name of poet

[Mary Stevens]

Does anyone know the name of the poet who wrote something like this?

all day long
the demands
of the blue hydrangea

Does anyone know the exact wording of the poem?

Thank you!

Mary

[AlanSummers]

Do you have more information, for instance, where you got the wording you've just posted?

It doesn't sound like Shiki, but he wrote these two haiku:

hydrangeas
pale blue in the rain
blue in the moonlight

hydrangeas ---
rain splashing upon
the crumbling walls

Does anyone know the name of the poet who wrote something like this?

all day long
the demands
of the blue hydrangea

Does anyone know the exact wording of the poem?

Thank you!

Mary

[AlanSummers]

"Hydrangea" is my favorite summer flower kigo.  According to my Japanese saijiki, hydrangeas change their colors after they bloom because of a substance called flavone.  The most common term for "hydrangea" in Japanese is ajisai, but it is also called shichi henge (seven changes).



            ajisai ya nobore to ieru gotoki kai

                        hydrangeas—
                        the stairs seem to tell me
                        to climb up

                                                            Tatsuko Hoshino*

*Dai Saijiki (Comprehensive Saijiki) edited by Shuoshi Mizuhara, Shuson Kato, Kenkichi Yamamoto, Kodansha, 1982.  Translation by Fay Aoyagi

According to my Japanese saijiki, hydrangeas change their colors after they bloom because of a substance called flavone.  The most common term for "hydrangea" in Japanese is ajisai, but it is also called shichi henge (seven changes).
http://fayaoyagi.wordpress.com/essay/

[AlanSummers]

no matter how long
I stare at hydrangeas —
pure blue

Basho trans. Makoto Ueda
from Makoto Ueda's Matsuo Basho: The Master Haiku Poet.

[Mary Stevens]

Some great poems on hydrangeas, Alan!

The one I am thinking of likely was published in Frogpond, maybe Modern Haiku, in the past 10 years or so.

[AlanSummers]

I'd suggest contacting Charlie Trumbull as he holds a database on haiku published over the last 30-40 years or more, also he has been a Modern Haiku editor too.

Let us know how you get on. :-)

Alan

Some great poems on hydrangeas, Alan!

The one I am thinking of likely was published in Frogpond, maybe Modern Haiku, in the past 10 years or so.

[Mary Stevens]

Thanks, Alan.

Wow! *That's* a cool thing! Too bad it's not a searchable thing online. I can't tell you how many times I have wondered where I saw a modern poem, who wrote it, and how, exactly, it went!

[Mary Stevens]

Found it! That was good advice, Alan. Charlie found it right away.

all morning
the demands
of the blue hydrangea

by Patrick Sweeney

Frogpond 28:1 (2005), 22
Inside the Mirror (Red Moon Anthology 2005), 70
Lee Gurga and Scott Metz, eds., Haiku 21 (2011), 168

[AlanSummers]

That's great!

I found a wonderful one by Peggy Willis Lyles about blue hydrangeas too, in an eBook I co-edited back in 2006.  They certainly were popular with haiku at one time. :-)

The Poetic Image - Haiku and Photography
Birmingham Words / National Academy of Writing Pamphlet 2006
http://area17.blogspot.co.uk/2006/05/poetic-image-haiku-photography.html


.

[Gabi Greve]

no matter how long
I stare at hydrangeas —
pure blue

Basho trans. Makoto Ueda
from Makoto Ueda's Matsuo Basho: The Master Haiku Poet.

Dear Alan,
do you know the Japanese for this poem?

I found two about ajisai from Basho, but this is not among them.

. ajisai ya katabira doki no usu asagi .
. ajisai ya yabu o koniwa no betsu zashiki .

http://matsuobasho-wkd.blogspot.jp/2012/09/aaa.html

Thanks
Gabi

[AlanSummers]

There are a few blue hydrangea haikai verses but this was confirmed as a riff from Basho's work and so interpretative not literal. :-)

Alan

no matter how long
I stare at hydrangeas —
pure blue

Basho trans. Makoto Ueda
from Makoto Ueda's Matsuo Basho: The Master Haiku Poet.

Dear Alan,
do you know the Japanese for this poem?

I found two about ajisai from Basho, but this is not among them.

. ajisai ya katabira doki no usu asagi .
. ajisai ya yabu o koniwa no betsu zashiki .

http://matsuobasho-wkd.blogspot.jp/2012/09/aaa.html

Thanks
Gabi

[Mary Stevens]

Had a nice exchange with Patrick Sweeney when I requested permission to discuss his haiku in my blog. Here's what I did with his poem, along with Issa's measuring-the-peony-with-a-fan haiku:

http://randombitsblog.com/?p=633

[whitedove]

To Mary and all the others who participated here—I've so enjoyed this thread and all the wonderful haiku that fell out of it.  Just saying...Rebecca Drouilhet

[sandra]

Found this one the other day on my Haiku Calendar for July and thought I'd share:

making hydrangea
bluer than blue
soundless rains

- Yoko Ogino (Japan)

The Haiku Calendar is put out each year by Snapshot Press in England. http://www.snapshotpress.co.uk/calendars/the_haiku_calendar/2013.htm

[Mary Stevens]

Nice one! Reminds me of the ancient poems in which the rain is washing the autumn leaves with color.