Lost and Found in Translation

[Lorin]

Hi Lorin,

Not quite sure what all this is about.  We've all moved on from sarcasm and/or irony. It proved a useful vehicle for something useful to come out.

A group of us got to thinking about kigo, or seasonal reference etc... and a number of us are thinking of this as a useful collating tool, regardless of opinion elsewhere.

Alan

Hi Alan,
            I'm not sure what you're not sure of, or even what you think 'this' is. What I've written is in English and clear enough, I would've hoped, since I took the time to address your posts.

I'm pleased to hear that you've 'moved on' from sarcasm or irony, if that's what your previous post in response to me involved, but I don't know who else is involved in your statement that 'we've all moved on'. Gabi, perhaps, in relation to her oft repeated HA. I. KU < grin>)? Has Gabi 'moved on'? If so, has she also suddenly lost her voice? Are you Gabi's spokesman now?

I don't see any evidence of any "group of us", whom you're claiming to be speaking for now, or of any "number of us" who are thinking of either kigo or seasonal references "as a collating tool". 

" A group of us got to thinking about kigo, or seasonal reference etc...and a number of us are thinking of this as a useful collating tool, regardless of opinion elsewhere. " - Alan

Quite a few people I know of, including myself, have been "thinking about kigo" and "seasonal reference" for some time, btw, though I see no need to say 'a group of us' and wonder why you do.

And whilst I can understand a wish to collate either kigo(Japanese) or seasonal references (EL), I can't for the life of me understand how either of these could be a "collating tool"... a tool for collating what?

My whole point is that kigo and seasonal reference are two different things, so it's not "kigo, or seasonal reference etc etc or whatever". You choose to dismiss this out of hand, without addressing the issues, but now run kigo & seasonal reference together as if there were no distinction. I'm not sure why. Perhaps you simply haven't understood a word I've said? Or perhaps you don't want to?

- Lorin

[AlanSummers]

Hi Lorin,

Just going to respond to this part of your commentary:

I don't see any evidence of any "group of us", whom you're claiming to be speaking for now, or of any "number of us" who are thinking of either kigo or seasonal references "as a collating tool".

The posts have been clear that John McManus is enthusiastic about a possibility of the British Haiku Society developing a collection of season word/phrases for use with haiku.  It needn't be constantly reported here, as this is an American based foundation to raise awareness of haiku internationally.

But for anyone who hails from England, Wales, Scotland, Ireland etc... I think it's a grand exercise (to paraphrase Wallace and Gromit). ;-)

Alan

[Lorin]

Lorin, I can see by your posts you are very passionate on this subject.

I am not going to pretend to have a broad working knowledge on the inner workings of kigo. What I was thinking when I was discussing with Alan the possibilities of a unified british saijiki was if we were going to try to compile a saijiki it would be best to do it through an official body like the BHS and discussed at greater length by my elder and betters so that we may kickstart our own poetic traditons within british haiku instead of getting accused of stealing/borrowing/imitating or corrupting others.

   

John, I've been considering the relationship of kigo, which is Japanese and quite complex, and EL haiku for some time. We need to understand as much as possible about kigo to really read Japanese haiku and we need to know about it in order to write renku, too. Gabi's WKDB is really good for learning about Japanese haiku and kigo, and the associations and 'essential qualities' of kigo.I thoroughly recommend Bill Higginson's Haiku World for anyone beginning EL haiku,too.

I still don't know in any depth how kigo is used. That would take not only learning Japanese to a high degree of literacy but also immersing myself in Japanese history and culture. I rely on whatever information I can find in English.

Yet we also need to apprise ourselves of the facts that kigo is inseparable from Japanese culture, a culture unlike any in the West which had a long period of isolation from the rest of the world, had a system of centralised authority and a social culture which easily endorsed or submitted to the decisions of that authority. Kigo, in its seasonal aspect, was focused on what things of nature happened when in Kyoto, the seat of government (then later, on Tokyo). If the cherry blossomed in the 2nd week of whatever month in Kyoto, then that was standardised for the whole of Japan. It was all standardised, by consensus.

It will never happen in Australia that writers will agree that the jacaranda (not a native, but a common street tree) blooms in the first week of December, say. A writer in Cairns will have it blooming when it blooms in Cairns, a Brisbane writer when it blooms in Brisbane and so on. Even in the UK, I have my doubts that a writer in Aberdeen and a writer in Cornwall will agree as to what week the bluebells bloom. And why should they? Will these two writers agree on what the essential meaning and mood of bluebells is? Which UK poet/ writer of the past will be chosen as the one having the definitive last word on what bluebells symbolise, will henceforth be a code word for?

Listing season words or references for your area/ region is a great communal thing to do with your fellow poets. But season words/seasonal references are not kigo, so be careful to understand the difference & think it through before committing yourself to anyone's "kigo" project.

I believe that English-language haiku, whilst it has its roots in Japanese haiku, is developing continually...and in relation to Japanese haiku, both ancient and modern, as some groups of Japanese haiku writers have been developing in relation to Western poetics since the early 20th century. It's a lively thing, there is great interchange going on. I also believe that the local, the regional, the experienced and observed is a vital part of EL haiku and I try to encourage this, rather than a homogeneous 'nature' which is the same everywhere.

cheers,

Lorin

[Lorin]

Hi Lorin,

Just going to respond to this part of your commentary:

I don't see any evidence of any "group of us", whom you're claiming to be speaking for now, or of any "number of us" who are thinking of either kigo or seasonal references "as a collating tool".

The posts have been clear that John McManus is enthusiastic about a possibility of the British Haiku Society developing a collection of season word/phrases for use with haiku.  It needn't be constantly reported here, as this is an American based foundation to raise awareness of haiku internationally.

But for anyone who hails from England, Wales, Scotland, Ireland etc... I think it's a grand exercise (to paraphrase Wallace and Gromit). ;-)

Alan

Well, Alan, I see that you've changed your wording from kigo to "a collection of season words/ phrases". I have no argument with you now that you've done that.

- Lorin

[Gabi Greve]

Just some further information

the history of Japanese Saijiki
http://worldkigodatabase.blogspot.com/2006/07/history-of-saijiki.html


Kidai and Kigo　季題と季語
http://haikutopics.blogspot.com/2007/05/kidai-and-kigo.html


Gabi

[John McManus]

Thank you Lorin, for your informative and on point response.

I was mulling over the whole Kigo debate in my head and am still intrigued by the idea of a list of celebratory days, traditions and images that can anchor particular facets of british culture into a seasonal reference for british haiku writers. But as I say in previous posts it would have to be discussed at greater lengths with people within the british haiku community who are far wiser and cleverer than myself on such matters.

 

[AlanSummers]

Hi John,

I was mulling over the whole Kigo debate in my head and am still intrigued by the idea of a list of celebratory days, traditions and images that can anchor particular facets of british culture into a seasonal reference for british haiku writers.

Correct!  Regardless of immigration, which enforces culture, not diminishes it, from Celts, Angles, Saxons, Vikings, Normans (Rollo's viking descendents); Flemish; Irish; African etc... we have an incredible amount for season words/references, which I believe long term (even if it's 1000 years, gotta start sometime) will become kigo.

The genie is out of the bottle regarding haiku, and if we don't push onwards and upwards, the people using haiku as doggerel in seventeen syllables will triumph over what we sometimes have to call literary haiku.  The same will happen with kigo, it will be owned by people who want to authenticate their haiku with seventeen syllables, and further authenticate it by using what they believe is kigo.

I'm one of a number internationally who regularly hold various types of haiku actitivities, and online and elsewhere, there are constantly those who do not recognise haiku as anything but seventeen syllables, and will mostly use the names of seasons as their kigo, or mention snow, ice, winter, summer, spring all in one haiku.

If a British and Irish kigo reference base is created, and becomes used on a regular basis, especially by the big mainstream poets, it will improve the image of haiku across the board.

We've all met major poets, some of whom won't write anything less than seventeen syllables etc...

But as I say in previous posts it would have to be discussed at greater lengths with people within the british haiku community who are far wiser and cleverer than myself on such matters.

Please don't put yourself down John. ;-)  A fresh perspective is invaluable.  It would be great to communicate with various British and Irish haiku poets, and I'll bring this up with a few at the big reading that my wife is attending as well.

We already have a great source if you look at all the Haiku Calendars published by Snapshot Press that contain British and Irish haiku (I have them).  If we start now, slowly but surely, future generations will build on this, and yep, even if it's several centuries from now, we'll have a great record.  It's gotta start sometime, so why not now. ;-)

Alan

[Adam Traynor]

 I have but one haiku to my credit, but I read. Kigo is not important to me, personally, or even season words. What is important to me is being attuned to nature the best I can and seeing what comes up. But, I'm mostly a reader, and I found these comments taken from an interview Roadrunner did with Robert Hass. I guess you could call him a "mainstream" poet. His context is N (and S) America, but I don't think he means to be exclusive about that.


RR: Do you think that in the future a poet writing haiku in English (as their main poetic form) can achieve notability, within the wider arena of literary culture (why or why not)?

RH: I don't see why not. Though I am inclined to think that short poems, even short poems with a seasonal reference and a 5-7-5 syllabic structure, written in English can't be, strictly speaking, haiku. Or to say it another way, the haiku is still acclimatizing itself, in this country, to the cultures of American poetry. When Basho began to write, there was already an eight hundred to a thousand year tradition of poetry and art in Japan to give resonance to the brief seasonal words on which haiku depends and a pre-industrial culture that involved quite close observation of the seasons and a set of religious and cultural rituals embedded in those seasons. This condition doesn't obtain in English-speaking North America (or Spanish-speaking South America, where there have also been many experiments with the haiku form.) I expect something unexpected will eventually evolve from our admiration for and attempts to translate the practice of the short Japanese poem.

RR: As with poetry in general, the sheer volume of publication is high, yet quality is too often mediocre. Would you have any suggestions for the future, for editors and poets?

RH: Yes, high standards for oneself, generosity toward others, except for editors who need to practice high standards and courtesy.___RR: Haiku are generally taken to be a poetics of nature, and often take aspects of the natural world as a focus or topic; could you discuss the question of haiku and nature, poetry and nature, in light of recent revelations of global warming and as Bill McKibben put it, "the end of nature?"

RH:  One of the arguments for the cultivation of haiku, I suppose, is that attention to nature has become a moral imperative. McKibben is good on this subject and the great text is still the essay, "The Land Ethic" in Aldo Leopold's Sand Country Almanac. That book, especially the essays "Thinking Like a Mountain" and "Good Oak" and "Song of the Gavilan" are also useful texts for thinking about how to naturalize an imagination of nature in North American poetry. In so much of poetry and thinking about poetry right now, there is a good deal of appropriate skepticism about the assumptions behind realism as a literary mode and therefore about the whole question of what we do when we think to represent nature. It might be useful to let this tradition— and the range of anti-realist practices from surrealism to language poetics— enter the practice of haiku, if only to take away the sort of easy wow! poem that tends to be the first stage of our attempts to appropriate the form. Allen Ginsberg's notion that the blues lyric is the American version of haiku might also be helpful in this connection. See his effort at what he called "American sentences."

[AlanSummers]

Dear Tray,

You couldn't space out your post a bit for readers to follow better, and maybe use the bold function for the initials of each person?

Many of our readers will find it difficult to follow otherwise.

Thanks for posting it and yes Robert Hass is what you could call a mainstream poet, and former Poet Laureate.  I highly recommend:
The Essential Haiku: Versions of Basho, Buson, & Issa (Essential Poets)
http://www.amazon.com/Essential-Haiku-Versions-Basho-Buson/dp/0880013516

You can also catch this at Modern American Poetry:

Robert Hass on Haiku
http://www.english.illinois.edu/maps/poets/g_l/haas/haiku.htm

It takes from his book the comments made on kigo.

Alan

[chibi575]

Lost and Found in Translation --

haiku and hokku

One of the false steps (which have started the stumble of transmission/transmutation from Japan to the rest of the world is not distinquishing haiku from hokku.  This sets the slippery slope from the start.

Haiku is Shiki and after Shiki (stand alone short poem)

Hokku is before Bashou (first part, usually, of a linked poem).

Shiki distinguished the difference and defined the haiku genre.

Without this essential understanding we start unwittingly confused. 

Alan, even in Robert Hass's work he does not make this essential distinction.  Ok...ok... I know, the word "haiku" has superseded "hokku" in common and popular discussion.  I contend this is in part the root of what non-Japanese people misunderstand and therefore continue to flounder (I feel) with truly understanding the Japanese genre.

The works of Bashou sited by Robert Hass (all due respect), and his interpretation/translation are at best odd to me because I have seen the original Japanese (which I think is another essential mistake if not shown, go look, with an OJD, Online Japanese Dictionary).

When I look at examples of "haiku" by Bashou, Issa, Buson, and others before Shiki, I feel, when that is done one is forced to the wrong impression of what haiku is and is not. 

Perhaps, historical reference as to the poems sited such as the haikai no renga from which these poems were taken (out of context) might have given a better indication of the actual genre.

In 1000 years from now, if written historical record remains accessable (after 2012 and beyond... ??), the "short" may be the only thing that stuck in short poems.  I think there is a principle in archaeology that states the more lengthy and complex a "work" over time the more and more will be lost in translation/tranportation.  (ok... I made that up but it would seem logical).  ::)

I admit, my initial introduction to "haiku" was simply three lines, vaguely 5-7-5, a frog leap, and Japanese.  I obliquely realized that since this genre originated in Japan, the best course to learn was go to the source, Japan.  Very few non-Japanese "haiku" writers took or could take that opportunity.  It is my basis of understanding; and, I desire to share this understanding.  BTW even in Japan, the hokku/haiku common term, haiku, is used.  There are layers of experience and literary abilities in the tens of thousands of Japanese haiku writers.  While in Japan, I found, "haiku circles" (which are rare outside of Japan in my experience).  The haiku circle is a group of haiku writers led be a designated teacher (usually so by committee membership, prowess, and publications).  This is a very old tradition and structure predating Shiki and Bashou, the change is the type of activity and the participant qualifications.  In Bashou's time, the usual activity was haikai no renga, but, in the modern haiku circle the activity is writing, voting, and discussion/lessons.  Let me add, that leading haiku circles was and is even now an "occupation" (my first teacher's major income at the time).

Hmmm... sorry, this is getting too lengthy, but, perhaps I will start a subject: The Japanese Haiku Circle?  Hopefully to borrow idea and material from "Lost and Found in Translation" and from other subjects.

[AlanSummers]

Hi Dennis,

All good points, and nicely spaced out for others to read.

His book is one amongst many on the classic writers, so I just pick the good parts out.  When the book first came out, it was a surprise to me that Issa wrote haibun.  For some reason I didn't know this.

Some of the versions now look odd to me, especially in the Montage book, but as I'm a trained collator, I tend to enjoy collecting numerous books, both academic and populist, and absorbing them.

But you are right, he makes mistakes, even though he knows HSA members.  Ah well. ;-)

Alan