Zuihitsu
A Glint
of Light on Broken Glass
crescent
moon
reclining on clouds
the maple stands alone
Raising my cup, I entice the moon; her reflection of
you and me make us three. Bathed in moonlight, I
wash in each scent you left behind. Baptized in
them, I become born-again, a poet speaking in
tongues.
faint mist, gloomy clouds
sorrow surrounds the day
who can take a poem
beyond the Pacific
a calligraphy of geese
flies against the sky
Snowflakes seed the sky in silence. The loneliness
gnawing at the corner of my heart grows louder.
I go out the window.
As for
zuihitsu, the first book of zuihitsu poetry in English
is The Narrow Road to the Interior written
by a Japanese-American poet, Kimiko Hahn who received
the 2008 PEN/Voelcker Award for Poetry.
~Submission
Note from Chen-ou Liu
Zuihitsu*
Zuihitsu
(随筆?) is a genre of Japanese literature consisting of
loosely connected personal essays and fragmented ideas
that typically respond to the author's surroundings. The
name is derived from two Kanji meaning "to follow" and
"brush", and thus works of the genre should be
considered not as traditionally planned literary pieces
but rather as casual or random jottings down of thought
by their authors.
History
of Zuihitsu*
Zuihitsu
emerged in the Heian Period with Sei Shōnagon's The
Pillow Book. Shōnagon, a member of the Heian Imperial
Court, kept a private diary of her own observations and
musings about courtly life. It is unclear whether or not
she intended it to be released to the public (although
sections of the work itself and anecdotes from her life
would suggest that she didn’t), but the work
nevertheless survived and provides an alternate view
into life of the era, making it an invaluable literary
as well as historical resource.
The genre next gained momentum as a respectable form of
writing several centuries later in the Kamakura Period.
With the depotentiation of the Heian Court and the
relocation of the capital to Kamakura, near modern day
Tokyo, many intellectuals, amidst social chaos, grew
disillusioned and chose to live in asceticism – a trend
that also reflected the growing importance of Pure Land
Buddhism. Writing from isolation, these authors
reflected on the degeneracy of their contemporaries,
whom they considered philistines, in comparison to
themselves, as well as general consideration of the
impermanence of the material world. Major works from
this period include Kamo no Chōmei's Hōjōki and Yoshida
Kenkō’s Tsurezuregusa.
Zuihitsu rose to mainstream popularity in the Edo
period, when it found a wide audience in the newly
developed merchant classes. Furthermore, it gained a
scholarly foothold, as Japanese classical scholars began
customarily writing in the ‘’zuihitsu’’ style. Reputable
authors from this movement include Motoori Norinaga,
Yokoi Yayu, and Matsudaira Sadanobu.
*Source:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zuihitsu
