SHH 2
Good Day
to all the SHH Poets,
I am
sorry that I was unable to judge the premier of this
section, but John did a fine job as he always does. So it is
my pleasure and honor to be back and able to view your work
this time. I have created SHH as a place to grow and learn
as well as compete. I am going to take this opportunity to
mention that I would also like haiku written for teens and
the issues they face. Look for the announcement and details
in the next issue of Sketchbook.
SHH-Karina Klesko
I found
all the haiku demonstrated creative and insightful
juxtaposition that succeeds in reaching the reader on many
levels of interpretation. After studying each haiku very
carefully it occurred to me that many people are not used to
writing haiku with specified kigo/season words. It is an art
and most poets that write renku/renga are more likely to use
kigo/season words properly. Traditional haiku uses kigo but
modernization has changed that to stating a season
but in a way that is not necessarily compatible with the
rest of the haiku. There should be one season word per haiku
and generally it is the present season, whether you are in
the northern hemisphere and it is spring or the southern
hemisphere where it is autumn. SHH is designed to recognize
kigo and its place in haiku. Whilst looking up the season
word for a particular haiku, one should also check out the
other words used in the haiku. Double season words are
not acceptable because they interfere with continuity,
serenity and purpose.
Season
words conjure up emotions and sometimes a universal vision
of certain occurrences. For example: Spring rain—this seems
plain enough, two words, spring and rain. Each reader will
have a different image and feeling that will go along with
the season words spring rain. What happens next gives
meaning to those words.
In haiku,
the writer creates a yugen—a feeling, sensibility, something
that is untouchable. Japanese Haijin have created lists of
words for each season, with divisions for everyday life
associated with the elements. In the early centuries haiku
and waka/tanka was used as a way of communicating within a
class or between the social classes (early text messaging
and we thought that was new!). Kigo or season books,
journals and lists were created as a sort of a kigo/season
bible. The next lines albeit a haiku or tanka, would
complete a thought or present a new idea juxtaposed with the
kigo, to not only create a message but to also invest or
draw upon an emotion. So you can see that using two kigo
would be confusing because of their intended greeting or
statement, especially two different season words or phrases.
In the spoken Japanese language the syntax/sounds would be
marred and become gibberish. That is an easy way to approach
kigo. I have tried to keep this simplified rather than
spooling academic rhetoric. In this SHH column we are going
to deal with kigo and season words. Below I have listed all
the kigo used in this issue’s entries. Next, I have chosen
haiku I think stand out and give a forthright message that
also can be seen on different levels. Or does it need to be?
Many old school haijin believe there should not be any
hidden messages, that the haiku should be plainly stated and
taken as it is presented and not to look for other meanings.
I agree
it should be composed in this simple manner, but how it is
interpreted is left to the reader. That will depend on race,
religion, culture, environmental location, and education to
name a few.
Listed
Kigo: balmy breeze, thin mist, muddy—landscape,
gray fox, rookery, spring mist, night in spring, spring
thunder, frog, wild geese, slush, skunk cabbage, remaining
snow, Forget Me Not, butterfly, Spring peeper, soap bubbles,
sowing, planting, kite-flying, violet, spring dust, evening
mist, spinach leaves grow, seed-planting, falling camellia
petals, departing geese, dandelions, cherry blossoms,
blackbird:, robin, slug, April morning, seed, poppies,
cuckoo, furrows, plowing, plum blossoms, willow fluff, vee
of geese, vernal equinox, cats in love, melting snow,
skylark, old woman’s day, Knocking eggs
Displayed
here is a very small nesting of topics. A good exercise
might be to print out the Five Hundred Essential
Season Words at Renku Home or any online sajiki for
the season we are in and put it in your pocket or purse and
do a ginko walk, which can take place anywhere, see if you
can experience or look for any of the things that are on
that list. This will train us to keep a keen eye out for the
smaller things, or things not usually noticed. You can
carry a pocket sajiki and a blank journal to fill.
I will
list the haiku that use kigo properly, give experience to an
emotion, and to leave enough space between the lines to
reflect on what is written and unwritten giving a feeling of
wabi sabi.
Rather
than to explain wabi sabi, here is a link I found that will
do very nicely.
http://www.stillinthestream.com/files/wabisabihaiku.htm
Editor’s choices—Karina Klesko
In no
particular order:
spring planting—
grandmother teaches me
her grandmother's song
~Michele L. Harvey, US
This
haiku resonates tradition, cycles of life and generations of
life giving. It is written in a forthright style in its
beautiful simplicity and humility of words that blend
together as a single thought. It is juxtaposed perfectly, a
combination of natural order through the use of two
images.
spring mist
tales about her malaprops
bring mother back to me
~Peggy Heinrich, US
Spring
mist creates a veil, dividing things from one another. This
kigo has evoked an emotional message, without stating it.
The next two lines compliment the kigo by the lifting of
the veil. I find this especially
skillfully designed because there is a sadness/sensation of
wabi sabi yet a degree of humor and endearment.
hospital courtyard
two convalescents knocking eggs
with the chaplain
There was
something about this I liked immediately but was not sure
why. The wording is interesting, hospital courtyard-the word
court evokes a feeling of justice or judgment but with the
word yard to make a single word. Yard gives a feeling of
being outside. Again I was feeling a sense of urgency as I
continued to read. The two convalescing
(recovering/healing) patients knocking eggs / opening the
eggs (suggesting birth).
“Christos
Anesti! Christ has risen.”
They are
knocking the eggs with the Chaplain, or head of the church
(God/Jesus). The picture now opened up for me of Jesus with
the two sinners on the hill outside the city or court of judgement. Cristian
has depicted the Easter scene. I found that quite amazing
because he used no words to tell the reader, the story is there, the reader feels it,
and it opens up before him as a picture without saying a
single word about it. This is a nurtured skill. Others who
are not Christian or familiar with this will not be
encumbered by definitive words.
On a
simple level of what is said, is what it means, the haiku
presents a fascinating picture of two convalescing patients
with a chaplain knocking or breaking-open eggs.
This
particular tradition was cited by Cristian Mocanu as being
in the Spring Observances and Traditions in Romania.
Many
times kigo listed in the special observances will be understood by
a specific culture, but this is nicely written using the
word chaplain:
(noun)
1.
member of the clergy associated with a college,
hospital, etc.
Synonym: Cleric, Member of clergy, Pastor, Preacher,
Abbey, Archbishop, Bishop, Blackcoat, Abbot, Archbishop,
Archdeacon, Bishop and I am sure the list could go on.
The next haiku is an example of a Romanian
cultural observance:
feeble sunshine
the young mother greets
her “old woman’s day”
~Cristian Mocanu, RO
Spring
Kigo: “old women’s day”: (Early Spring):Traditions and
Observances (Romania) From the Romanian Saijiki in the
World Kigo Database. Online at
http://worldkigo2005.blogspot.com/2006/06/romanian-kiyose-05.html
"Zilele babelor” / “Old-women-days” (March 1st to 8th): Based
on an old legend, one is supposed to pick one of these days
with inconsistent weather; if it snows on that particular
day, it’s a bad omen, if it’s sunny, it’s a good omen for
the rest of the year.
Behind the teacher—
the classroom is still filled
by the smell of lilacs
~Cristian Mocanu, RO
I like
this haiku as it gives a hope of sweetness of new blossoms
of lilac and beauty in the classroom. A nice topic, I added
the em-dash to the first line because it read like a
sentence. And that happens as well with the stops, syntax
conversion and restructuring of translations between
languages with the masters.
There is
a wabi sabi, a yearning for hope and expectations in the
classroom left behind.
blind
date:
her long hair cascading
into the spring night
~Chen-ou
Liu, CA
Blind date
in my world has two interpretations. If the date was
visually blind,
the long hair against the darkness of the sky gives the
expanse and message of no limitations in its juxtaposition
to her limitations.
If it is a
first date on a spring night, the long black hair cascading
into the darkness gives the feeling of unknown expectations.
Here the kigo is used as a message of the bud of a
relationship, letting down the hair is letting down
inhibitions.
If you
received this haiku in a message what emotion would it draw
from you?
I want to
thank all SHH 2 haijin and encourage their
participation in the May / June SHH 3 Contest; the kigo is
summer. At that time I will choose 1st, 2nd, and 3rd Choice
haiku. Please review the criteria for the
SHH 3 Contest.
~
~ ~ ~
I have taken
the time to identify haiku submitted in the SHH 2
spring haiku containing double kigo, a practice that is
generally avoided in contemporary haiku composition.
a thin mist
blankets the ocean
evening chill
The kigo is "thin mist"—Sky and
Elements selected from the Yuki Teikei Haiku Society (San
Jose) on-line:
http://youngleaves.org/season-word-list/. "chilly
night" is listed as an autumn kiigo in the society's list
also; additionally, William J. Higginson in The Haiku
Handbook also lists "night chill" as an autumn kigo.
This raises the question does the line 3 use of "evening
chill" constitute a double kigo? Although the wording is
slightly different than the published saijiki, the
close conflict could have been avoided by checking the kigo
list.
The next haiku presents a more
definite occurrence of double kigo use:
dandelion puffs kigo
finding their ground
the mud season
In this haiku both "dandelion"
and "mud season" are documented as spring kigo words in the
Yuki Teikei Haiku Society (San Jose) on-line resource:
http://youngleaves.org/season-word-list "mud
season" is the identified kigo word.
Like the haiku above, the the
next verse contains a definite double kigo:
near the pond—
willow fluff caressing
the harvest moon
The selected kigo is willow
fluff (ryuujo, mid spring) from The Five Hundred
Essential Japanese Season Words on-line:
http://www.2hweb.net/haikai/renku/500ESWd.html;
"harvest moon" is also cited as a autumn kigo in "The
Heavens" list in the same saiji. Regarding the use of double
kigo Dr. Gabi Greve provides this discussion as a guide:
One kigo in
one traditional Japanese haiku
is the guideline (yakusokugoto, promise), the
"general rule", the advise a Japanese haiku sensei will
give his student at the first encounter and keep
reminding him afterwards. (My own experience, passing on
the instructions from Michiko sensei:
Write
ten years according to the yakusokugoto, then you are
able to judge for yourself when not to do so!
But first try to
eliminate one of the kigo from your haiku, if your draft
has more than one.).
World Kigo Data Base.
The fourth example of haiku
submitted with questionable kigo is:
April morning—
the song of chaffinch
in an old apple
As submitted, no saijiki
citation was included; instead, the occurance of daily
observation and experience was listed as the kigo source.
Wikipedia
identifies the "chaffinch" as a small passerine
bird in the finch family Fringillidae widespread and very
familiar throughout Europe. It is the most common finch in
western Europe, and the second most common bird in the
British Isles. Its range extends into western Asia,
northwestern Africa, and Macaronesia. The chaffich is also
called by a wide variety of other names. The haiku as
submitted did not contain the words "apple tree", but
clearly that is what was meant. Regardless of the intent of
the haijin, "apple (ringo) is considered a late
autumn kigo in The Five Hundred Essential Japanese
Season Words on line:
http://www.2hweb.net/haikai/renku/500ESWd.html Line 1
establishes the setting of the haiku as "April morning".
Thus, the haiku as written appears to have a mixed kigo
reference.
Finch is not listed as a kigo in
Higginson's The Haiku Handbook nor in
his on-line list The Five Hundred Essential Japanese
Season Words. In her on-line Haiku date base Dr.
Gabi Greve says "Some common bird names, like FINCH, come in
many families and sub-species during various seasons. So
FINCH like this is used as a topic, whereas
the specific name, like BULLFINCH, is listed in its season
as a kigo" (World
Kigo Database). However, Greve gives not make a
specific reference to chaffinch as a kigo.
The SHH 2 contest required a spring kigo. The discussion
above indicates some of the difficulties haijin encounter
when they are required to select a season kigo in a contest
entry. Gaining a thorough working knowledge of kigo is no
easy task. Fortunately, there are a number of on-line
kigo resources as well as many print kigo resources. It is
up to the haijin to use these resources to aid in the
composition of a haiku containing a single and effective
kigo.
In light of the foregoing
discussion of double kigo in the SHH 2 spring kigo contest I
have developed these specific guidelines for future SHH
Contests:
All Choice SHH Contest haiku will be chosen by these
standards.
-
the use of
kigo / no double kigo permitted
-
the citation
of kigo from a print or on-line saijiki
-
evocative
power
-
transformation by the use of suggestion/not stating or
telling
-
juxtaposition
-
the
feeling of wabi sabi
-
the use of
yugen
I
wish you happy haiku writing for the
SHH 3 summer kigo Contest and look forward to reading
your submissions.
~Karina Klesko
