Conversation with the Editor / Xavier Martin / Editor of The Lily & The Aster, a book of haiku, by January Nicole Wilson

Last week, I conducted an interview with Xavier Martin, the editor of The Lily & The Aster. He sat down with me and I asked him a few questions about the book:

JW: What was your first impression of the manuscript?

XM: Your manuscript came as a surprise. Here was a new form of poetry for you - the haiku. I was fascinated by this new shorter form. The form uses metaphor and contradiction in new and important ways. The frame or structure is more restrictive and has more rules than the open form you used in previous books. But, I think that you've been quite successful with haiku.

JW: What was your favorite poem from The Lily & The Aster? Why?

XM: The chapter called Rain was my favorite chapter. It captures the essence of what haiku are. I love the simplicity of the poems contained in this chapter. The poems use mainly nouns. There are not too many adjectives. They are direct poems with clear and beautiful messages. They are poems that talk about nature, about reality, about what the senses perceive. I particularly like:

“Naked to the rain,

 the rose bush is pelted

into submission”

It’s a beautiful and powerful image. One can see the rose bush just by reading these short poems. You do not need anything else. There are no extra words. The simplicity of the poem is one of its great strengths. I love this haiku.

JW: What defines my literary style in this book? 

XM: The haiku defines your work. You capture the essence of what a haiku is and you adapt your style in order to be able to express what you want to tell us. It is a new style, but one can still recognize you in your haiku.

I love the images that you create and how you play with language. Haiku require precision and you always find the right words to create an image. I also like how you tend to use contradictions to capture the varied angles from which you can see one issue. The sense of your haiku can suddenly change in the last sentence where you tend to use metaphors to give a new turn to a poem.

As for your travel essays, your use of memory is remarkable. You take an introspective look at what your travel experiences mean to you. You share very personal experiences and you open up to your readers. There is a lot of generosity in these chapters.

JW: We worked on a number of key elements of this book before finishing the final product. What were the most memorable?

XM: Working on the travel essay concerning Spain was quite memorable, in part, because I am from there and I was interested to learn about your experiences there. Developing this essay was a great challenge. It was difficult to capture and portray the experience on many different levels and at the same time make it readable and entertaining. There were many anecdotes and it was difficult to arrange them in a way that the chapter would flow well. In the end, I really think that you did a very good job.

JW: Why did you take on this project?

XM: I took on this project because I enjoyed working with you on your second book so much. I love witnessing the making of your books--how your ideas evolve and take shape in the form of poems. I feel that I have the opportunity to see how your poems evolve from an idea to a powerful poem.

JW: Would you say my haiku struck a balance between being profound and being playful? Elaborate.

XM: I was particularly impressed by your haiku in this respect because these poems are so short and you are constrained by very strict rules. You have to think a lot about what you are saying and I think that what you've done is quite remarkable. It is the first book where you systematically use the structure of haiku to express your emotions. I do not have any doubt that we still enjoy many more haikus from you. You have truly mastered the art of haiku!

Publish Date Postponed

This is a short note to let you know that the publish date for The Lily & The Aster will be postponed until the near future. Stay tuned for the latest updates, including an interview with the editor. Thanks.

More Haiku from The Lily & The Aster

Here’s another chance to get a look at more haiku from The Lily & The Aster:

Drunk on the scent of

The aster, the butterfly takes

Flight—dizzily.

Shades of summer

In the bright morning sky—

A gaggle of geese.

Through the locked gate,

Orange day lilies

Pierce the night.

Haiku Checklist

The following link is useful if you plan on trying your hand at writing a haiku. Actually, it is called the "Haiku Checklist." It is a list that includes some helpful reminders of the key components of haiku writing. It is a great aid if you are new to haiku writing or are a veteran. I found this link by way of The Haiku Society of America. The group plays an active role in educating the haiku writing communitiy. In fact, it organizes and sponsors events for National Haiku Writing Month, including a daily word prompt on Facebook and Twitter.

Click here for the link to the "Haiku Checklist".

A Sampling of the Haiku & Photography from The Lily & The Aster

You will be happy to learn that my book is nearing the date of publication. I received the first proof several weeks ago. And while we are still working through the proof, the official projected date of publication is April 7, 2012, if not sooner. I am so excited!

But, before that happens, I'd like to share more of my book with you. This time a pairing of photography and haiku. First, a pairing from the chapter known as, 'These Autumn Days:"

                                                           The world holds

                                                           Its breath as summer

                                                           Passes away.

Next, some of my photography and haiku from the chapter called "Spring's Silence:"

                                                         Such a delicate

                                                         Silence, while daffodils

                                                         Blossom.

                               Finally, a pairing from a chapter called "Harvest:"

                                                          The smell of fresh

                                                          Summer tomato lingered

                                                          On her salty breath.

                      

       

   

                   

Introduction to The Lily & The Aster

Now that you have gotten a look at the poetry inside the book and a look at the trailer, how about we take a step back and look at the prose that introduces the book. Here is your chance to get a look at the Introduction to The Lily & The Aster:

Introduction -

Why haiku? The answer is simple: haiku is a Japanese form of poetry that is amazing in that it can be used to portray the unseen, to point out an irony or to colorfully depict a scene usually in just 17 syllables or in just three lines with 5-7-5 syllables.

Haiku is always about more than what is given on the page. It captures a feeling, a moment, an attitude towards nature, towards life, towards being. At its best, haiku transcends the words on the page and communicates something elusive.

Poet Sonia Sanchez had the following to say about the beauty and power of haiku:  

“This haiku, this tough form disguised in beauty and insight is like the blues, for they both offer no solutions, only a pronouncement, a formal declaration—acceptance of pain and humor, beauty and non-beauty, death and rebirth, surprise and life. Always life.”

If you pay close attention to the silence, the pauses in each haiku, there may be an “aha moment.” That is yours to claim.

As in life, so it is in love. Love has its cycles of death and of rebirth. Love has its seasons—seasons of longing, of passion, of maturity and of loss. In nature we see symmetry to life and love. Some of the haiku and other poetry here are a reflection on life and on love as seen in nature.

I chose haiku because they are a powerful and concise way to express an emotion, an idea. Although haiku is a rigid form with specific rules, haiku is also flexible, with rules that can be adapted. For instance, even the great Japanese haiku masters wrote and published haiku that were a syllable or two more or less than 17. And like so many of my predecessors, I reinvent the form to tell a story with long and short haiku.

 

You will find short poems as well as short essays here in addition to the haiku. The short poems vary in subject matter from love, to nature, to politics.

It is always interesting for me to learn more about a writer, especially a poet, once I have read his or her or work. In that spirit, I am also including a few short essays composed from journals I kept while spending an extended period of time in Romania, Spain and Ghana. I would like to share these with you because my travels have so fundamentally shaped who I am and how I see the world. They have had an impact on my poetry in more ways than one. The stories I tell are too short to publish as a stand-alone book, so I thought it a fitting little surprise to include them here.

Matsuo Basho & his haiku

Matsuo Basho is a master haiku poet. His influence spans Japan and throughout the world. Basho is so well-renowned perhaps because of his work’s accessibility. I read a great number of his haiku in preparation for writing The Lily & The Aster. I admire that he is able to capture such beauty and power in one simple image. Oh, the magic one can create in just 17 syllables. Sample Matsuo Basho’s most poignant work - haiku - translated from Japanese:


Spring:
A hill without a name
Veiled in morning mist
~

Coolness of the melons
flecked with mud
in the morning dew
~

Awake at night--
the sound of the water jar
cracking in the cold
~

Chilling autumn rains
curtain Mount Fuji, then make it
more beautiful to see

~

Crossing long fields,
frozen in its saddle,
my shadow creeps by