Haiku as Prayer

[DavidGrayson]

The early Sufi master, Ansari of Herat, tells a story about Ali, the son-in-law of the Prophet. During a battle, Ali was shot in the leg by an arrow. To remove it, it was necessary to make a painful incision. Ali's family asked that the operation wait until Ali started praying because then he would be totally unconscious of the world around him. Indeed, when finished with his prayers, Ali wondered why the pain in his leg had diminished.(1)

Mary Karr has described poetry as "sacred speech."(2) Indeed, poetry has often been compared to prayer. Both poetry and prayer can remove us from our focus on daily routine, and usher in a different state of mind. Jane Hirshfield writes, "Poetry's work is the clarification and magnification of being. Each time we enter its word-woven and musical invocation, we give ourselves over to a different mode of knowing ..."(3)

morning prayers--
the blind nun
closes her eyes

George Dorsty(4)


missed my mind
by this much--
Zen archery

Stanford Forrester(5)

Of course, there are many ways to engage in prayer: song, dance, silence ...

silent Friends meeting ...
the sound of chairs being moved
to enlarge the circle

Robert Major (6)

People resort to prayer for a variety of reasons: petition, confession, contemplation, thanksgiving, and more. Even for the devoted, sometimes doubt creeps in:

River Baptism
for those of us not sure
the rain starts

Garry Gay(7)

In all cases, prayer and haiku require receptiveness and openness -- even, for example, to a disruption during a somber event:

at the open grave
mingling with the priest's prayer:
honking of wild geese

Nick Virgilio(8 )


.........................

Does meditation or prayer play a role in your writing life?

Reciprocally, does haiku provide some of the same benefits that prayer provides – for instance, clarity of mind or a sense of connection?

In Poetry, Mary Karr wrote: "People usually (always?) come to church as they do to prayer and poetry – through suffering and terror. Need and fear." Do you think people resort to haiku for the same reasons?

Have you read haiku that have reflected aspects of prayer?


Notes:

(1) James Fadiman and Robert Frager, eds., Essential Sufism (New York: HarperSanFrancisco, 1997), 207.

(2) Mary Karr, "Facing Altars: Poetry and Prayer" (Poetry, November 2005). http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/article/175809 (Accessed April 14, 2011).

(3) Jane Hirshfield, Nine Gates: Entering the Mind of Poetry (New York: HarperPerennial, 1997), vii.

(4) George Dorsty, inside the mirror: The Red Moon Anthology, ed. Jim Kacian (Winchester, VA: Red Moon Press, 2006), 22.

(5) Stanford Forrester, Mariposa 18 (Spring/Summer 2008).

(6) Robert Major, refuge (Winchester, VA: Red Moon Press, 2008). Originally published in The Heron's Nest (IV:8 ).

(7) Garry Gay, Mariposa 12 (Spring/Summer 2005).

(8 ) Nick Virgilio, The Haiku Anthology, ed. Cor van den Heuvel (New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 1999), 264.

[Mark Harris]

yes, David, composing, and reflecting on, poems often takes me out of myself in a way some might call prayer. And sometimes they function something like a spell.


wind-carved sand . . .
I crumble a bayberry leaf
to bring her back

Scott Mason 

[colin stewart jones]

hi david and mark

i personally think poetry is more like a distillation of word and thought

a prayer to your God need not be concise as your God knows your needs anyway
our poetic expression is more out of a need to be understood by our fellows
and to maybe highlight some aspect of the human condition also

i would also differentiate between prayer and spells
a prayer is a petition to a superior force
while a spell is cast, by oneself, so that one may prosper or have influnce over others

tuppence

col :)

[chibi575]

That realm of mind-heart-place in poetry can be shared in prayer and vise-versa (no pun intended).  Yet, there are mind-heart-places that are mutual exclusive.  That is, I believe, the mutually exclusive places in the subconscience where the poem/prayer anchor or root.  If you will, a "twilight zone" unconstrained by what is known.  I do not believe words can explain either.

Poetry is manifest in written word from the transform of its root realm through language, similar to prayer, but the difference being in some cases, the realm.  Once written, the codification, mixes and dissolves the realm.

If, for example, white light transforms through a prism to a band of colors, each color is light, but no longer white light eventhough white light its root or source.  No matter how we try to reverse or trace the color it will never be the white light again, such happens, I feel with poetry and prayer.  Only approximations can be reached.

Japanese haiku and other language based poetry embracing the principles of Japanese haiku attempt such approximations that are closest to their original "white light".  I encourage all to try these approximations.

loquat...
the local woman points
with a smile

(the reader may never know the taste of the juice of the loquat that the author knows/remembers, but, may know that the fruit produces a juice, may associate the juice with a prayer/wish/poem... etc., )

[DavidGrayson]

Colin -

Interesting point about spells. My sense is that spells have an outward focus -- that is, are directed outward toward a person or situation -- and that prayer is more of an internally-focused process involving introspection.

David 

[DavidGrayson]

Mark,

Thanks for sharing Scott's poem. What strikes me about it is the simple physical act -- crumbling a bayberry leaf. It's such a simple act, but it's important to remember that rituals associated with prayer often involve these types of acts.

There's so much more present in the poem, too: the small bits of the bayberry taking off with the wind; sand, which is often associated with time; etc.

Great haiku.

Thanks for sharing!

David

[DavidGrayson]

chibi575,

Your post reminded me of a passage I came across by Karl Maurer, a professor of classics at the University of Dallas. While discussing a translation of Mandelstam's "The Ode on Slate," he noted:

"Poetry, like simple real prayer, is nothing but orientation towards the source of all light. It is nothing but -- in pitch blackness -- facing in the right direction, to where a new day will dawn, which is still invisible, except in one poetʹs inner hearing."

http://www.udallasclassics.org/maurer.html

[chibi575]

"Poetry, like simple real prayer, is nothing but orientation towards the source of all light. It is nothing but -- in pitch blackness -- facing in the right direction, to where a new day will dawn, which is still invisible, except in one poetʹs inner hearing."

David,

I like the "enLIGHTenment" and I noticed in the quote a mixed metaphor between seeing and hearing, yet, the metaphor holds because the transform of seeing to hearing is natural on occasion, "I see what you're saying".

Thanks for a new link to explore.

Ciao... chibi

[Peter Yovu]

David and all,

What I have noticed about many, or maybe most haiku that connect to a sense of religion or spirituality is that they are primarily about, or refer to, religion, spirituality, or in the examples you've given, prayer. In that sense, they have an outward focus.

How much rarer to encounter a haiku which is itself a prayer, which for me would be words arising from a "poet's inner hearing", as a "magnification of Being". (Capitalization mine). Poems which are not about, but of.

Would it be fair to say that many haiku seek to connect "outer" phenomena with inner reality?

I may however be talking about something rather different than a kind of "spiritual correlative".

is there the possibility of haiku which are not prompted by or derived from "outer" reality, but which come from "inner hearing".

Is what I saying at all clear?

I will be looking for poems which may approach this.

[Lorin]

yes, David, composing, and reflecting on, poems often takes me out of myself in a way some might call prayer. And sometimes they function something like a spell.


wind-carved sand . . .
I crumble a bayberry leaf
to bring her back

Scott Mason 

Whether this haiku functions like a spell or not, I don't know. What I do know is that scents, smells, fragrances really do bring the past back, and that here's a man with a great sense of smell who knows that, and attempts to revive a faded memory. It's all the more touching because of the awareness and the effort.

This woman, clearly, smelt wonderful, of beach sand and sea-salt and bayberry, an outdoors, earthy woman or girl. Perhaps she was in the habit of burning bayberry candles. Perhaps poetry in itself is a kind of spell, making the absent present.

- Lorin

[Lorin]

Would it be fair to say that many haiku seek to connect "outer" phenomena with inner reality?

Peter, wouldn't that imply the perception that "outer" phenomena and inner reality were disconnected?

Which is, to be sure, a common enough perception, but doesn't poetry, either in the composing of it or in the successful poem show the connectedness, rather than seek to make the connection?

Yet there is effort, the seeking to say the connection, or hint at it....and T.S. Eliot's 'Four Quartets' comes to mind:

"For most of us, there is only the unattended
Moment, the moment in and out of time,
The distraction fit, lost in a shaft of sunlight,
The wild thyme unseen, or the winter lightning
Or the waterfall, or music heard so deeply
That it is not heard at all, but you are the music
While the music lasts. These are only hints and guesses,
Hints followed by guesses; and the rest
Is prayer, observance, discipline, thought and action."

- 'The Dry Salvages', Four Quartets, T.S. Eliot

I don't know if this is anywhere near what you mean, though.

- Lorin

[DavidGrayson]

Hi Peter,

Thanks for pointing this out. This actually has been a concern of mine throughout my writing for this column. I've been aware that my examples tend to be precisely those that, as you put it, are "about, or refer to, religion." I've felt that this is simply due to the fact that, as an external reader, I can know if a haiku is religious/spiritual in nature only if there is an explicit reference to a religious tradition, practice, etc. Otherwise, I am only guessing about the intent of the poem.

That being said, I have certainly come across poems that seem to be not about, but of. This is a haiku from David Giacalone that I read recently:

squinting to see him
another generation
sent to right field

(Baseball Haiku, ed. by Cor van den Heuvel)

This may not be the best example, but the empathy of the writer for his son, in my mind, almost constitutes a prayer, or hope, for a better future.   

David

[eric]

Both poetry and prayer can remove us from our focus on daily routine, and usher in a different state of mind. Jane Hirshfield writes, "Poetry's work is the clarification and magnification of being. Each time we enter its word-woven and musical invocation, we give ourselves over to a different mode of knowing ..."

i tend to think of haiku as a prayer of thankfulness, a sacred space honoring the gifts (large and small) of life.

[Asa-gao]

This is a wonderful discussion, and speaks to the essence of haiku.

I can only offer an opinion as to what exactly that is - but yes, i think spirituality is a major component. Beyond definition and technical expertise (of which which there is multitude), is found essence.

What is the essence? This cannot be defined, the essence can only be - experienced. To attempt definition, is to invite torture.

The experience comparable to expressions of love, and all that this may imply - on all levels. The essence is a divinity that moves in many mysterious ways. The essence is - the perfect cherry blossom throughout its complete life cycle and the experience of finding that all blossoms are perfect. The essence may be found in the understanding that mankind is part of and not separate from nature itself - within a larger thing called divinity which cannot be touched or seen.

Upon further reflection. The best illustration of the essence of haiku, or what defines it as a genre (for me) is found in the work of an unknown author, before the term haiku or hokku was ever coined; at a time where lived the parent waka. To experience what this poet says, i think, is to experience the essence/spirituality of Japanese poetry by any name. If i remember correctly, this one is published in the ancient Man'yôshû.

Are they not like
This fleeting world?
Cherry blossoms:
No sooner do they flower
Than they fall
Translated by Thomas McAuley

[haikurambler]

Perhaps the idea of haiku being utilised as a prayer is well possible, if that is the intent.

However, there seems a more compelling case for haiku to be understood more as a magic spell than a prayer (or even poetry). More precisely, not a full spell, though. Rather, half a magic spell.

What is meant by 'half a magic spell'?

The explanation goes like this: 

In order to enjoy a little haiku movie; conjured, called fourth, or evoked by the words (the 'spell') of a haiku, we need, of course, to engage with the inner vision enshrined in, or accessed through, each haiku's verbal. However, it is suggested that we may enter the haiku's inner diorama and, if we so choose and are bold, wander about in it - aimlessly, or with purpose.

In essence -it is whispered- we can do an 'inner journey', or 'pathworking', with all that this implies. (Other uses may be left to the reader's muses and their discretion.)

So, at this stage of the game we have now entered the movie and are gone into a magic spell's universe- not the 'halfway only' invitation, which is simply to contemplate a little haiku movie. The standard haiku trip has now morphed into a whole other kettle of tadpoles.

Maybe we could call this, somewhat startling, notion: 'The Hidden Secret Of Haiku'.

I quite like this idea, at least in principal, and it does seem to have its own meta-logic to it, don't you agree?

Anyway, why not do a test drive and 'see' if it works? (But, for God's sake, don't eat any fairy food - you might not return for a year and a day!) . . .


old pond
a fog jumps in
the sound of water

— Basho



^_^