The question of the status of haiku in literature is ultimately a question of the status of the haiku poet as a human being. Does the haiku poet, by virtue of personal suffering and artistic engagement, illuminate the perplexities of life?
If the haiku poet keeps returning to Basho or Issa, perhaps it is because Basho and Issa come to mind when he reads the opening lines of "Asides on the Oboe" by Wallace Stevens:
The prologues are over. It is a question, now,
Of final belief. So, say that final belief
Must be in a fiction. It is time to choose.
This haiku poet cannot but choose to keep reading Basho and Issa and the others (even some of his contemporaries who belong to that world, his world) and writing haiku in the spirit of their examples. Other possibilities -- and they do occur to him -- do not survive the edge of his need.
Friday, October 23, 2009
Friday, October 16, 2009
Haiku and the traditional modern American style: on a haiku by Roberta Beary
on the church steps
a mourning dove
with mother’s eyes
—Roberta Beary
Roberta Beary is an award-winning haiku writer and someone who would be considered a potential “breakout” poet. That is, Beary seems p0ised to help establish haiku as a genre of poetry both commercially and critically. Her work, as here, is both accessible and emotionally charged. The qualities associated with, among other types of modern American writing, haiku – precision, concision, and clarity – can easily be illustrated by discussing this haiku and many others by Beary.
The public associates haiku with an objective report-- a captured moment-in-time, a sort of emotional snapshot. Here we may imagine a mourner mounting the steps of the church to attend a memorial service for her mother and being haunted by the eyes of the “mourning dove” she passes on the steps. At this moment in time, even the common pigeon reminds her of her mother! The poignance is hardly obscure; the moment happens TO the poet/speaker and by extension the willing reader. The moment is one of grief and as such must be acknowledged; only a cad would question the reality of the emotional scene from which the poem grew.
And yet, studying the poem, one may feel a slight break in the glaze of the poem – the unity that vouchsafes the poet’s sincerity – by the pun on the name of the bird. That crack may widen for some readers with strong imaginations, and/or a knowledge of this particular bird’s way of seeing and looking. Nor would this opening of questions be of the sort sponsored by the form of haiku, which is marked by “cuts” starting with the fold between the vertical – the CHURCH steps – and the base – the last two lines. The fact that such a bird is a common denizen of church steps, indeed frequently the object of attention by those who must scrub the steps, does not make the kind of use of the formal fold that is characteristic of many great haiku, though it does contain the potential note of derision, or “low” value, that is typical of the comic dimension of haiku.
It’s not that all haiku must exhibit a tension between the superposed line and the base (or narrative scene, usually in two lines), only that the tension is more than a formal figuration expressed in the diction. The tension of the major cut is that between the “vertical” or transcending dimension and the self-enclosed givens of the “horizontal” section. That is, the “gap” typical of haiku form – and only it would seem of this genre – is a “metaphysical” feature; as such it can move around within the actual verbal structure of the poem. In any event, haiku as a genre bears witness to the perplexity occasioned by the amazement of “that there is anything at all”: the wonder of being. As William Desmond says, “To live as human is always to be porous to beng struck by this astonishment and perplexity about origin” (Art, Origins, Otherness, 3). Haiku attends to the “being happenings” that characterize this metaxic view of life. Beary’s haiku certainly does seem to aim at recovering such an experience in poetic form, but it does so with perhaps too little concern for loose ends and a sense of sentimentality that makes the poem about the poet’s emotions – her grief -- rather than about anything else. Certainly not her mother or even the bird. And of course mourning one’s mother would be hard to write about (and yet Basho and Issa, and no doubt others, managed to write great haiku about just that).
In traditional Japanese haiku, the gap creates a space in which metaphor happens, analogies and proportions, and these animate the disparate parts that make up the whole poem. But, you may say, well, that’s just how our type of haiku is: it’s about the emotions experienced by the poet and “hopefully” the willing reader. To which I would say, that’s not enough to make haiku stand as a genre of world poetry; it does not distinguish haiku from a conversation, a letter, a phone call, or some other communication. And it does not reflect the artistic accomplishment of the founders of the genre. The virtues of concision, precision, and clarity are hallowed in the US by generations of stylists. Beary’s achievements as a haiku poet aside, these qualities raise questions about the conventions of the master culture; much of experience simply cannot be rendered by these stylistic qualities. Grief may indeed open up to include all of existence – even the pigeon, but then the creatureliness of mortals would be the focus of the moment. Perhaps the unintended issues raised by Beary’s poem suggest the limits of just such a model of excellence.
a mourning dove
with mother’s eyes
—Roberta Beary
Roberta Beary is an award-winning haiku writer and someone who would be considered a potential “breakout” poet. That is, Beary seems p0ised to help establish haiku as a genre of poetry both commercially and critically. Her work, as here, is both accessible and emotionally charged. The qualities associated with, among other types of modern American writing, haiku – precision, concision, and clarity – can easily be illustrated by discussing this haiku and many others by Beary.
The public associates haiku with an objective report-- a captured moment-in-time, a sort of emotional snapshot. Here we may imagine a mourner mounting the steps of the church to attend a memorial service for her mother and being haunted by the eyes of the “mourning dove” she passes on the steps. At this moment in time, even the common pigeon reminds her of her mother! The poignance is hardly obscure; the moment happens TO the poet/speaker and by extension the willing reader. The moment is one of grief and as such must be acknowledged; only a cad would question the reality of the emotional scene from which the poem grew.
And yet, studying the poem, one may feel a slight break in the glaze of the poem – the unity that vouchsafes the poet’s sincerity – by the pun on the name of the bird. That crack may widen for some readers with strong imaginations, and/or a knowledge of this particular bird’s way of seeing and looking. Nor would this opening of questions be of the sort sponsored by the form of haiku, which is marked by “cuts” starting with the fold between the vertical – the CHURCH steps – and the base – the last two lines. The fact that such a bird is a common denizen of church steps, indeed frequently the object of attention by those who must scrub the steps, does not make the kind of use of the formal fold that is characteristic of many great haiku, though it does contain the potential note of derision, or “low” value, that is typical of the comic dimension of haiku.
It’s not that all haiku must exhibit a tension between the superposed line and the base (or narrative scene, usually in two lines), only that the tension is more than a formal figuration expressed in the diction. The tension of the major cut is that between the “vertical” or transcending dimension and the self-enclosed givens of the “horizontal” section. That is, the “gap” typical of haiku form – and only it would seem of this genre – is a “metaphysical” feature; as such it can move around within the actual verbal structure of the poem. In any event, haiku as a genre bears witness to the perplexity occasioned by the amazement of “that there is anything at all”: the wonder of being. As William Desmond says, “To live as human is always to be porous to beng struck by this astonishment and perplexity about origin” (Art, Origins, Otherness, 3). Haiku attends to the “being happenings” that characterize this metaxic view of life. Beary’s haiku certainly does seem to aim at recovering such an experience in poetic form, but it does so with perhaps too little concern for loose ends and a sense of sentimentality that makes the poem about the poet’s emotions – her grief -- rather than about anything else. Certainly not her mother or even the bird. And of course mourning one’s mother would be hard to write about (and yet Basho and Issa, and no doubt others, managed to write great haiku about just that).
In traditional Japanese haiku, the gap creates a space in which metaphor happens, analogies and proportions, and these animate the disparate parts that make up the whole poem. But, you may say, well, that’s just how our type of haiku is: it’s about the emotions experienced by the poet and “hopefully” the willing reader. To which I would say, that’s not enough to make haiku stand as a genre of world poetry; it does not distinguish haiku from a conversation, a letter, a phone call, or some other communication. And it does not reflect the artistic accomplishment of the founders of the genre. The virtues of concision, precision, and clarity are hallowed in the US by generations of stylists. Beary’s achievements as a haiku poet aside, these qualities raise questions about the conventions of the master culture; much of experience simply cannot be rendered by these stylistic qualities. Grief may indeed open up to include all of existence – even the pigeon, but then the creatureliness of mortals would be the focus of the moment. Perhaps the unintended issues raised by Beary’s poem suggest the limits of just such a model of excellence.
Thursday, October 8, 2009
Basho as a "singular thinker"
In contemplating the long history of haiku, one becomes familiar with contexts that constrain interpretation. It's tempting, of course, to reduce haiku to an act of "mere" attention, as if "attention" itself were not a construct based on a complex of beliefs and habits of perception. In any event, avoiding that temptation may lead to an opposite extreme: the imposition of beliefs in a non-historical way. In many contemporary commentaries, there's a kind of loss of difference between the text and the commentary; even the act of commenting seems to be a para-poetic act, as if in competition with the poem. The original is subsumed by the commentary. The rest is "gloss" as J. V. Cunningham would say.
It's always possible, however, that we can recover a set of habits of mind -- the "habitus" -- of a poet from the past, and that we may discover it in our own search for truth. Take for instance Basho's haiku "winter sun -- / frozen on horseback, / my shadow" (Barnhill trans., #227 in Basho's Haiku).
This is clearly based on not only an act of attention but an act of contemplation -- one might say a contemplation of the poet's own death. That would be hardly unique in Basho's oeuvre. But the clarity of structure in THIS act of attention, based on the two-fold haiku structure, suggests a paradoxical awareness of life beyond death. It's a short step to think of the horseman as a "thinker."
The following passage from William Desmond, Being and the Between, 13, helps me explore the possible ramifications of Basho's haiku as "thought" -- thought made possible by haiku form. Obviously, the idioms are worlds apart: one idiom is based on a digestion and comprehension of modern philosophy (and not only modern), the other draws on Basho's own complex cultural frames (including the Zhuangzi, as Pipei has so persuasively set forth). And yet reading the haiku in light of the following passage does suggest why we might consider Basho a "thinker."
"Metaphysics is initiated, carried, renewed by singular thinkers, not just by anonymous systems. These singulars have tirelessly worked to think better . . . To speak of tirelessness is misleading if we forget that, in the intimacy of being, such singulars have fought weariness and bafflement, despondency and bewilderment. Yet the very freshness of their work comes from a different source that is not itself work, or the production of a work, or a system. This source is manifested in the gift of fertile astonishment. Needless to say, redeeming the promise of this gift is not common. The more mature a singular metaphysician becomes, the more there is a refinement of childlike astonishment. It is never dead. It may simplify itself to an elemental power of mindfulness, a simplicity not of defect, but of a perfection of attention that defies all determinate objectification."
For me, this passage opens up the haiku in ways that go way beyond justifying the exercise of reading poems in terms of metaphysics. It's as if the text were a profound commentary on the poem. It brings me much closer to what is singular, unique, about the poem and about "Basho" as an artist/thinker. One advantage such a juxtaposition has over other contemporary forms of commentary is that there is no contamination of the commentary by the target text. The two texts sit side by side sharing light from beyond.
It's always possible, however, that we can recover a set of habits of mind -- the "habitus" -- of a poet from the past, and that we may discover it in our own search for truth. Take for instance Basho's haiku "winter sun -- / frozen on horseback, / my shadow" (Barnhill trans., #227 in Basho's Haiku).
This is clearly based on not only an act of attention but an act of contemplation -- one might say a contemplation of the poet's own death. That would be hardly unique in Basho's oeuvre. But the clarity of structure in THIS act of attention, based on the two-fold haiku structure, suggests a paradoxical awareness of life beyond death. It's a short step to think of the horseman as a "thinker."
The following passage from William Desmond, Being and the Between, 13, helps me explore the possible ramifications of Basho's haiku as "thought" -- thought made possible by haiku form. Obviously, the idioms are worlds apart: one idiom is based on a digestion and comprehension of modern philosophy (and not only modern), the other draws on Basho's own complex cultural frames (including the Zhuangzi, as Pipei has so persuasively set forth). And yet reading the haiku in light of the following passage does suggest why we might consider Basho a "thinker."
"Metaphysics is initiated, carried, renewed by singular thinkers, not just by anonymous systems. These singulars have tirelessly worked to think better . . . To speak of tirelessness is misleading if we forget that, in the intimacy of being, such singulars have fought weariness and bafflement, despondency and bewilderment. Yet the very freshness of their work comes from a different source that is not itself work, or the production of a work, or a system. This source is manifested in the gift of fertile astonishment. Needless to say, redeeming the promise of this gift is not common. The more mature a singular metaphysician becomes, the more there is a refinement of childlike astonishment. It is never dead. It may simplify itself to an elemental power of mindfulness, a simplicity not of defect, but of a perfection of attention that defies all determinate objectification."
For me, this passage opens up the haiku in ways that go way beyond justifying the exercise of reading poems in terms of metaphysics. It's as if the text were a profound commentary on the poem. It brings me much closer to what is singular, unique, about the poem and about "Basho" as an artist/thinker. One advantage such a juxtaposition has over other contemporary forms of commentary is that there is no contamination of the commentary by the target text. The two texts sit side by side sharing light from beyond.
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