualized setting. You can read its full text (http://chenouliu.blogspot.com/2010/04/three-readings-of-ezra-pounds-metro.html) on my poetry blog)
Bly writes against the imagist tendency to abstraction and objectivity, seeing it as "merely another form of the flight from inwardness." The poetic image he has learned from the masters of European and Latin American poets and advocated for involves psychic energy and movement, and he clearly states that:
"Let's imagine a poem as if it were an animal. When animals run, they have considerable flowing rhythms. Also they have bodies. An image is simply a body where psychic energy is free to move around. Psychic energy can't move well in a non-image statement."
In his ground-breaking 1975 book entitled Leaping Poetry: An Idea with Poems and Translations, Bly offers a different version/vision of a poetics of the image, a poetics of leaping between the consciousness and the unconsciousness, and he makes his assertion about psychic energy, a concept that is deeply rooted in the psychoanalytically influenced surrealist poetic tradition and that deepens and broadens the range of association in the poem.
"Freud pointed out that the dream still retained the fantastic freedom of association known to us before only from ancient art. By the end of the nineteenth century both the poem and the dream had been set free... The poets then began to devote their lives to deepening the range of association in the poem... It is this movement that has given such fantastic energy to 'modern poetry'... In ancient times, in the 'time of inspiration', the poet flew from one world to another, 'riding on dragons'.... They dragged behind them long tails of dragonsmoke.... This dragonsmoke means that a leap has taken place in the poem. In many ancient works of art we notice a long floating leap at the center of a work. That leap can be described as a leap from the conscious to the unconscious and back again, a leap from the known part of the mind to the unknown part and back to the known."
Chen-ou
Chen-ou,
Thanks for sharing -- I really enjoyed the excerpt. I'm a long-time reader of Bly, and Leaping Poetry was an important book for me. There's so much to talk about! Your analysis of "Looking for Dragon Smoke" reminded me of Ban'ya Natsuishi's well-known poem:
A dragon has sunk
into the Atlantic Ocean
autumn heat
Very interesting note about Bly's view of In a Station of the Metro. I need to go back and re-read.
By the way, I published a short essay in 2003 in Mariposa. Entitled "Leaping Haiku," I've pasted it below.
Leaping Haiku
At the April 2003 HPNC meeting, Paul Miller presented a paper on the element of surprise in haiku. He posited that haiku can be divided into several types, one of which he termed "non-intellectualized" haiku.(1) This type of haiku could also be described as intuitive, associative, or non-literal.
Robert Bly describes the intuitive approach to poetry as "leaping" because leaps are taken "from the conscious to the unconscious and back again."(2) Leaping, associative poetry is tricky to achieve because subconscious images may not be accessible to a reader.
I'd like to examine two poems, one with a logical leap that stays in the conscious realm and one with an intuitive leap that dips into the subconscious. Both poems appear in Mariposa 8.(3) I chose them because I read them shortly after Paul's presentation, and because they are good representatives of the two types.
The first, a senryu by D. Claire Gallagher, revolves around a distinct image:
body work—
the crucifix gleaming
on the mechanic's chest
The image that the poem leaps to is, of course, "the crucifix gleaming / on the mechanic's chest." The key point to note is that this image does its work in the conscious, literal realm. The reader is able to visualize a crucifix on the mechanic's chest, and can make a rational connection between this image and the "point" of the poem. In other words, the image exists in the literal world, and is understandable in a literal context.
Like Gallagher's, the following haiku by Ernest J. Berry also centers on a single image:
overnight rain
a reflection by the runway
levitates
In contrast, Berry's image is deployed in a non-rational way. A levitating reflection is not something that literally happens. This compels the reader to make an imaginative leap and feel his or her way to the meaning of the poem.
Both literal and non-literal poetry is rewarding, in different ways. But I think it's easier to misunderstand or undervalue non-literal poetry because of the comprehension barrier. This is unfortunate, because if it is true that leaping haiku compel the reader to "make a leap" to understand the poem, it is also true that the reader is rewarded with the understanding that comes from making this kind of leap.
Notes
(1) Paul Miller, unpublished paper.
(2) Robert Bly (editor). Leaping Poetry: An Idea with Poems and Translations. Boston: Beacon Press, 1972: p. 1.
(3) D. Claire Gallagher's earned an Honorable Mention in the Senryu category, and Ernest J. Berry's was awarded Second Place in the Haiku category, in the 2002 San Francisco International Haiku, Senryu and Tanka Contest.
Interesting discussion, Chen-ou and David.
Whilst I think I'm probably generally in accord with Robert Bly re the 'leap' in poetry, I don't think " blossoms on a wet, black bough" in Pound's 'Metro' poem is simply objective or "something that can be seen", So I find the comparison between that image and Bonnefoy's 'interior sea lighted by turning eagles,' unfair. In itself, yes, it is (just!) a clear, objective, unfanciful image that anyone may observe. Yet what happens in the 'gap' between the first line and this juxtaposed image? There is that gap, that intervening space which must be 'leaped' in order to read the poem. What is going on in this gap between an 'apparition of...faces' in the crowd at an underground railway station and 'petals on a wet , black bough'? A lot! (I looked for your essay, Chen-ou, but I could only find haiku and tanka on your blogs -- no essays. Would you be able to give a link?)
David, it is not just that "Leaping, associative poetry is tricky to achieve because subconscious images may not be accessible to a reader." Subconscious images, being subconscious, are not available to the writer either. In the state between dream and waking, the mind codes such images in forms. We may code such images, or feelings, into forms either intuitively or intellectually (and poets probably use both modes... what was Pound's best student, T.S. Eliot, trying to tell us with his ideas about the 'objective correlative'?)
I don't find a conscious /subconscious, rational/ irrational, logical/ intuitive distinction between these two haiku:
body work—
the crucifix gleaming
on the mechanic's chest
D. Claire Gallagher
overnight rain
a reflection by the runway
levitates
Ernest J. Berry
What is the rational connection between 'body work' and what the 'crucifix' implies? The hoped for 'resurrection' of a motor vehicle, with a little help from the mechanic (for 'body work', in Australia there is a separate trade, so he'd be called a panel beater rather than a mechanic) and the symbol of his Catholic faith? Yes, but what is rational about the 'resurrection' of a car? What is rational about the resurrection of Christ, for that matter? It is an article of belief.
The main difference I see between the two poems is that D. Claire Gallagher, by referring to the crucifixion, draws on the cultural understanding that, in the bible story and in the articles of belief of Christians, the death by crucifixion is followed by the resurrection. She is able to imply resurrection.
Ernest J. Berry's poem states that the reflection 'levitates'. (What's implied is that the view is from within a plane which has just achieved lift-off) But a levitating refection of a plane is no more intuitive or non-rational than a resurrected motor vehicle. In fact, if either of these poems leads to contemplation of the intuitive and irrational on the reader's part more than the other, I'd say it was D. Claire Gallagher's.
- Lorin
Hi Lorin,
Good points. Hearing other readings of a poem is fascinating, and I usually learn something new. That's the case with these two.
Regarding Claire's poem, I wasn't focused on the vehicle, but on the mechanic: a person engaged in (I presume) meaningful, satisfying work. I was thinking of fulfillment in work, and work that is a service, too. I agree with your observation that the crucifix draws on a widely shared cultural understanding -- and that was my basis for calling it literal. Though, inherently, as you point out, it's no more literal than a reflection.
The second poem, for me, is more mixed. Certainly, the reflection could be of an airplane; but it's night and rainy, and it could be something else. It also is a nice reflection (no pun intended) of the experience of flying or traveling -- which can sometimes be disorienting.
I wrote this seven years ago, and my view of the two poems has evolved. But, that was my perspective then.
Thanks!
David,
Glad you enjoyed the excerpt.
Ban'ya Natsuishi's haiku in general, the one above in particular, have been seasoned with a strong touch of surrealism, one that has been favored by Bly.
I enjoyed reading your essay on leaping haiku and liked Berry's haiku very much. Thanks for sharing.
Lorin,
The leap you talked about in your reply to "leaping haiku" seems to me that it's more focused on the reader's reading of the "relationship between two juxtaposed images." It's a readerly view of "leaping."
I think it's different from Bly's conception of a poetics of leaping between the consciousness and the unconsciousness. It's more about a writerly view of "leaping." For Bly, the image itself maybe is realistic (taken from the conscious world) or surreal/imaginary (from the imagination/the subconscious mind).
For example, the following comes from one stanza of his famous anti-Vietnam War poem entitled Driving Through Minnesota During the Hanoi Bombings,
Our own gaiety
Will end up
In Asia, and you will look down in your cup
And see
Black Starfighters.
Our own cities were the ones we wanted to bomb!
The leap suggested here is a huge and politically-charged one from the domestic image of drinking coffee in America to the combating image of Black Starfighters dropping bombs in Asia, from the kitchens of individual Americans to the battlefields of the American fighting troops, and from the homely image of safety to the war-torn image of atrocity. The fighting image of Black Starfighters reflected in the coffee cup (leaping image) directly and psychologically connects the war fought outside the American soil with the mind and heart of the individual reader, hinting at an unavoidable relationship between the gaiety of Americans and their capacity for destructing their own lives and those of other people. This interwoven relationship between the American people and the Vietnamese people is initially implied in the title of the poem.
The next example is Bly's most anthologized poem entitled In Driving toward the Lac Qui Parle River:
I
I am driving; it is dusk; Minnesota.
The stubble field catches the last growth of sun.
The soybeans are breathing on all sides.
Old men are sitting before their houses on car seats
In the small towns. I am happy,
The moon rising above the turkey sheds.
II
The small world of the car
Plunges through the deep fields of the night,
On the road from Willmar to Milan.
This solitude covered in iron
Moves through the fields of night
Penetrated by the noise of crickets.
III
Nearly to Milan, suddenly a small bridge,
And water kneeling in the moonlight.
In small towns the houses are built right on the ground;
The lamplight falls on all fours on the grass.
When I reach the river, the full moon covers it.
A few people are talking, low, in a boat.
The description of landscape has a significant role in understanding the poem. However, the images employed to portray the landscape are not intended to be objectively accurate. On the contrary, the images employed here are "The stubble field catches the last growth of sun / The soybeans are breathing on all sides," "The small world of the car / Plunges through the deep fields of the night/ ... / This solitude covered in iron / Moves through the fields of night / Penetrated by the noise of crickets," and "water kneeling in the moonlight/ ... / The lamplight falls on all fours on the grass," revealing the emotional state of mood of the speaker. This description of landscape is, one way or another, like a mirror of emotion upon which the speaker projects his feelings. It has gradually become laden with emotional weight as the poem proceeds to arrive at the end of the second stanza, from the objective recounting of fact, "I am driving; it is dusk; Minnesota," to the emotion-laden imagery of the mind of speaker, "This solitude covered in iron / Moves through the fields of night / Penetrated by the noise of crickets."
In the concluding stanza, the attentive reader would sense a shift in the mood of the speaker through the images, in which considerable effort is made to blur the boundary between the objective and the subjective. A slow, psychic leap is made to descend into an inner landscape of the mind of the speaker, a landscape where the ordinary-turned-defamiliarized things populate and are perceived from a meditative eye: "water kneeling in the moonlight," "The lamplight fall[ing] on all fours on the grass," the full moon cover[ing] [the river], and "A few people talking, low, in a boat."
Here is the link to my essay entitled Three Readings of Ezra Pound's "Metro Haiku" http://chenouliu.blogspot.com/2010/04/three-readings-of-ezra-pounds-metro.html
By the way, I read my friend your Huang Shan haiku. He was impressed by your allusion. Me Two!
David and Lorin:
I wonder what both of you think of the following poem?
deceased friend
Paul taps me on the shoulder
plum blossoms falling
A leaping haiku? Thanks.
Chen-ou
Hi David,
Re Ernest J.'s poem
overnight rain
a reflection by the runway
levitates
There might be some idiomatic variation between New Zealand (where Ernest J. Berry is from) English (and the similar Australian English) and your English (which is USA/Canadian English, I think?) that might lead to a misreading here, so I have to tell you that I don't see in this poem that it's night or that it's raining. It's more likely to be a clear morning. 'Overnight rain' means that it has rained overnight (during the night) so there are great puddles or sheets of water by/ beside the runway to reflect whatever is on the runway.
I like the humour in both the levitating reflection and the immanent or hoped-for resurrection of the car body. :)
- Lorin
Hi Chen-ou,
Yes, Bly's idea of 'the leap' is probably different to what we mean in haiku generally, and I haven't read much of his poetry or essays on poetry (some of the poetry, though, along with 'Iron John' way back in the 60s or 70s) but I still think it's unfair to compare poems which use quite different approaches. As for 'readerly' and 'writerly' views, I don't find that such a distinction holds water. A writer must be a reader to begin with and is the first reader of whatever he/she writes.
"The only movement in American poetry which concentrated on the image was Imagism, in 1911-13. But 'Imagism' was largely 'Picturism.' An image and a picture differ in that the image, being the natural speech of the imagination, can not be drawn from or inserted back into the real world. It is an animal native to the imagination. Like Bonnefoy's 'interior sea lighted by turning eagles,' it cannot be seen in real life. A picture, on the other hand, is drawn from the objective 'real' world. 'Petals on a wet black bough' can actually be seen." - Robert Bly
What you'll notice here is that Bly confines his speculations to 'American poetry', and also that he includes Imagism in the category of 'American poetry' (which in fact it was not, being London-based and comprising English and Irish poets along with ex-pat American poets... the currently underrated D.H. Lawrence, for one) Whatever we may think of the actual poems of the relatively short-lived Imagist movement, the influence has been great and Robert Bly is one who has himself benefited from that influence. It's not right to dismiss Imagism as 'Picturism'.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imagism
I think that Bly gets carried away with his own metaphorical definition of 'image' in this passage. I'm reminded of how Coleridge tried to distinguish between 'imagination' and 'fantasy', and interestingly, but never did quite succeed.
"...the image, being the natural speech of the imagination, can not be drawn from or inserted back into the real world. It is an animal native to the imagination..."
What image is not drawn from or can't be inserted back into 'the real world'? "All metaphor, Malachi, stilts and all."
http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/high-talk/
(Amazing how on the internet a typographical error will be repeated on every site one can find! There is no capital S to 'stalks' in Yeat's poem as printed in his Collected Poems)
I do like Bly's Driving toward the Lac Qui Parle River, and this is the first time I've read it, so thanks. I'm put in mind of Charles Simic's 'The obvious is difficult to prove...'
The sun pointed to one or two
Things that had survived
The long night intact.
The simplest things,
Difficult in their obviousness.
They made no noise.
It was the kind of day
People described as "perfect."
. . .
Just things as they are,
Unblinking, lying mute
In that bright light--
And the trees waiting for the night.
from 'The White Room' - Charles Simic
http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/15253
And I do very much like your explication of the two Bly poems that you've given here.
I don't think that "a poetics of leaping between the consciousness and the unconsciousness" is very useful way of expressing it, though, as it raises more problems than it solves.
ps I'm happy that your friend liked my 'Huang Shan' ku, too. I haven't actually been there, but have a beautiful book of photographs, Capital of Heaven, by Marc Riboud, with an introduction by Francois Cheng. If I recall rightly, the photographs were taken not long after the Chinese government opened the Huang Shan to the public again after long closure. There is an ancient stairway winding up the mountain. These photographic images are haunting. They are not snapshots, but taken with understanding.
BROKEN LAND --
MOUNTAINS, RIVERS ENDURE
Tu Fu, eighth century
- Lorin
Chen-ou,
Yes, I would say it's a leaping haiku. The haiku brings up an interesting question: the relationship of leaps to kigo. Thinking aloud, my sense is that the concept of the kigo naturally lends itself to Bly's conception of leaping. Not that every use of kigo necessarily entails a leap, but that it encourages it. I need to think about this more, but I thought I'd throw it out there.
Lorin,
I principally agree with your critique of Bly's view on Imagism and Pound.
His articles and essays were written in a polemical manner. In my view, the main purpose of these writings is to introduce American readers to European and Latin American poets who possess different literary voices and visions. In doing so, he has helped enrich and broaden the American poetic sensibilities. And later he used these poets -- mainly Spanish surrealists -- to call for writing a new kind of American poetry, a poetry that is directly against Ezra Pound's imagist poetry and that is more rooted in the surrealist tradition.
Thanks for the info. regarding Capital of Heaven by Marc Riboud.
David,
Thanks for the read and for your helpful comment.
The question regarding the relationship of leaps to kigo is thought-evoking, and it also makes me think about the relationship of leaps to cutting. I think a skillful use of cutting and kigo might facilitate "the fast association of images operated through psychic energy."
Just a thought.
Chen-ou
Chen-ou
Chen-ou,
Interesting point about cutting and leaps. There is a probably an essay topic in here somewhere! On a related note, the Haiku Poets of Northern California had our winter meeting yesterday. Patrick Gallagher and Susan Diridoni each gave a presentation on gendai haiku, where the idea of leaping (though not always articulated as such, of course) is central.
David