re:Virals 355

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1. Was Jack Kerouac ever educated by nuns?

2. For anyone who might be interested, please see an updated version of my essay on the correct authorship of the two autumns poem at https://www.graceguts.com/essays/buson-or-shiki-two-autumns (includes new postscripts, one of which cites numerous other incorrect attributions of the poem to Buson, and even one to Basho, together with correct attributions to Shiki). Meanwhile, I don’t see any relevance of Shiki’s poem in Kerouac’s. Simply mentioning “two” isn’t enough to make even just a slight connection anything more than incidental. The old meaning of “twin” seems so extremely remote that it surely wasn’t part of Kerouac’s awareness, let alone intent. It’s fun to speculate, but let’s not stretch too far in trying to interpret haiku.

   1. Why shouldn’t we go as far as we like in speculation/commentary regarding the chosen haiku? Is that not the point of this blog feature? Comments such as this from a respected authority on haiku discourage community discourse.

      ” …It may be as long or short, academic or spontaneous, serious or silly, public or personal as you like.”

      Personally I love it when someone posts a commentary that causes me to think differently about a written passage, and I am constantly learning from the variety of viewpoints expressed in this feature.

      1. Though MDW’s tone may be a bit professorial, I tend to agree with him. Anyway, he has as much right to his perspective as anyone writing here does, and I doubt his view on this matter will discourage discourse.

         If writing about haiku, one’s experiences with a given poem and one’s speculations, etc., helps one to get into it,
         that is all to the good. But just as one might pay careful attention to instances of personal indulgence in writing haiku, and to edit or adjust where necessary, sometimes similar attention to what one says about haiku may be useful so as not to stray too far
         from the source.

         Kerouac, the evidence suggests. was a pretty spontaneous writer. I suspect that with haiku especially, the approach for him was not to think about it very much.

3. Concerning Shiki: we know that Kerouac read Blyth’s four volume “Haiku” published 1949-1952, and that in “Dharma Bums” (1958, a year before “two sisters” appears) his character Japhy (Gary Snyder) cites, using Blyth’s translation, another haiku of Shiki’s as a prime example of “A real haiku’s gotta be as simple as porridge and yet make you see the real thing.” It seems to me likely that Kerouac was aware of Shiki’s work via Blyth including “two autumns” (translated by Blyth as ” I going, You remaining,— Two autumns”), and influenced by it. I zoomed in on the conspicuous choice of “two” rather than “twin” to describe the sisters of the same age…

   1. I’m pretty sure, too, Keith, that Kerouac was well aware of Shiki’s work via Blyth, but to me Shiki’s “two autumns” has a sense of the accepted sadness of separation. You go, I stay. (It’s a haiku I like & very much admire )
      .
      Kerouac’s “the two 18 year old sisters” seems to me to have nothing much in in common with Shiki’s “two autumns” haiku (beyond the citing of the number, ‘two’) There’s certainly not a shared mood between Kerouac’s & Shiki’s ku. There are ‘togetherness’ vs ‘separation’ themes if we wish to look at it that way, but in itself that leads nowhere for me.
      .
      (This is not to say that Kerouac did not pick up & understand the implication of emotion in Blyth’s translations of Shiki’s haiku, and use it well.)

      1. The diversity of readers is a constant joy!

      2. I’ve come to play the devil’s advocate, just for the fun of it.

         Kerouac’s “the two 18 year old sisters” seems to me to have nothing much in in common with Shiki’s “two autumns” haiku (beyond the citing of the number, ‘two’) There’s certainly not a shared mood between Kerouac’s & Shiki’s ku. There are ‘togetherness’ vs ‘separation’ themes if we wish to look at it that way, but in itself that leads nowhere for me. – Lorin Ford

         I think there is a case to be made in reference to the “two autumns” haiku, specifically the use of the word “two” instead of “twin”. Assume that the two sisters that Kerouac referenced in his haiku

         Spring evening —

         the two

         Eighteen year old sisters

         — Jack Kerouac
         Blues and Haikus, 1959

         were indeed 18 year old twins. Then consider one of the original meanings of twin: In Middle English, the verb earlier and typically meant “to part, part with, separate from, estrange,” etc. (c. 1200), on the notion of making two what was one. One could also assume that at 18 years old that the twin sisters who had up to this point in their lives been inseparable, would each go on to live their lives separately, as adults. This would jive with the kigo spring evening – the end of the spring day corresponding to the end of youth. With this reading I can make a case for an allusion to Shiki’s haiku:

         I go,
         you stay;
         two autumns

         1. Thank you, princess. The role of devil’s advocate is always congenial!

         2. “One could also assume that at 18 years old that the twin sisters who had up to this point in their lives been inseparable, would each go on to live their lives separately, as adults. This would jive with the kigo spring evening – the end of the spring day corresponding to the end of youth. With this reading I can make a case for an allusion to Shiki’s haiku:

            I go,
            you stay;
            two autumns”
            .
            🙂 OK, princess and Devil’s Advocate, yes, I acknowledge the various “dreaming room” interpretations readers make, but the end of a spring day isn’t the end of spring, it’s the beginning of a spring evening, filled with the scent of flowers and fresh things. To me, a spring evening isn’t suggestive of the end of youth. When do we, as readers, leave the poem and make up our own story? Or to what extent do readers do this?

            I doubt that Kerouac, with his long French ancestry followed by Canadian French ancestry studied up on old and middle English etymology. ‘Twine’ ( a common ball of twine we have around the house or garden shed) comes from ‘twin’ too, in that case the joining of two threads to make one stronger thread. But he doesn’t use the word “twins” and with good reason, I think. He sees the two girls as individuals, and “twins” can often be associated with sameness.

            Of course the two 18 year old sisters ( identical twins, fraternal twins or not twins at all but two girls, one or both adopted or one or both with different fathers or mothers… any of these are sisters) may & probably will go their separate ways in the future but I don’t find that in the haiku.This haiku is a ‘now’ poem. Here are the two same-age sisters, come of age at 18 and out together on a spring evening. This isn’t Shakespeare (“shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?….”), it’s Kerouac, but it’s possible there’s a comparison of the two 18 year old sisters with a spring evening.
            .
            And the mood: joyful, intensely so , compared with the Shiki haiku. Yes, the “spring evening” girls are together and Shiki and his friend are parting and will have two different “autumns” so there can be an argument that Kerouac was influenced by the Shiki ku, but it’s not even close to honkadori, imho. (Also there are 3 people in the Kerouac ku: the two sisters and the delighted observer himself.)

            1. “When do we, as readers, leave the poem and make up our own story? Or to what extent do readers do this?” — Lorin Ford

               An interesting question almost always in this feature. The more open a verse is to different interpretations, the more ambiguous, the more readers there are, the more interpretations there are likely to be as they try to connect their experience with the poem. I find the different reactions and thoughts of different readers interesting, and they contribute a good deal to one’s pleasure and understanding. Who’s to say who’s “right” or “wrong,” Lorin?

               As to “spring evening”, in a tiny verse where each word carries weight I see two words here, one carrying the sense of youth and new beginnings, the other a time of transition at the end of a day. Others’ reactions may vary.

4. I’ve enjoyed reading the comments:
   — Ann’s forensic approach which uncovers the possibility of two sisters who were not together in utero (a variation of which might be that both sisters or either sister may have been adopted).
   .
   — Keith’s opening comment, with it’s interpretations and comparison with Shiki’s ‘two autumns’ haiku.
   .
   — Radhamani’s exploration of the happenings and moods that “spring evening” evokes, and how these affect our reading of “two 18 year old sisters”, and interpretations of what these sisters might be they may be doing or going through in their lives.
   .
   — Amoolya’s in depth research and scholarly interpretations of what” spring evening” might mean and novelistic exploration of what the “two 18 year old sisters” are doing and experiencing in their inner and outer lives. (An expansion based, I imagine, on Dennis Garrison’s idea of the ‘cut’ in haiku creating “dreaming room” for the reader, each reader, which is fine if “dreaming room” interpretation doesn’t resemble the results of a Rorschach test in which everyone’s differing interpretations are acceptable ) I agree with Amoolya’s observation of 18 years signifying the legal ‘coming of age’. (In Australia, 18 year olds may get a driving licence, for instance. )
   .
   I’m not convinced by the idea that Kerouac, in this haiku or “pop” or elsewhere, is “pitting nature against the manmade… ” (quotation from Nelly Lewis Lambert, in the final part of Amoolya’s essay)
   .
   Let’s see what Kerouac himself has written about American Haiku, which he distinguishes from Japanese haiku:
   .
   “”The American Haiku is not exactly the Japanese Haiku. The Japanese Haiku is strictly disciplined to seventeen syllables but since the language structure is different I don’t think American Haikus (short three-line poems intended
   to be completely packed with Void of Whole) should worry about syllables because American speech is something again… bursting to pop.” – Jack Kerouac
   .
   “Above all, a Haiku must be very simple and free of all poetic trickery and make a little picture and yet be as airy and graceful as a Vivaldi Pastorella.” – Jack Kerouac
   .
   “Then I’ll invent
   The American Haiku type
   The simple rhyming triolet:–
   Seventeen syllables?
   No, as I say, American Pops:–
   Simple 3-line poems” – Jack Kerouac – Reading Notes, 1965

   https://terebess.hu/english/haiku/Kerouac-Haikus.pdf
   .
   I like this haiku but I don’t feel I need to compare it with Shiki’s “two autumns” or to consider it as a kind of honkadori to that. The girls have come of age, are, as the saying goes, “in the bloom of youth”. They are out together (perhaps even at a beat poetry reading!) in the evening and probably excited about that. The 18 year old sisters, to me, simply vibe with an evening in spring. Yes, in a sense there are two “spring evenings”, the literal one and the comparative ‘season’ of the two sisters.
   .
   I like this haiku best when I hear it, read or spoken, by Karouac: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xJdxJ5llh5A
   (On there, this haiku/ pop is at about this ku begins at about 6: 33 . And one gets to study the different looks on the faces of Kerouac and his cat while listening to Kerouac’s reading. 🙂 )

   There doesn’t seem to be anything at all lecherous in Kerouac’s voice. To me, this haiku / ‘pop’ fills the bill he states , it’s “simple and free of all poetic trickery and it and make(s) a little picture and yet be (is) … airy and graceful …”
   .
   The “fourth line”? Yes, we can’t deny the context that gives.

   1. Dear Lorin Ford,
      Reading your comments, a detailed way, very interesting, knowing more and more. Thanking you a lot for this very detailed way.

5. This poem is an enigmatic juxtaposition of two concepts: a “spring evening” and “two eighteen-year-old sisters,” which produces some fascinating and unexpected cross-mapping of ideas which are well-articulated by the responders.

   But take away Kerouac’s name from this poem and what do you have? As an experiment, try attributing the poem to someone else. Assume, for instance, that you found the poem in a book of translated 19th century Japanese haiku, or in a contemporary anthology of eastern European poetry, or a guide to Buddhist practice. Or assume that was written by a woman. How would those reimaginings shape the way you interpret the poem?

   I’m not arguing for context-free reading, just wondering how much attention we need to pay to the writer himself.

   1. Would you say the same about the Shiki haiku, two autumns, Matt? I think some knowledge of the writer adds further layers; but the haiku has to be able to stand on its own feet. There is, for me sufficient depth in the Kerouac to stand both anonymously on its own and as a different, expanding, slant on the Shiki. But yes, sometimes even in the most current haiku one wonders whether the poet’s name has gotten it more attention that it might otherwise have attracted.

      1. Keith
         I would say the same thing about the Shiki haiku, which I had never seen before today: I would have been unaware of any allusion on Kerouac’s part had you not mentioned it. I agree with Lorin that a comparison with the Kerouac poem is interesting, but unnecessary. The overlapping metaphoric maps of “spring evening” and “two eighteen year old sisters” carry the day independent of any allusion.

6. Not gonna spend a lot of time with this. It’s charming. Maybe that’s enough.

7. Dear Amoolya kamalnath,
   My congratulations for being this week’s winner. Appreciate your first person narration on Jack Kerouac, for us to know about him more; the following is
   so vividly informative…
   He said, “Above all, a haiku must be very simple and free of all poetic trickery and make a little picture and yet be as airy and graceful as a Vivaldi pastorella.”

8. Dear Keith Evetts, Greetings, Thanking you immensely for weekly selections,
   inspiring always. Literature abounds here in these wonderful writes, Once again,
   delighted by these educative feature.

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