Is the Clock Ticking on Haiku?

[AlanSummers]

The book that came out because of the big celebration had an essay to suggest he was very clever in making his bosses think he was doing spying and propaganda for them.

In fact he praised the agrarian society in subtle ways which fooled the people who wanted to conquer them.

Maybe he was poisoned, or maybe it was just bad food which would have been possible.  But if some of the bigwigs had discovered he was making a fool of them and protecting the farming classes, there could have been revenge.

There is still not enough research into Basho the person, I long for more academic work done on this intriguing person.

Alan

Bashou a bad boy? Bashou the appropriator!  

Do you know of the speculation that Bashou was an imperial spy?  Traveling the provences of mainland Japan, gathering info.  As the story goes, he was actually poisoned on his last return trip from the interior as he was discovered.  Then there are stories of his alternative life-style, didn't get married, traveled with a male companion.  I was told these stories while I was in Japan. Has anyone else heard of these?

Example:
http://herohirop5.exblog.jp/5395333/

But the stories told me were in 2002 and 2003, some by poets others by new friends I met in Japan.

I think it was stories built on stories, but, Bashou did die mysteriously or at least there was some mystery surrounding his death from food poisoning.

No doubt he has gone down in history more as a haijin rather than a ninja.

;D

[Gabi Greve]

Basho's trip to Oku has been part of a TV movie series, with Sora being the ninja spy ... and old Basho writing cryptical haiku messages ...
His "alternative lifestyle" is known of course.
And food poisoning was quite common in these days without refrigerator, as was poisoning of enemies ...

Sorry, no time to indulge in more details right now.
Gabi

[Don Baird]

While there are possibly 100,000 words in our vocabulary there are only a small percentage of those that we can choose and use for haiku.  We are greatly limited in words through the confines of historical structure and form demand.  I think this may have been what was frustrating Basho of which he made clear in a few of his quips/comments, apparently.

If we're getting close to cliche regarding many of our words for use in haiku are we also on the brink of running out of options for writing such a genre?  The thought remains interesting to ponder.

best,

Don

"We are greatly limited in words through the confines of historical structure and form demand.  I think this may have been what was frustrating Basho of which he made clear in a few of his quips/comments, apparently." - Don

So, what did Basho do? He kept changing the focus, or 'the rules' whenever things looked like becoming cliched. He expanded the topics that could be included in renga, he challenged the notions of what kind of language was acceptable, his 'haikai aesthetics' changed over time. (...leaving, it's true, every time he moved on, annoyed former disciples who wanted to hang on to his earlier positions and make them 'the rules'.  8)   )

- Lorin

"He kept changing focus, or the rules ... his haikai aesthetics, etc..." ~Lorin

As we may have to as well.  Thanks Lorin.  A solid point taken.

Don

[Larry Bole]

Dear Lorin,

Perhaps we should take this conversation off this thread, but I greatly enjoyed reading your very fine haiku:

lily pond:
  another poet
  clears his throat             

- 3Lights gallery, senryu, April 2009


I think this haiku and David Wagoner's poem complement each other.  One doesn't supercede the other. Although Wagoner's poem is relatively short, the brevity of your haiku gives it a delightful light-heartedness that is not as evident in Wagoner's poem, and yet your haiku is equally profound in its own way.

Playing Kikaku to your Basho for a moment, did you toy with the idea of using an alternate first line, such as 'the old pond', or 'frog pond'?

And I wouldn't call your haiku a 'senryu' either. Water lily ('suiren') is a kigo for late summer. And the fact that there is humor in your poem doesn't preclude its being a haiku. Haiku can be humorous.

Regarding 'hon'i' ('poetic essence'), of course one can find a lot of stuff about this online. Not knowing what you are familiar with already, here are some books with interesting discussion about this:

Yasuda, The Japanese Haiku, Ch. V, "Historical View", section 2, "Seasonal Element" (pp. 161, 162 in First Tut Book ed., 1973.).

Miner, Japanese Linked Poetry, Part One, "Linked Poetry...", section 6, "Some Canons of Renga" (pp. 81-85 in First Princeton paperback, 1980.).

Shirane, Traces of Dreams, see under "Poetic essence" in the General Index, various pp. (Stanford U. Press, 1998.).

Kawamoto, The Poetics of Japanese Verse, ch. 2, "The Poetics of the Haiku", in the section, "The Expressive Capacity of Seventeen Syllables", pp. 60, 61 (English translation, U. of Tokyo Press, 2000)

Here is some of what Kawamoto has to say on the subject of 'hon'i':

'Hon'i' is usually explained as the essential qualities inherent in an object and the emotional response deemed appropriate. However, as seen in Chapter 1 ["Autumn Dusk"], the actual qualities of the phenomenon itself were second to the conceptual qualities acquired through literary precedent. ... there may have been autumn dusks for centuries in Japan, but no one saw them until the age of the 'Shinkokinshuu' (ca. 1210), when the theme of autumn evenings began to attract a markedly strong interest. After the composition of several masterpieces using such set phrases as 'aki no yuube' [autumn evening] and 'aki no yuugare' [autumn dusk], the association between the phenomenon and the 'hon'i' of sadness first became fixed. When a 'waka' word achieves recognition as a suitable topic, its 'hon'i' is established and its not the thing itself but the precise word or phrase that determines its implications. Judgments at the 'uta-awase' poetry matches, for example, frequently centered on the 'hon'i' or legitimate meaning of the topic and not the object itself.

[end of excerpt]


In Ch. 1, alluded to in the above excerpt, Kawamoto discusses the apparently well-known example of Kyorai's criticism [in 'Kyorai-shoo', Kyorai's Notes, 1702-4] of a haiku by Fuukoku, about which Fuukoku is quoted as saying, "Recently, when I heard the sound of a temple bell in the mountain at dusk, I didn't feel at all forlorn."  So Fuukoku wrote a haiku saying as much. Kyorai's criticism is that one can't ignore the 'hon'i' of a mountain temple, autumn dusk, and a bell at dusk [all apparently mentioned in the original haiku, now apparently lost] which is of forlornness. So the haiku was re-written as:

yuugure wa kane o chikara ya tera no aki

At dusk,
how uplifting the bell!
Autumn at a temple.

--trans. Collington, Collins, Heldt

Kawamoto goes on to say:

Indeed, this poem manages to incorporate the "essential implications" of autumn dusk as the epitome of forlornness by preserving a hint of melancholy, while suggesting that the powerful reverberations of the bell raise the speaker's spirit. ...

While Kyorai's critique may seem extreme, it has been a given in Japan for centuries that the only appropriate sentiment in connection with "autumn dusk" is that of forlornness.

[end of excerpt]


Shirane also discusses this haiku of Fuukoku's, and Kyorai's criticism, in Traces of Dreams, in ch. 7, "Seasonal Associations and Cultural Landscape," pp. 204-5.

Here is Shirane's translation of the haiku:

yuugure / wa / kane / o / chikara / ya / tera / no / aki
dusk / as-for / temple-bell / (acc.) / strength / : / temple / 's / autumn

the sound of the bell at dusk
gives me strength--
a temple in autumn

--trans. Shirane

According to Shirane, it was Kyorai who re-wrote the haiku.  In a footnote  to Ch. 7 (footnote 24.), Shirane says:

Kyorai's corrected version suggests that with the approach of evening, the noisy crowds have left the temple and the poet is left with a feeling of loneliness, which is diminished or obscured by the sound of the evening temple bells, which give him emotional strength.

[end of excerpt]


Larry Bole

P.S. The next time I have a chance to go to the New York Public Library, I will check for other discussions of 'hon'i' in books that might be there, and let you know by email, if that is ok.

[Lorin]

Hi Larry,
         Many thanks for all this. Happy to know that my ku complements rather than echoes the David Wagoner poem in a 'deja ku' way. Yes, it did begin, in draft form, with 'frog pond' and old pond', but then I thought that the allusion to 'frog in the throat' might be enough to suggest frogs, as well as poets, who, as David Wagoner so humorously gives it, just can't remain silent.  :D  ah..the 'senryu' tag; it was just that it appeared in a 3Lights issue that was titled 'Senryu'. I agree that haiku can and often does have humour.

The background of that ku is that there used to be an annual 'poets picnic' at an historical artists' colony up in the hills near Melbourne, Montsalvat. There is also a lily pond, complete with frogs. . . and peacocks strutting around (the real birds). My 'peacock' haiku/ senryu on the occasion went down well with the women poets in the audience, but not the men, btw. I changed 'frog pond/ old pond' to 'lily pond' with a colon, considering Nick Virgilio's 'lily:' haiku and the discussions of it, as well.

Re: hon'i/ 'true intention'/ 'essential meaning': thank you indeed for the references you give. I first came across the existence of this most pertinent fact about kigo in that piece by Richard Gilbert you quoted from in an earlier post, in 2005.

"There is a measure of covenant in the season word. This covenant can be described as one's true intention or true sensibility. For example, considering "spring wind" (haru kaze): there is a word, shunpûtaitô (from the Chinese: "wind blowing mild and genial") which can be applied to human character.

It is made of four kanji characters: haru (spring) and kaze (wind) plus the compound (taitô), meaning calm, quiet, peaceful wind.

It is a true intention of the spring wind.

The true intention is a tradition of the spring wind used by the waka, the Chinese poem, and the haiku, etc.

So, the single (kigo) word is a distillation wrought by tradition representing the true intention of kigo. The Saijiki (kigo glossary) elucidates (glosses) the true intentions of such words.

In a nutshell, the expression such as "lonely spring breeze" (sabishii haru kaze) does not exist as kigo.

What? . . ."

- Tsubouchi Nenten; translator – Richard Gilbert

http://www.simplyhaiku.com/SHv3n3/features/rGilbert-kigoSeasons_js.html

That was me saying 'what?!!!" along with Tsubouchi Nenten's perfectly timed expression of it in that essay. That's when the penny dropped for me, when I first realized that we've adopted (Japanese) kigo shallowly, though there's no blame attached, since the existence of these hon'i has been mostly only hinted at in the available literature.

I also realized that when we use the term kigo to denote our local, Western season words and references we're not taking into account the tradition of hon'i/ 'essential meaning'/' true intention'.
'Wattle Day', eg. might give a date and have some (much debated, over the years) cultural and political background still clinging to it, but I'd be barking up the wrong tree if I thought that 'Wattle Day' had an 'essential meaning' derived from prior literature and implicitly agreed upon by Australian poets, except perhaps that it's a symbol of how differently Australians arrive at an official public celebration day than do the Japanese, and how differently & variously they regard it after its official establishment. 

Also, how many kigo (Japanese) are there today, collected in saijiki? What is the hon'i for 'air conditioner' ?

More recently, on discovering that 'ants out of a hole' is a kigo for Spring and has the hon'i/'true intention'/ 'essential meaning' of 'the joy of Spring', I realized that even a Japanese person composing haiku, considering that there are now thousands of kigo, would need a reference book, a saijiki which listed the hon'i along with the kigo. Yet, as far as I know, there are no EL translations of this kind of saijiki , and the collections of EL 'kigo' I can find online make no reference to 'essential meaning'/ 'true intention'.

What is a kigo without a hon'i? I'd say that it was possibly a keyword or a seasonal reference. Yet in EL haiku, complete beginners are being encouraged to compile saijiki in which they list their local kigo. It strikes me as rather a cart-before-the-horse situation.

Kooji Kawamoto's comments that you quoted (over your two posts on the subject) also confirm my sense of kigo-including-hon'i as something that we need to understand better.

Thanks very much for your generous response, Larry, and I'd be happy to take further discussion of this into emails rather than further hijack Don's thread here. (my apologies, Don, but this is an area that raises many questions for me)

My email address can be found under 'Lorin Ford' in the THF Haiku Registry pages.

- Lorin

[chibi575]

Lorin: " ... That's when the penny dropped for me, ..."

Lorin, I like this expression.  It is new to me, but, I instantly like it.  There is folklore associated with finding a penny:  heads-up (in the penny of the USA that has President Lincoln's bust on one side) usually means good luck is coming your way; but, heads-down meant the opposite.  Then there is the expression, "A penny saved is a penny earned".  I suppose a dropped penny may be inconflict with a saved penny?!

As to words and phrases associated with nature and seasonal shifts, I support seeking the deepness in experiences as may be found in a saijiki.  Sometimes, exploring these can give insight and open up the word or phrase to ones personal moment.  In a way, I've always looked at the saijiki (or equivalent) as opening more interpretation rather than a restrictive codex as sometimes it is interpreted.


Ciao... chibi

[Lorin]

Hi Dennis... do you have a saijiki which gives the hon'i (true intention, essential meaning) along with the various kigo?

Can you tell me what the hon'i is for 'air conditioner', for instance?

And, are these saijiki you consult in English?

Even the American Yuki Teiki Haiku Society calls their reference page the 'Yuki Teiki Haiku Season Word List', which is correct, since there are no hon'i given along with the words on the list, let alone examples of prior poems.

ah... 'the penny drops' ...I think it originated in the days when you had to put a penny in the provided slot to eg. see a bit of silent film footage at a sideshow,  or here in Melbourne, before decimal currency was introduced, to gain access to clean public toilets. 'The penny drops, the light goes on...'

. . .and if the penny didn't drop but got stuck, one remained in the dark or the door to the toilet remained shut. There was always that moment of suspense after putting the coin in, waiting to hear it drop.   (Ladies used the expression 'spend a penny', too, instead of referring to bodily functions, even when the facilities were free.  :)... is that too much information, I wonder? But the origin of common expressions is interesting. I was educated about 'heads up' and a few other American expressions by a fellow haiku writer of my acquaintance.

- Lorin

Modified: added last par. , for clarity.

[chibi575]

Here is the closest reference that as near a saijiki as that I know.

http://worldkigodatabase.blogspot.com/2010/05/air-conditioning-reiboo.html

As to a the essential meaning... well, air conditioner technology has an interesting history, that, can be found by google.  In a way, "google" might be considered a path to essential meaning. 

I am not sure an essential meaning might be applied to air conditioner.  If you want to get an idea of the process of what can go into the Japanese saijiki, one might google that too.  I know it is similar in a way to what goes in and comes out of dictionaries and encyclopedeas.

Thanks for explaining the "penny drop".

Ciao... Chibi

[Don Baird]

Hi Lorin and all,

No worry.  I love the organic aspect of this thread.  There are lots of interesting topics coming out of it. I'm sure we'll come back around to the main topic, if needed.  :) 

take care,

Don

[chibi575]

Hi Don,

With the interest (and lack of interest) in a type of world wide saijiki, the clock may be winding up on local and regional kigo?  But, maybe kigo is not the tick or tock in the clock?  Are we not on topic to discuss such?  Jus wondering? 

An interesting aspect of a broken analog clock (a mechanical clock with hour and minute hands) even when it is without a tick or tock it is correct twice a day!!  Hmmm... is this an antipole of the ticking clock on haiku?  I guess it is how one measures "accuracy", eh?

;D

[AlanSummers]

Don asked:
The death of haiku:  is it imminent due to lack of kigo and new words? 

I hope we are still proving that we haven't used up our words to create new meaningful haiku that could also be considered literature?

As to kigo, I don't think there is a lack of interest in local/regional kigo, either in Japan or elsewhere.

Unfortunately where there may be a chance to increase development in regional Japanese kigo, there is resistance, even odd aggression against non-Japanese writers to collect and use local words and phrases that can be in time be considered Western kigo.

The more this resistance to surely an amazing opportunity in non-Japanese haiku continues it will be successful in making sure it never occurs.

Writers, hopefully, will work round the strangeness of resistance to developing this fact.

Gabi's kigo database helps prove there is a constant wave of people and examples that there can be a chance for non-Japanese kigo to develop over time.  What an amazing thing it could be that if we look back after 30-50 years (not us as individuals of course) that we could be on track.

Alan

Hi Don,

With the interest (and lack of interest) in a type of world wide saijiki, the clock may be winding up on local and regional kigo?  But, maybe kigo is not the tick or tock in the clock?  Are we not on topic to discuss such?  Jus wondering? 

An interesting aspect of a broken analog clock (a mechanical clock with hour and minute hands) even when it is without a tick or tock it is correct twice a day!!  Hmmm... is this an antipole of the ticking clock on haiku?  I guess it is how one measures "accuracy", eh?

;D

[chibi575]

Alan,

I agree with your comment; but, I may have given you a mixed signal with the phrase "winding up" as in winding up a clock means winding up the spring in the clock.  Not sure, but, sometimes a phrase across the pond can be different than over here... like "knocking up" has a totally different meaning there than here.   :D

Of course, "winding up" has several interpretations depending on the context in which it is used.  The baseball pitcher is "winding up" to throw, the inning is winding up (coming to an end) same as winding down, depends on the context, again, I may be winding up with egg on my face, (another example).

So we're on the same page... I believe the WKD has certainly contributed to increasing the interest in haiku, in effect, winding up the spring on the haiku clock so there will be even more "tick/tocks" on the haiku clock.

Winding down my discussion on winding up... tick tock alligator!


Cheers... Chibi

[AlanSummers]

Hi Dennis! ;-)


You said:
With the interest (and lack of interest) in a type of world wide saijiki, the clock may be winding up on local and regional kigo?  But, maybe kigo is not the tick or tock in the clock?  Are we not on topic to discuss such?  Jus wondering? 

Followed by:

Alan,

I agree with your comment; but, I may have given you a mixed signal with the phrase "winding up" as in winding up a clock means winding up the spring in the clock.  Not sure, but, sometimes a phrase across the pond can be different than over here... like "knocking up" has a totally different meaning there than here.   :D

Of course, "winding up" has several interpretations depending on the context in which it is used.  The baseball pitcher is "winding up" to throw, the inning is winding up (coming to an end) same as winding down, depends on the context, again, I may be winding up with egg on my face, (another example).

So we're on the same page... I believe the WKD has certainly contributed to increasing the interest in haiku, in effect, winding up the spring on the haiku clock so there will be even more "tick/tocks" on the haiku clock.

Winding down my discussion on winding up... tick tock alligator!


Cheers... Chibi

I'm glad I got you wrong and you were saying the opposite, but at least it got a response. ;-)

Interestingly, does English have more double meanings than other languages, both Japanese/Chinese and Romance languages etc...

Differences in meanings across the Pond are well known, but even from one English town to another English town meanings can be different.  There'll always be different interpretations.  I never thought the day when sick meant good for instance. ;-)

In fact you've made me think that regional saijiki have more importance than I had previously thought.  I hope resistance to this idea quietens down because on a language level they are important, and will eventually over decades become vital social documents in their own right as well as contribute to an authentic Japanese saijiki level at some point in the future, be that far away or not.

But it won't be far away for those in the future if we start now. ;-)

Alan

[Gabi Greve]

As to kigo, I don't think there is a lack of interest in local/regional kigo, either in Japan or elsewhere.

Unfortunately where there may be a chance to increase development in regional Japanese kigo, there is resistance, even odd aggression against non-Japanese writers to collect and use local words and phrases that can be in time be considered Western kigo.

The more this resistance to surely an amazing opportunity in non-Japanese haiku continues it will be successful in making sure it never occurs.

Writers, hopefully, will work round the strangeness of resistance to developing this fact.

Gabi's kigo database helps prove there is a constant wave of people and examples that there can be a chance for non-Japanese kigo to develop over time.  What an amazing thing it could be that if we look back after 30-50 years (not us as individuals of course) that we could be on track.

Alan

Thanks for taking up worldwide kigo collecting ... maybe the THF could start a useful project?
New kigo are coming up in Japan every season, this year it might be

setsuden　節電 saving energy

New season words for other regions of the world should be sprouting too ...  taking ELH  a big step further, enriching its potential, widening the path for allusions ... enriching haiku in all aspects of cultural context.

Gabi

[Don Baird]

Hi Alan,

The following is a quote from you on another thread; it represents my pondering very well and is at the root of my inquiry with this current thread.  Your comment is:

"Good points John, but I have an aversion to silent and silence. ;-)  They are now overused in haiku, I've thousands and thousands using those two words and variations on it.

...etc (text removed by me (Don) as it isn't necessary in regards to this chat)

Alan

http://www.thehaikufoundation.org/forum_sm/mentoring-beginner/wind-chimes/


With the thought that haiku are very short (at 11 words or so) and that we are already reaching a point of redundancy, I wonder how long it will be before we reach a place where we cannot write a fresh haiku without including words now "over-used".  Considering that there are currently a large number of words/phrases already on the cliche list, are we on the verge of losing the freshness of language in haiku?  Is it going to be impossible in the nearing future to write original haiku without drastically changing its shape and/or rules?  Is the clock ticking on ELH, actually?

Just pondering ... and I'm still writing, hopefully, new and fresh haiku.

Don