Simply Haiku Vol
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Simply Haiku Vol. 10 No. 3 – Spring / Summer 2013 SIMPLY HAIKU Vol. 10 No. 3 SPRING / SUMMER 2013 Co-owned by Robert D. Wilson and Saša Važić 1 Simply Haiku Vol. 10 No. 3 – Spring / Summer 2013 Features 2 Simply Haiku Vol. 10 No. 3 – Spring / Summer 2013 Haiku is Dead TO BE OR NOT TO BE An Experiment Gone Awry Part VI: An Essay on Haiku Aesthetics By Robert D. Wilson "Since becoming the sport of amateurs and ignoramuses, haiku have become more and more numerous, more and more banal." Masaoka Shiki Tr. by Janine Beichman Masaoka Shiki His Life and Works Skinhead the words Fuck You carved on his forehead Jack Galmitz New York, U.S.A. Spot ImPress 2013 Published by Dimitar Anakiev at his facebook group Haiku Masterclass, October 12, 2013. My father, mouth and anus wide open --- a shining cloud Ban'ya Natsuishi Japan Mending the holes of my raincoat - that's the way I became a Marxist Dimitar Anakiev Slovenia Mending the Holes of My Raincoat 3 Simply Haiku Vol. 10 No. 3 – Spring / Summer 2013 new fish pond – the cat learns to swim Lorin Ford Australia Shiki Kukai, June 2005 (9th place) as the world fails saxophone in the lips of a walrus Marlene Mountain U.S.A. Haiku 21 2011 frost-covered window I add a rubber ducky to the bubble bath Roberta Beary Washington D.C., U.S.A. First Prize Winner of the 2012 Kiyoshi and Kiyoko Tokutomi Memorial Haiku Contest botanic gardens a plastic daisy dangles from a woman's hat Ernest Berry New Zealand Honorable Mention of the 2013 23rd Ito en Oi ocha New Haiku Contest nevertheless fall colors Christopher Patchel U.S.A. 4 Simply Haiku Vol. 10 No. 3 – Spring / Summer 2013 3rd Place in the 2013 First Annual Peggy Willis Lyles Haiku Awards jampackedelevatoreverybuttonpushed John Stevenson New York, U.S.A. Haiku in English 2013 O, somebody's wife! carrying ice skates with wet blades Takaha Shugyo Tr. by Hoshino Tsunehiko and Adrian J. Pinnington Haiku International Association Japan Like a Tarzan with Jane tucked under his arm I'll escape Yoshitomo Abe Tr. by Ban'ya Natsuishi & David G. Lanoue Niigata Prefecture, Japan Ginyu No.21 whiskey I sip it until it loves me Jim Kacian Virginia, U.S.A. Gendai Haiku webpage bluebluebellswhitebluebellsbluebellsall 5 Simply Haiku Vol. 10 No. 3 – Spring / Summer 2013 Helen Buckingham Bristol, United Kingdom Under the Basho, Autumn 2013 origami three folds ago . is when I blew it! Mike Rehling Michigan, U.S.A. Under the Basho, Autumn 2013 meow meow the violin / kicking the moon / and there goes moo Toshio Kimura HSA KEYNOTE ADDRESS To say something or not to say something, to cater to the crowd eating peanuts and juicy hot dogs loaded to the gills with fixings in the ballpark, anticipating home-runs that never quite happen, our bodies in sync, like oncoming waves, one after another, waiting their turn, the bark of seagulls, the breathy whisper of watery hands grasping at sand castles begging to be built in children's dreams, the night before next, an afterbirth of now dripping down Humpty Dumpty's heavily tattooed right arm, the King's Men around the corner, smoking cigarettes, quaffing beers, scratching their balls, staring into mirrors left over from the rice paddies they walked across when Wonderland played hopscotch with Alice and . sanity scurried. Leave me alone, Basho-san! I don't want to be a David casting stones in a makeshift slingshot at Goliath, the all-star pitcher for the New York Yankees, my psyche tossed and turned on third base, waiting for ghosts scurrying into chalky clouds that hissssssssssssss like a badass rattlesnake! What to do? I love hokku and waka, have a love affair with Japanese short form poetry, read and write verses on trellises of ah, immerse myself in research, empty my mind of preconception, follow zôka into what is and isn't, unable to stay still, feeling more than words, my senses on warp speed, racing the tide through Heaven's River, every star, an amusement ride, redesigning itself in the morning when egrets are dreaming. I have watched in the shadows too long, waiting for the good faerie to rescue Japanese short form poetry from the abyss it's sunk into, an old man with Alzheimer's disease, wandering in 6 Simply Haiku Vol. 10 No. 3 – Spring / Summer 2013 circles without direction, a caricature of yesterday, now stooped under a willow tree that hasn't wept in years, Orphan Annie-eyed, neon lights flashing on and off, on and off, on and off, your mind, Basho-san, hanging from a clothesline with could-have-beens on loan from the Self Important Society of America plastered with labels shouting MADE IN JAPAN! I pull a brass ring from the carousel at The Wonderland Amusement Park, oh shit, here goes, Don Quixote's inside me, nudging me to joust with windmills, telling me to march into hell, if need be, regardless of the cost, dodging mirrors, soldiers of the Inquisition aim at me, sure that I will falter, stumble, or acquiesce to the bliss seated in the empty chair Clint Eastwood spoke to when the audience died last year, a minute past midnight, the last syllable stuffed into a shoe Cinderella left next to the Prince's fuel-injected shadow . the drum-roll, please: HAIKU ISN'T A GENRE. There, I said it. Too late to back down now: It's not a genre, a reformation of hokku, nothing that can be defined. Merriam Webster Dictionary defines a genre as "a category of artistic, musical, or literary composition characterized by a particular style, form, or content." To be a genre, haiku must be definable. In and outside of Japan, there is no agreed-upon definition. There is no East and West. Western and Japanese haiku are one and the same, a concatenate of this and that with more that than this, a reflection laughing at its shadow. Look at some of the definitions of haiku prancing through conference rooms, the overpriced decks of the Queen Mary, university causeways, yuppie cafes, North American public schools, dictionaries, online journals, printed anthologies, and books claiming to offer what other books on haiku haven't offered. See for yourself. What Matsuo Basho introduced to Japan during his lifetime, and what you read, see, and hear from the above, are not co-pilots of the same starship. Compare the then with the now . the sea darkens --- a wild duck's call faintly white Matsuo Bashō Tr. by Makoto Ueda The focus of this hokku is not the duck (object). It's a poem that evokes a surplus of meaning due to the use of the aesthetic style, yugen (depth and mystery) and contrast. Nature is a never- ending movie, a continuum of expression. Basho could not see the duck, only hear it. Faintly white, a wild duck's call? Noise is colorless. The sea, at twilight, however, is ghost-like, surreal, even mysterious if the weather is inclement. Comments Iwata Kuro in his book on Basho, Shochu Hyoshaku Basho Haiku Taisei: 7 Simply Haiku Vol. 10 No. 3 – Spring / Summer 2013 "The whiteness was seen through the eye and the voice was heard through the ear, but he [Basho] felt as if his eyes saw what his ears heard, and he made that delicate feeling into a poem." Tr. by Makoto Ueda end of the world I blow apart a dandelion Garry Gay Santa Rosa, California First Place Winner of the 2013 The Heron's Nest First Annual Peggy Willis Lyles Haiku Award Gay's poem leaves little to be interpreted. Blowing on a dandelion reminds the poet of the world ending, a subjective thought. hototogisu --- through a vast bamboo forest moonlight seeping Matsuo Basho Tr. by Makoto Ueda Basho's poem is an activity-biased hokku. The bamboo, the cuckoo bird, the moonlight are not the poem's focus. Its focus is the creative output of the said and unsaid, what is and what's implied. The cuckoo bird's singing is contrasted (juxtaposed) with the seeping of moonlight through a vast, dense bamboo forest. The song is sensed in that it cannot be translated. It resonates, and is flowing with the moonlight slowly, whose light is shaded and sculpted by shadows and the space between the thick bamboo in the forest. The sense of silence is intense. Nothing in nature is static; nothing is predictable. All is changing and impermanent. Basho was continually observant of nature's creative force, zoka. It was his sensei. There is much a poet can learn and express from such an awareness. Zoka is the thread that weaves our hokku. In today's world, too much is made of humankind's activities and egocentric comprehension. We are not above nature. We are a small part of nature. Comments Kenkichi Yamamoto in his book, Basho: Appreciations and Criticism of His Work: "The combination of the moonbeams slanting through the grove and the hototogisu calling as it flies straight for the horizon creates a world so mysterious that it is almost frightening." Tr. by Makoto Ueda 8 Simply Haiku Vol. 10 No. 3 – Spring / Summer 2013 back home on leave he stalks the cereal aisle on the balls of his feet Harvey Jenkins 1st Place Co-winner of the 2013 Klostar Ivanic's 10th Annual Contest for Haiku in English Jenkins’ poem leaves little to be interpreted. An object stalks an object using objects. It is a senryu listed as a haiku.