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

The Haiku of Sonia Sanchez

Sonia Sanchez is a longtime poet and professor at a well-known Pennsylvania university. Haiku is a favorite form for Sanchez. She makes the haiku form really stand up and come alive. I read a lot of her poetry when preparing to write The Lily & The Aster. There is something indescribably marvelous about her haiku, like this:

Love between us is
speech and breath. Loving you is
a long river running.

~

Come windless invader
I am a carnival of

Stars a poem of blood.

~

I am you loving
My own shadow watching
This noontime butterfly.

~

Derelict with eyes
I settle in a quiet
Carnival of waves.

Her other poetry speaks volumes as well. Here’s what she had to say about haiku:

The Haiku For Me Is

Silence. crystals. cornbread
and greens. laughter. brocades.
The sea. Beethoven. Coltrane.
Spring and winter. blue rivers.
Dreadlocks. blues. a waterfall.
Empty mountains. bamboo. bodegas.
Ancient generals. dreams. lamps.
Sarah Vaughn. Her voice exploding
in the universe, returning to earth
in prayer. Plum blossoms.
Silk and steel. Cante jondo
Wine. hills. flesh. perfume.
A breath inhaled and held.
Silence.

Brilliant, just brilliant, I say.

On Writing The Lily & The Aster

I did most of the writing for The Lily & The Aster last summer. I was inspired by the fact that, here in suburban Connecticut, I am surrounded by nature. From a rumble of thunder in the sky to the rhythms of a cricket’s cry, I became sensitive to the details in the vast and remarkable natural backdrop. These subtleties came to the foreground and found their way into my haiku. I wrote in a purely methodical manner, alternating between reading haiku and writing it. It became a particularly pleasant and meditative process as I challenged myself to a daily quota, writing for hours on end.

In The Lily & The Aster, I was forced to write within the bounds of a form, the haiku, which has pre-existing rules for style and structure. A haiku is three lines, 17 syllables and generally concerns nature. Naturally, in the early stages, I seemed to break all of the rules until I adapted to the form. When I did adapt, I could sense whether there were enough syllables without counting and I could easily adjust components of style without much effort. I wrote a total of 400 haiku and narrowed the sum down to 150 for the book. I hope that you have enjoyed haiku shared previous to this text.

As far as the title, I chose two summer flowers, perhaps the most ubiquitous one and a rarer variety. Together I think that the names sound both poetic and musical. It sounds, to me like the name of a classic jazz album from a certain day. I chose the title for all of these reasons.

The title too says something about the book. It says that the book is definitively about summer and essentially about nature. It is about those seasonal ornaments (flowers) which adorn our doorsteps and are among nature’s marvels which inspire just the sort of poetry that is in this book.

Richard Wright - Haiku Poet

Did you know that well-known novelist, Richard Wright, who gave us Bigger Thomas in Native Son, is also a prolific haiku poet? Having written more than 4000 haiku and having published 817 haiku, Wright made a tremendous contribution to the genre during his lifetime. I do not doubt that Wright seems capable such poetic prowess given the plethora of artistic works he produced, but the clumsy, foolhardy nature of Bigger Thomas does not lend itself to poetry.

In his book, Haiku: This Other World, the best and most complete volume of haiku that I've read this year, Wright takes notes during his time in exile in France. He spends a year and a half observing his natural surroundings and putting that work into haiku form. What results is a stunning account of “This Other World.” The book is the most complete compilation of his haiku poetry, featuring 817 of his haiku poems.

Written at the end of Wright’s life, in exile and on the heels of the death of his mother Ella, his daughter Julia observed that his obsession with haiku was something of an effort “to spin these poems of light out of gathering darkness.”

What is special about Richard Wright’s haiku is that he has a neat way of turning a phrase and he has a way of making each haiku his own, of reflecting his particular viewpoint. At first glance, I wondered what the big deal was about a few short poems written about nature. As I got into the poetry, I discovered something provocative, artistic and playful about Wright’s haiku. His poetry had a particular magic about it and it captured something elusive. I also noticed that the pauses between each haiku were heavy – full of thought and reflection. This is typical of good haiku.

When reading Wright’s haiku, I found my own voice. I saw in Wright a great challenger, a sparring partner, of sorts. As soon as I came across one of Wright’s haiku that was perplexing or jarring, I tried to come up with something better written on the same topic. I tried to spin a phrase in an interesting manner, careful not to mimic Wright but inspired to write something better. For instance, I wrote the following:

The fog lifted its

Cold, wet feet to climb out of
The bay and up the hill.

Inspired by the following haiku by Wright:

My cold and damp feet
Feel as distant as the moon
On this autumn night.

Moreover, I wrote:

Every year the geese

Journey south and return with
Loud stories of pilgrimage.

Inspired by Wright’s:

High above the ship
On which immigrants sail,
Are departing geese.

To conclude, Richard Wright’s haiku poetry has been an inspiration for my entire book. His witty and imaginative haiku have truly brought out the best in me. You can find more of his haiku at the following link: http://terebess.hu/english/haiku/wright.html & you can find more of my haiku in my book due out April 2012.