俳句 Archives - Deep Kyoto

Plum Blossom at the Imperial Palace Park

February 27, 2015 By Michael Lambe

On my way home from Kitano Tenmangu Shrine the other day, I stopped by the Imperial Palace Park to enjoy the plum blossom. The trees at Kitano Tenmangu are probably more famous, but the shrine grounds were also a lot more crowded. Though each tree in the park had its admirers, there was really only a small scattering of people around, and so I could enjoy the blooms in a more relaxed and pleasant manner.

Every tree has its admirers... — Every tree has its admirers…

And there is something very calming about viewing plum blossom.

The scent of plum blossom is subtle, not strong, but deep like wine and very rich. I love to stick my nose in a spray and take a big sniff!

梅が香に追い戻さるるさむさかな [松尾芭蕉]

ume ga ka ni
oimodosaruru
samusa kana
~ Matsuo Bashō

plum blossom scent –
this chases off
the cold!
( tr. Michael Lambe)

Honke Owariya with Sean Lotman

June 16, 2014 By Michael Lambe

On Sunday Mewby and I had the pleasure of lunch with writer/photographer Sean Lotman. Sean’s wife manages the Honke Owariya soba noodle business, a family company which is pretty famous in Kyoto. The business actually dates from 1465, though they “only” started making noodles Sean told me about 300 or 400 years ago, as they were originally a confectionary business. They still make confectionary but it is the noodles that have made it famous. We met up with Sean at the main branch of Honke Owariya, a delightful old traditional Kyoto building for a stimulating lunch of hearty food and good conversation in beautiful surrounds. [Read more…]

Blue Sky – An Excerpt from Deep Kyoto Walks

June 11, 2014 By Michael Lambe

Today I am posting another in a series of short excerpts from our ebook Deep Kyoto: Walks. In Blue Sky, the poet Stephen Henry Gill acts as a guide to the Saga & Arashiyama area for a young visitor who has come to learn more about the conservation NPO, People Together for Mt. Ogura. Stephen whimsically names his visitor Blue Sky, because that was the first thing he saw that fine autumn day. We join them mid-way through the tour…

On our left is a tilled field, in which the raggedy, nondescript greens are straggling. Going down this near side of the field, we soon come to the rustic gate of Rakushisha, the ‘House of Fallen Persimmons’, the thatched cottage once owned by Mukai Kyorai (1651-1704), and where his haiku master, Matsuo Bashō (1644-94), once stayed. Here, Bashō wrote his Saga Nikki, the ‘Saga Diary’. Another story for Blue:

One day in autumn, a merchant from Osaka passed the house, which was then located in an orchard of persimmon trees. He went in and negotiated with Kyorai to purchase the entire crop, paying him an advance and telling him he would come back the following day to harvest the glowing orange-coloured fruit. Kyorai went to bed feeling pleased with himself, but awoke in the night as a storm set in and proceeded to shake all the fruit down onto the ground. The crop was ruined and, the next day, when the merchant finally appeared, Kyorai had to hand back the deposit he’d received. From that day on, he would refer to himself ironically as ‘The Master of Persimmons’.

[Read more…]

Meltdown – An Anthology of Haiku, Z – A

February 14, 2014 By Michael Lambe

MELTDOWN メルトダウン (2013) An Anthology of Haiku, Z to A.
ISBN: 978-4-9900822-5-3
Edited by Stephen Henry Gill
Includes almost 500 haiku and a short 4-part seasonal renku cycle over 228 pages.
Cover by Richard Steiner.
Price:￥1,500; airmail $20, incl. p&p
Dimensions: 19 x 13 cm. Covers feature a tactile matt paper finish.
How to order: details are at the Hailstone Haiku Circle’s Publications page: http://hailhaiku.wordpress.com/publications/

I thought I might examine some gems from the latest Hailstone haiku anthology for clues as to haiku possibilities. What makes a haiku a haiku? Wherein lies the haiku’s charm? Why indeed, write haiku at all?

Haiku, we know, should be brief, and Japanese haiku conventionally (though not always) follow a 5-7-5 Japanese syllabic count. There are some masters of the haiku craft who stick to the 5-7-5 syllable count in English – and work wonders within those confines:

Ainu songs are sad:
like this deep blue crater lake
with fog cascading

(Nobuyuki Yuasa, Meltdown, pg 119)

Many people also think a haiku should be written in three lines, and this is often the case. But not always. There are those who throw both syllable and line counts aside, with brilliantly bold experiments.

Unspoken history dark clouds shroud the hunter’s moon

(Duro Jaiye, Ibid, pg 71)

Thump
sun fingers
the forest snow
THUMP
no-one is here

(David McCullough, Ibid, pg 65) [Read more…]

Hiking & Haiku on the Uminobe-no-Michi Trail

October 17, 2013 By Michael Lambe

For the last 3 years or so I have been joining the Hailstone Haiku Circle on their annual autumn hike. Always good outings, in previous years we have gone further afield to Mount Daisen in Tottori, and Tateyama in Toyama, but this year’s hike was closer to home： along the Lakeside Way (湖ノ辺の道 Uminobe-no-michi), in Northern Shiga. These are haiku composition hikes, so we take notes as we walk and at the end of the day exchange our poems over dinner and drinks. Before that though, a 14 kilometer trek along Lake Yogo, up Mount Shizugatake and along the range before climbing up and down Mount Yamamoto. Many thanks to Richard Donovan who organized this year’s excursion, and who ~~will be posting~~ has posted an account with the group’s haiku on the Hailstone site ~~soon~~. Here I shall post my own photos of the day including some Ricoh Theta spherical images. If you click on those spherical images you can view a fully immersive 360 degree photograph.

The tree pictured above is said to be 天女の衣掛柳 – the willow upon which a heavenly maiden hung her robe. According to the story a passing fisherman seeing the beautiful maiden swimming in Lake Yogo, hid the robe from her, thus preventing her return to heaven. He then took her home with him and kept her as his wife. Years later one of her children found the robe and returned it to her, whereupon she instantly flew back to heaven leaving her husband and children devastated without her… [Read more…]

Genjuan International Haibun Contest 2013

September 24, 2012 By Michael Lambe

幻住庵　Genjuan Haibun Contest 2013

Genjuan is the name of the cottage near Lake Biwa where, in 1690, Basho lived for a while and wrote one of his most famous haibun. It was probably the happiest period of his life. This is the second year of the contest crowned by the name of Basho’s cottage, and its purpose remains to provide a common arena for haibun writers of the world. Fortunately, we had a warm response in 2012, receiving about 100 entries from 14 different countries. The award for Grand Prix will remain the same – a good replica of a Hokusai ukiyo-e print – and smaller gifts will be sent to authors winning an An (‘Cottage’) Prize. The writers of the decorated works will each receive a certificate of merit. We sincerely look forward to your participation. Some sample haibun can be read at the following link: Genjuan Winning Haibun 2012

Guidelines for 2013

1 Subject: Free, but discretion must be used to avoid slander and obscenity.

2 Style: No restrictions, but attention should be paid to honour the spirit of haikai.

3 Length: In total, between 20 and 40 lines (at 1 line = 80 spaces) on a single page.

4 Haiku/Title: At least one haiku should be included, and a title should be given.

5 Format: Print on a sheet of A4-size paper and write at the bottom your name (and your pen name, if you have one), together with your address, telephone number, and your email address. Your privacy will be strictly protected, and the judges will not see your names while selecting works for decoration.

6 Deadline: All entries should reach the following address by 31 January 2013. Entries received after this date will not be accepted. Please send your entries by airmail to: Ms. Motoko Yoshioka, Regalia 907, 7-32-44 Fujimi-cho, Tachikawa-shi, Tokyo 190-0013, Japan. You are requested not to use express airmail or extra-large envelopes, which can cause problems at delivery.

7 Entry Fee: None.

8 Restrictions: Entrants may send up to three pieces, each on a separate sheet of paper. They should be unpublished. As we cannot return your entries after screening, please don’t forget to retain your own copies.

9 Questions: All questions should be sent to the address above.

10 Winners: The authors of the decorated works will subsequently be requested to send us their pieces by email. This is important, and we expect your cooperation.

A Ginko, at Seishu Netsuke-kan

November 14, 2011 By Michael Lambe

Here’s this month’s poetry post from our friend, poet and translator, Keiji Minato.

Have you tried a ginko (吟行)? A ginko is a group excursion to make haiku or senryu: you visit a landmark, a museum exhibition, or any place of interest and write poems based on the experience. Usually, a kukai (句会; a haiku or senryu meeting) takes place afterwards, and you can share your works with others in a relaxed mood.

I was lucky to participate in one of such events on November 12th. We took a visit to Seishu Netsuke-kan (清宗根付館) in Mibu (壬生), a 5-minite walk from Omiya Station of Hankyu Kyoto Line. It is the one and only museum in Japan entirely devoted to works of netsuke (根付).

A netsuke is a small traditional sculpture used to hold an inro (印籠; a container for medicines) at your obi or sash for a waist belt. You tie an inro at one end of a string and a netsuke at the other, and pass the netsuke under the obi from below (As always, Wikipedia has a great page, so check out pictures at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Netsuke.). A netsuke is at most the size of a small chicken egg, but the art of Japanese artisans enables one to show animals playing with each other, a scene from famous stories, or a burlesque with comical human figures.

[Read more…]

The Kikakuza Haibun Contest Anthology

October 19, 2011 By Michael Lambe

Kikakuza Haibun Contest ~ Decorated Works 2009~2011
Compiled by Nobuyuki Yuasa & Stephen Henry Gill

Lovely little collection this. I purchased a copy last week at the Hibikiai Forum English Haiku Poems seminar, and as it rained solidly all the next day, I spent a very nice, lazy afternoon reading through it with the rainfall as perfect background music.

Haibun (俳文) are, simply put, a combination of prose and haiku poetry. Something about this collaboration between literary styles has always appealed to me. Maybe because I find I enjoy poetry more when I read it within a context, or as part of a story. Anyway, I picked up this volume because I wanted to learn more about how haibun works. It may seem simple enough to place poetry within a narrative, but to get the very best performance out of these dancing partners requires balance, lightness of touch, and an imaginative focus that mutually enhances both forms. The most famous haiku poet, Matsuo Basho, was also a writer of haibun, and his most celebrated haibun is おくのほそ道 (The Narrow Road to Oku), a diary of his epic journey through northern Edo Era Japan. This account of Basho’s poetic and meditative questing through the landscapes of the deep north is considered the best of his works and a masterpiece of Japanese literature. Basho set a high standard, but his works continue to inspire haiku and haibun writers in both Japanese and increasingly also in English. It is fitting that one of the Kikakuza judges, Nobuyuki Yuasa has included at the end of this anthology several of his own translations of short haibun pieces by the classical masters Basho, Yosa Buson and Kobayashi Issa as examples for would-be future haibun writers.

The Kikakuza Haibun Contest was created both to promote interest in haibun and to encourage its writing both within Japan and overseas. Within this volume of decorated works you will find a fine range of styles and subject matter from many different countries. The entries are short: no more than 30 lines per piece, but this brevity helps both the writer and the reader to focus on the essence of each experience. Reading these haibun I was transported to a remote Romanian farmhouse, a funeral ceremony in Bhutan, mysterious neolithic sites in rural Ireland and the abundantly biodiverse Australian countryside. There are haiku that describe an immense moon hanging over the Parisian landscape, resounding echoes in a Japanese temple, dawn light in an English wood, and dusk on the detritus of disaster in India. Strange Bedfellows by Margaret Chula is a carefully crafted tale of the uncanny. Coal Dust by Patricia Prime is a vivid memoir of home life in steam age New Zealand. Ellis Avery’s Winter Subway takes us into mindful meanderings on the New York subway. And in Memories of the Sun Melissa Spurr gives an explicit account of the environmental damage wrought by a housing boom in the Mojave desert.

“These trees remember where the sun comes up,” a tree mover says, “You have to be sure and plant them in the ground just the same way they grew, or they get confused and die.”

By far my favorite piece, however, is the one that opens the collection and the outright winner of the 2009 contest. For Rose by John Parsons is a fine tribute to a deceased friend, mingling reminiscence with scenes from her funeral. The narrative is deeply moving without being sentimental. The images of sunlit bees in the woods, ash on a spider web, people meeting “as two heads bobbing at sea”, are perfect, brilliant, beautiful.

In addition to these wonderful contemporary haibun and the classical translations mentioned above, these 78 pages contain a very instructive commentary from the judges, the judges’ own haibun and a solo shisan (linked verse) by Nobuyuki Yuasa in response to this year’s disaster in the north. It’s a slim volume but it contains worlds! You can order a copy via the Hailstone Haiku Circle’s publications page for 1000 yen + postage.

The contest will continue next year with the same rules and judges but under a new name. Entry is free and the deadline is January 31st, 2012. To find out more about the new Genjuan International Haibun Contest please click here.

Irish Haiku!

December 11, 2010 By Michael Lambe

On Thursday night I attended the Hailstone Haiku Circle‘s English Haiku class for the first time and thoroughly enjoyed it! About 12 people were present including the British poet/artist Stephen Gill and Sean O’Connor an Irish poet/musician. The first part of the class was taken up with what Stephen called the 添削コーナー (“correction corner”). Here haiku that have been submitted before the class anonymously are discussed by the class as a whole and under Stephen’s direction they are polished and perfected. In this manner a poem that starts out like this:

Autumn night
many stars in the sky
scatter onto the sea

May end up like this:

Autumn night
some of its myriad stars
scattered onto the sea

And then the class will read the poem out together. There’s quite an emphasis on reading aloud in this class, which is important, if you want to get a feel for the rhythm of the language.

In the second part of the class Stephen and Sean took us on a whirlwind tour of Irish haiku, starting with the very first writer of haiku in Ireland Juanita Casey, a legendary traveling woman who wrote in the 1960’s.

Under the bridge
the stream –
the leaf and I,
travelers.

In Japan, haiku have often been written by wanderers such as Basho and Santoka, so it seems fitting that the first Irish haiku poet was a wanderer too.

Sean was keen to share with us this next poem by Padraig O Horgain:

far to the east
rise the Paps of Danu –
smoke from morning fires

The “Paps of Danu” are two hills in County Kerry named after the breasts of the ancient Irish mother goddess. What Sean wanted to share with us though, was a word on Hiberno-English grammar. What gives Irish speakers of English a quirkiness to their diction is a consequence of translating into English from the Irish language. Irish grammar he told us has a word order that is pretty much the reverse of standard English. Thus “the Paps of Danu rise” becomes “rise the Paps of Danu”. Interestingly, Sean said that familiarity with Irish grammar made Japanese grammar a cinch to understand as they are very, very similar.

Here’s another haiku from Sean’s friend Jim Norton:

Leap-Year Day:
approaching the pier, a seal;
its long eye-lashes

Jim Norton founded Ireland’s first haiku magazine “Haiku Spirit” in 1995. Stephen told us that Jim Norton is known for his realism and that pretty much everything in his poetry is taken directly from his life. Sean confirmed this by telling us that he was standing next to Jim Norton when he wrote this poem one February 29th at Howth harbor! Leap-Year Day though, is traditionally the day when women are permitted to propose to men. I couldn’t help noticing the femininity of those eye-lashes as the seal approached the pier and I wondered if there wasn’t a trace of the mermaid about it. Perhaps I am over-imaginative but for me this poem called to mind the legend of the selkie, those skin-shedding seal-women of Celtic myth who are famed for their heartbreaking beauty…

Well, as I said, it was a whirl-wind tour and there were many other fine poems read aloud and discussed that evening by such poets as Paul Muldoon, Seamus Heaney, Michael Hartnett etc… It was an enjoyable feast for the mind but at only an hour and a half, I felt like we had barely whetted our appetites. Certainly I’ll be back for more in the New Year! Here’s one last poem from Sean O’Connor himself, notable for the physicality of its imagery and its gentle, wry wit:

Hot sun after rain
wet statue of the Virgin
slightly steams.

_____________________________________________________________________________

The next Hailstone English Haiku Class is on January 13th from 18:00 – 19:30.

Place: Friend Peace House, Kyoto (Meiji-style building 250m south of Imadegawa via the old gate to the west or the new gate to the east; equidistant from Keihan Demachiyanagi and Subway Imadegawa). Here is a map.