Dick Whyte
winter night...
the sparrow doesn't know
I'm black
winter night...
the sparrow doesn't know
I'm black
Dhido Gill, 22 G the discussion that went on on this haiku will be posted as the first comment. it's a very valuable one:
- Sweg Deol, Mandeep Maan and 2 others like this.
Dalvir Gill Dick Whyte Oops - this should read:
winter sky...
the sparrow doesn't know
I'm black
Saturday at 1:24am · Edited · Like · 3
Sandip Sital Chauhan In Punjabi:
ਸਿਆਲੂ ਅੰਬਰ -
ਚਿੜੀ ਨਾ ਜਾਣੇ
ਮੈਂ ਸਾਂਵਲਾ
Beautiful!
Saturday at 1:34am · Like · 6
Amanpreet Pannu beautiful...
Saturday at 1:36am · Like · 1
Dick Whyte Many thanks all - and special thanks to Sandip for translating this into Punjabi - I am honored! Would you be able to provide me with a word by word breakdown of the Punjabi text, just for my own interest. Thanks.
Saturday at 1:50am · Like · 1
Sandip Sital Chauhan My pleasure!
winter ਸਿਆਲੂ sky ਅੰਬਰ -
the sparrow ਚਿੜੀ doesn't know ਨਾ ਜਾਣੇ
I'm ਮੈਂ black ਸਾਂਵਲਾ
this is awesome!
Saturday at 1:56am · Like · 2
Dick Whyte Wonderful! Wow - it is so amazing to have one of my poem's translated into another language. Thanks so much.
Saturday at 2:01am · Like · 2
Sandip Sital Chauhan Chie Chilli Umebayashi, Japanese translation please :))
Saturday at 2:05am · Unlike · 2
Dick Whyte My attempt at Japanese:
fuyu no sora
suzume shirimasen
????? kuroi
I am not sure how to say "I am black" - also I wondered if in the Japanese version L2 and L3 might need to be reversed, to make sense otherwise it might come out sounding like "I am black and don't know the sparrow." I am not too bad at translating from Japanese to English but the other way around stumps me. I might be way off.
Saturday at 2:10am · Like
Chie Chilli Umebayashi Thanks Sandip di for mentioning me for the Japanese translation! I have a question about your L3, Dick Whyte san! 'I'm black' means you are racially black or you are just a shadow, don't really exist where the sparrow is but your spirit is there with the sparrow, that's why the bird doesn't recognise you?
Saturday at 8:55pm · Like · 1
Dick Whyte The original meaning of the poem is that the sparrow doesn't know that the writer of the poem is racially black - because sparrows don't see the world through the same lens of racial prejudice.
Saturday at 8:57pm · Like
Jimmy ThePeach Startlingly good, Dick. As in "I awoke with a start." Occasionally, this happens when reading haiku.
Saturday at 9:15pm · Like · 1
Dick Whyte Thanks Jimmy. Much appreciated.
Saturday at 9:16pm · Like · 1
Chie Chilli Umebayashi Thanks Dick Whyte san for the reply.
: Japanese translation
冬の空
雀は知らぬ
黒人と
:
fuyu no sora
suzume wa shiranu
kokujin to
Saturday at 9:52pm · Like · 3
Dick Whyte Many thanks Chie - may I ask, what is the meaning of "to" in the final line? I can understand the rest but was unsure of the meaning here.
Saturday at 9:55pm · Like · 1
Chie Chilli Umebayashi ok, 'to' in 3L means the sparrow is aware the writer of poem is there but it is not aware of the writer's skin colour, so 'to' indicates 'only'. Does it make sense?
Saturday at 10:05pm · Like
Dick Whyte So in a literal sense this might mean "the sparrow doesn't know (I am) only a black person"??
Saturday at 10:07pm · Like
Chie Chilli Umebayashi The full sentence goes like this -> 'suzume wa watashi ga kokujin "to" wa shiranai'
Saturday at 10:10pm · Edited · Like · 1
Chie Chilli Umebayashi No Dick, the sparrow only knows I am here but black....
Saturday at 10:14pm · Edited · Like · 1
Dick Whyte Ah - many thanks!! The process of translation is so interesting to me and I love to learn more about the Japanese language. I dabble with translating poems from Japanese to English, but only as an amateur.
Saturday at 10:16pm · Like · 1
Chie Chilli Umebayashi I'm also still learning both making haiku and translations!!! It's great to learn something inspiring my creativity every day!!!
Saturday at 10:20pm · Like · 3
Dick Whyte
Saturday at 10:21pm · Like
Ajay Pal Singh Gill ,
ਸਿਆਲੂ ਰਾਤ
ਮੇਰੇ ਸ਼ਾਮ ਰੰਗ ਤੋ ਅੰਜਾਨ
ਇੱਕ ਚਿੜੀ
20 hours ago · Like · 4
Dick Whyte Would someone be kind enough to translate the last comment for me? Cheers.
19 hours ago · Like
Tejinder Singh Gill Niiiiiiiiiiiice......!
19 hours ago · Like · 1
Dick Whyte Thanks Tejinder.
19 hours ago · Like · 1
Robert Johnston Interested to read your explanation of L3. It had me puzzled because you are not visibly black. I would use "white" rather than "black" - UNLESS I were convinced (on some level) I was black.
19 hours ago · Like
Dick Whyte It is a poem written from another person's perspective, after talking with them about racial prejudice in America and the experience of constantly feeling their 'blackness' was hailed. We were writing a rengay together in which the theme was racial prejudice and this got developed later on as a stand alone poem. I wrote one a couple of years earlier when visiting him in America from the reverse perspective:
half moon
a white face stands out
in Harlem
19 hours ago · Edited · Like · 1
Ajay Pal Singh Gill Dick Whyte, its a translation, but a bit different, and i must say, a bit poetic for a haiku. Sandip Sital Chauhan ji translation is apt, and as per haiku norms. I have used the word " ਸ਼ਾਮ ਰੰਗ " (sham rang) for black. Its poetic in the sense that sham is a hindu god (also known as krishna ), who was dark colored, and thus the word sham.
19 hours ago · Edited · Like · 2
Robert Johnston That helps. A haiku by itself - a stand alone haiku! - is rarely written from another person's perspective. Really like the "half moon" haiku.
19 hours ago · Like · 1
Dick Whyte Thanks Robert - yeah, this is something I am doing a lot more of recently. It doesn't mean I don't write from my own perspective as well, but also trying to be open to another's experience. I often write poems from stories and experiences people relate to me, but try to pull them into focus as a haiku.
19 hours ago · Like · 1
Dick Whyte Many thanks Ajay. It is a pleasure to see poems rendered into other languages, with other concepts. Much respect.
19 hours ago · Like · 1
Robert Johnston Dick - that sounds strange, to me - especially if the reader doesn't know what you are doing.
19 hours ago · Like
Ajay Pal Singh Gill The same talk is going on in Punjabi in this group. The issue there was whether downloading a picture from net, and than writing a description of it, as a haiku poem, is a valid technique. But than, people have different divergent views on that.
19 hours ago · Edited · Like · 3- Dalvir Gill Dick Whyte Personally I use both imagination and real life in haiku, and of course, in these cases I am using both imagination and real life as one, together. It is a tricky line with using other people's experiences because I certainly don't want to exploit them in any way, so I tend to do it only when I am confortable with the person and have talked it over with them. But for me, part of poetry is being able to become others, not literally, but to try and think through their eyes, to feel what they might feel. Not as a simple poetic technique or a cliche, but to try and comprehend an experience that is not your own. Of course, I will never know what it is like to actually be black in America - to constantly have your skin colour used as a way of judging you. But in poetry I feel like I can express something of it, to express solidarity and an attempt at understanding. I dunno though - its still complicated for me.
18 hours ago · Like
Robert Johnston @ Ajay and Dick. Annotations or notes to haiku are common in Japan, I have read, and this indicates that explanation is not seen as threat to poetry. If I used another person's photograph, I would say so; if I were speaking from a perspective other than mine, I would say so, too. The haiku is usually (classically) used to talk about the poet's lived experience - almost like a diary entry in poetry. The poet sometimes refers to distant or imagined events, however. I have been reading "Basho's Haiku" (D.L. Barnhill trans. and intro.) and I came upon this poem:
passing clouds -
like a dog running about and pissing,
scattered winter showers
yuku kumo ya / inu no kake-bari / murashigure
go cloud ! / dog 's run-urine / scattered-winter-showers
Barnhill notes that an earlier version of L2 had the dog barking rather than pissing. This suggests that Basho did not see a dog running about on the day he was writing about but uses the image as a convenient metaphor.
18 hours ago · Unlike · 4
Ajay Pal Singh Gill That s true. Haiku maybe a poem of present, or instant, but its certainly not written instantly. It may be a poetry of moment, but its certainly not written on the moment. So naturally, its not immune to additions of metaphors and images.
18 hours ago · Like · 2
Dick Whyte Also - Buson, for instance, frequently wrote from perspectives deep in the past, and from the perspective of fictional characters. I am not sure that the haiku poem is traditionally used as a kind of diary of lived experience - I mean, I do get what you mean, but at the same time, I think that element is often overplayed. The use of literary illusions, of imagination and the use of set kigo, which were often convention rather than experience, were all a part of classical haiku, just as much as "direct experience" - which I believe was more an invention of Shiki (who actually wrote beautifully on the use of imagination in haiku too, but this is often downplayed). I dunno, not trying to say I know the answer - just putting it out there.
18 hours ago · Like · 1
Robert Johnston Dick, you give too much emphasis to exceptions, & you seem to wish to simply erase each of my points. The haiku poem not traditionally used as a kind of poetic diary of lived experience? What about - to take one obvious example - Basho's Narrow Road to the Interior? If I were you, I would meditate on the merit of being contentious just for the sake of it.
10 hours ago · Edited · Unlike · 1
Ella Wagemakers ...
Robert, perhaps repeating what has already been answered(?) ... so if the haiku doesn't reflect a direct experience (even if it is written later as a kind of delayed reaction) or doesn't relate to the author, it can't classically be called a haiku? - Dalvir Gill Robert Johnston There are Japanese schools or groups which reject haiku in which the focus is on distant memories, and I am of this inclination, too, but there are other (fewer?) schools/groups that accept or embrace them. A haiku that does not relate to the author's own experience or observations is not a haiku? I would not say that, but nor would I write one that was not related to my own immediate or fairly immediate experience. That is the standard path of haiku.
9 hours ago · Edited · Unlike · 1
Ella Wagemakers Ok, fair enough. 'Distant' will occasionally need defining, I think. 'Memories', too. The act of remembering will most often be in the present, anyway.
9 hours ago · Like
Elaine Andre If an experience is borrowed from another's perspective, why not write 'he' or 'she' rather than 'I' ? At least that is the more honest experience of the author... as witness to what another has experienced and giving the actual perspective.
As to fantacy verses that come from imagination, one would think that these are simply a form of 'blank verse' since haiku is about the interface of the author with the natural world actually experienced.
9 hours ago · Edited · Like
Robert Johnston In the book Haiku Apprentice, a Japanese haijin writes a ku about his A-bomb experience, and he says that a ku from about such a distant experience was not generally accepted. Of course, a poet can write about the past as though it is immediate .., but a certain kind of haijin might eschew that tactic. In Western haiku, stories from the past are commonplace. You will not find them in any of mine however. Elaine - I am inclined to agree.
9 hours ago · Edited · Unlike · 1
Ella Wagemakers Just to clarify ... the past will remain the past ... but the act of remembering often takes place in the here and now. But ok, I got what I need. Thnx. *signing out*
8 hours ago · Like
Robert Johnston Ku about the past ... or about a memory. There is a difference. Remembering is just another action that occurs in the present. But if a memory is written of as though it just happened - that's another thing. To be clear, there is no consensus about the validity of the latter, these days.
8 hours ago · Like
Elaine Andre I enjoyed the haiku and the story of the A-bomb survivor, though his feeling was that it was not 'of the moment'.
As to the 'now' of haiku... we might consider the various schools of thought, which include those who believe that an enlightened state transcends time: if I am attuned to the world in the here and now, I am living in the eternal (which includes my profound memories).
8 hours ago · Edited · Like
Robert Johnston If you wish, Elaine, but unconditioned enlightenment is beyond poetic expression. A haiku carries the wound of immediate concerns.
8 hours ago · Like · 1
Elaine Andre Touché, Robert!
Here's what this leads to:
autumn’s poets
busy at grinding their ink . . .
lose the day
8 hours ago · Like
Robert Johnston Hmm. The haiku is a little too aphoristic?
8 hours ago · Unlike · 1
Elaine Andre Hey, now you're a critic! It was a shot at literati.
I really wouldn't call it a haiku.
8 hours ago · Edited · Unlike · 1
Robert Johnston I did not know the literati or time wasting were targets in this discussion.
8 hours ago · Unlike · 1
Elaine Andre Relax. I'm gonna go take a shower...
8 hours ago · Unlike · 2
Ella Wagemakers Dick, your haiku actually made me wish I was black! That's actually what I wanted to say first time I read it. Thanks for sharing!
8 hours ago · Like
Robert Johnston @ Elaine. - Dalvir Gill Elaine Andre If, as Robert declares:
"unconditioned enlightenment is beyond poetic expression,"
how can personification be used, which gives the impression that the author 'knows something' that is beyond human knowledge?
8 hours ago · Unlike · 1
Elaine Andre (Robert, would you please put that grin on your FB picture?)
8 hours ago · Like
Robert Johnston You know the limitations of human knowledge, Elaine?
8 hours ago · Unlike · 1
Elaine Andre Robert, you're the one who is saying that there is a level of enlightenment that is beyond human expression. I'm using the example of the personification device as an example of stepping into that unknown realm or one based upon belief.
8 hours ago · Like
Robert Johnston The early haijin were familiar with this story:
Chuang Tzu and Hui Tzu were strolling along the dam of the Hao River when Chuang Tzu said, "See how the minnows come out and dart around where they please! That's what fish really enjoy!"
Hui Tzu said, "You're not a fish, how do you know what fish enjoy?"
Chuang Tzu said, "You're not I, so how do you know I don't know what fish enjoy?"
Hui Tzu said, "I'm not you, so I certainly don't know what you know. On the other hand, certainly you are not a fish-so that proves that you don't know what fish enjoy!"
Chuang Tzu said, "Let's go back to the original question, please. You asked me how I know what fish enjoy-so you already knew I knew it when you asked the question. I know it by standing here by the Hao."
From: "Chuang Tzu, Basic Writings," translated by Burton Watson, NY:Columbia Univ. Press, (1964), pg 109
http://www.way-of-tao.com/.../tao-and-the.../the-masters.php
8 hours ago · Like
Elaine Andre By your example, Robert, Buddhists determine the guidelines of acceptable thought for writing haiku.
8 hours ago · Like
Robert Johnston The example is Taoist. Your objection to personification has been often stated, Elaine, but you will find it in classic haiku, so your objection will not carry much weight until you are able to mount a cogent thesis against it.
8 hours ago · Unlike · 1
Robert Johnston ~
spider, what is it,
in what voice - why - are you crying?
autumn wind
kumo nani / ne o nani to naku / aki no kaze
- Basho
8 hours ago · Like
Elaine Andre No, you skirt the issue, here. We are talking about a sense of time and you stated your feelings about whether or not to write about a personal experience from the distant past. Since we can write with authority about our personal past experience, even recalling it to the present moment as if it is happening now, then it is an interesting stance considering that you allow the device of personification, which is highly speculative, if not suspect of being fantastic.
8 hours ago · Edited · Like
Robert Johnston The importance of the here and now is central to the philosophic culture out of which haiku grew. Personification, in contrast, is a mere poetic device. In the above haiku, we can see a spider, hear the autumn wind, and feel the mind of Basho. There is no confusion.
7 hours ago · Edited · Unlike · 1
Elaine Andre Again, Robert, you defer to Buddhist form with a quote from Basho:
spider, what is it,
in what voice - why - are you crying?
autumn wind
He wrote within a culture and belief system that accepts personification. Is the literary device the objective reality?
7 hours ago · Like · 1
Dick Whyte I do not believe I make much out of exceptions Robert. I would suggest reading Shirane's "Beyond the Haiku Moment" that addresses these issues specifically: "One of the widespread beliefs in North America is that haiku should be based upon one's own direct experience, that it must derive from one's own observations, particularly of nature. But it is important to remember that this is basically a modern view of haiku, the result, in part, of nineteenth century European realism, which had an impact on modern Japanese haiku and then was re-imported back to the West as something very Japanese. Basho, who wrote in the seventeenth century, would have not made such a distinction between direct personal experience and the imaginary, nor would he have placed higher value on fact over fiction." http://www.haikupoet.com/def.../beyond_the_haiku_moment.html
7 hours ago · Like
Dick Whyte Again, from Shirane: "The joy and pleasure of haikai was that it was imaginary literature, that the poets who participated in linked verse moved from one world to the next, across time, and across space. The basic idea of linked verse was to create a new and unexpected world out of the world of the previous verse. Once could compose about one's daily life, about being an official in China, about being a warrior in the medieval period, or an aristocrat in the ancient period. The other participants in the haikai sequence joined you in that imaginary world or took you to places that you could reach on with your imagination."
7 hours ago · Like
Dick Whyte And this deals with the important role of both: "If Basho and Buson were to look at North American haiku today, they would see the horizontal axis, the focus on the present, on the contemporary world, but they would probably feel that the vertical axis, the movement across time, was largely missing. There is no problem with the English language haiku handbooks that stress personal experience. They should. This is a good way to practice, and it is an effective and simple way of getting many people involved in haiku. I believe, as Basho did, that direct experience and direct observation is absolutely critical; it is the base from which we must work and which allows us to mature into interesting poets. However, as the examples of Basho and Buson suggest, it should not dictate either the direction or value of haiku. It is the beginning, not the end. Those haiku that are fictional or imaginary are just as valid as those that are based on personal experience. I would in fact urge the composition of what might be called historical haiku or science fiction haiku."
7 hours ago · Like
Dick Whyte So it's not that I make a little out of a few exceptions, but that it was never a rule - so there are no exceptions. Of course direct experience is crucial - but so is imagination and fiction. And as Shirane points out haikai no renga is composed largely (dominantly) of imagined verses. So it depends on where you locate your history. Which history you prescribe to. Which histories you decline. etc. etc.
7 hours ago · Like
www.way-of-tao.comThe philosophers of ancient China used nature as a way of understanding how rule... See More - Dalvir Gill Robert Johnston @ Elaine - it does not matter if Basho knew the mind of the spider or not. The haiku is not about that. It is a work of literary art rather than an ontological treatise. The haiku has universal appeal.
7 hours ago · Unlike · 1
Dick Whyte This is also interesting: "In Basho's day, haikai was two things: 1) performance and social act, and 2) literary text. As a social act, as an elegent form of conversation, haikai had to be easily accessible; it had to be spontaneous; it had to perform social and religious functions. Thus, half of Basho's haiku were greetings, parting poems, poetic prayers. They served very specific functions and were anchored in a specific place and time, in a dialogic exchange with other individuals. For Basho, however, haikai was also a literary text that had to transcend time and place, be understood by those who were not at the place of composition. To achieve this goal, Basho repeatedly rewrote his poetry, made it fictional, gave it new settings, added layers of meaning, emphasized the vertical axis (linking it to history and other literary texts), so that the poem would have an impact beyond its original circumstances."
7 hours ago · Like · 1
Elaine Andre Robert, you seem to find an oblique way of reading my posts. But, alas! You have hit upon the one detail - the literary device! That's the point. Many haiku are being written in homage to literary device and are missing je ne sais quoi. Some of it is downright flaky.
7 hours ago · Like
Robert Johnston Dick - the missing vertical axis of western haiku is a proper appreciation of the central values of the Japanese haijin of old. Shirane's is just one viewpoint. Take an example he gives:
Summer grasses --
traces of dreams
of ancient warriors
Shirane says: As we can see from these examples, haiku moments can occur in the distant past or in distant, imaginary places.
He makes too much of this. The poet is, in fact, visiting an historic site, and he is recording what he sees and feels. The haiku moment is not the past but here and now.
A balanced viewpoint is called for.
7 hours ago · Edited · Unlike · 2
Robert Johnston @ Elaine. My oblique reading of your oblique logic. You now say the point of the discussion is flaky literary devices. Well, as you wish. I don't know whose haiku you think lack je ne sais quoi, but I feel it is good that you remind us haiku is - after all is said and done - poetry, so it should try to genuinely poetic.
6 hours ago · Unlike · 1
Elaine Andre Robert Johnston wrote:
@ Elaine. My oblique reading of your oblique logic. You now say the point of the discussion is flaky literary devices. Well, as you wish. I don't know whose haiku you think lack je ne sais quoi, but I feel it is good that you remind us haiku is - after all is said and done - poetry, so it should try to genuinely poetic.
My last statement:
This is heading into ad hominems. Let's write some genuine poetry instead. Maybe even some with the genuine characterists of the haiku genre.
6 hours ago · Edited · Like · 1
Dick Whyte I am confused Robert - you tell Elaine that personification appears in classical haiku and that therefore she is incorrect to say it is an inappropriate literary device in haiku. However, imagination and fictional events also are well exampled by classical haiku and yet, in this instance, you claim they are merely anomalies and are not of its true essence (when clearly, in Buson for instance, it is a key device)? More historians than Shirane have commented on this oversimplification of the fact/fiction, experience/imagination divide in Western notions of haiku. He is just one voice among many. But whatever, you have your method and I have mine. No need for disagreement. Just respect. I don't believe I have ever told you to start using more imagination in your haiku.
6 hours ago · Like
Robert Johnston I was pleased you said my reading of your posts was oblique. The haiku mind is characteristically oblique. Ad hominems? I doubt it: I just don't know how it happened that THE POINT of the discussion became the artificiality of literary devices, but beyond that I have tried to address each of your points sincerely. I have not read a single convincing counter response to what I have said.
6 hours ago · Like
Robert Johnston @ Dick - my main issue is with the apparent lack of balance in what you wrote - and continue to write. I have already conceded the presence of the imaginary:
" The haiku is usually (classically) used to talk about the poet's lived experience - almost like a diary entry in poetry. The poet sometimes refers to distant or imagined events, however. I have been reading "Basho's Haiku" (D.L. Barnhill trans. and intro.) and I came upon this poem:
passing clouds -
like a dog running about and pissing,
scattered winter showers
yuku kumo ya / inu no kake-bari / murashigure
go cloud ! / dog 's run-urine / scattered-winter-showers
Barnhill notes that an earlier version of L2 had the dog barking rather than pissing. This suggests that Basho did not see a dog running about on the day he was writing about but uses the image as a convenient metaphor."
A serious discussion requires sincere and careful attention to what the other person is actually saying. Again, you will have read my comment on Shirane's use of the warrior haiku to confirm his point, but you do not mention it. What both you and Elaine have been presenting are, imv, merely eccentric idees fixes. You are welcome to them.
5 hours ago · Edited · Like - Dalvir Gill Dalvir Gill Thanks Elaine Andre , for asking all the right questions which one can ask, who thinks that if not just the "5-7-5" or all the "5-7-5's", still! there gotta be some 5-7-5.
and bows to you Robert! you answered all them right. it's easy not to understand that there could be a totally other way of living, where calligraphy is not calligraphy, a samurai is not learning swordsmanship, a general labourer is not just labeling boxes. and zen sages weren't creating any literature. everything is different. it's a different life-style! a different way of living!!
a zen may not have any concept of Time, per se. conceptualization may be the considered sin, to use a concept from the dictionary we use. i won't hear a single reference towards nature or time in a single sentence they will utter. but even you will feel the presence of nature and time in them. time, if asked, "one Moment" is ETERNAL, it can not be cut into any divisions. i and nature aren't any two different entities. i don't care much about any other form of Zen "Poetry", they sound like Buddhist Sutras to me or like Rumi, or Tilopa. Haiku is that i love and haiku is that i ( want to ) write. so i start, without checking the manual to haiku-writing. if i am living a life according to Tao, and Zen is my natural state, it would be a Haiku, no matter what! to be in that state, to be living that life, there is no written Dogma, or any Dogma in any form, then how can we figure the Dogma for Haiku, its 5-7-5; Existentially it is Experienced. Isingness. in the other world all that is called "knowledge" has been achieved by any individual by words, oral or written!
and where a person tries to process as much information as possible., there Bodhidharma's message starts with "a special transmission beyond Manuscripts, no dependence on written words or letters. looking straight into man's soul, and attainment of boddha-hood." NOW AND HERE!!! "It's harder to unlearn than learn." .... Warrior is told before setting on a fight/war," In all these years of schooling you have learnt lots o' moves, but the only move you will keep in your memory is going to cause your end." old sayings have a lot in them. we shall listen, what the other person is saying. ( a haiku can provoke/evoke only admiration, no discussion, this Device was devised for the very meaning to hush that "Inner Dialogue" and render it silent. ) my most favourite is "Kill Buddha!! If you meet him on the road." hugs!! Robert, muchlove. Stay Blessed!
5 hours ago · Like · 2
Robert Johnston Amen to that, Dalvir.
4 hours ago · Unlike · 2
Gabi Greve "If you meet the Buddha on the road, kill him!"
.
When I once (more than 30 years ago) tried to outsmart my Japanese Archery (Kyudo) teacher with Western Wit and this saying, he gave me the "Asiatic smile" and replied:
Be careful with Asian wisdom.
The first Buddha you are going to meet on the WAY
is yourself.
Are you ready to kill ?
.
http://darumamuseumgallery.blogspot.jp/.../if-you-meet...
.
Haiku is Haiku
Buddhism is Buddhism
Zen is Zen
.
darumamuseumgallery.blogspot.com Introducing Japanese Culture. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ... See More - Dalvir Gill Dalvir Gill Gabi San aren't you just pure honey! i'm with the teacher here, who has obviously has killed Buddha, not just one a whole swarm of them. every Zen koan has been "answered" and every Zen-Story interpreted. as if the Koans were to be answered or as if the Stories were to be interpreted. yes!! one has to kill all the ideals, ( doesn't matter if that is The Buddha ) and double yes! that you have kill your self before setting on the journey or killing of any buddhas. thanks again
3 hours ago · Like
Dick Whyte Hi Robert - I felt similarly in terms of addressing the lack of balance in what you wrote, from my perception - but perhaps I was wrong about this. I am not trying to argue I am/was right - but that was my position at the time. I guess why I got defensive is that you assumed I was being contentious for the sake of it, but really I am not. I don't mean to be contentious at all, or eccentric (and I feel that there is a tone of putting me down personally when you say these things, to position yourself as the rational one, while I am simply irrational/trying to irritate - perhaps you don't intend this, but its the way it comes off to me). If it seemed like I was putting you down at any point, I apologise. I was trying to communicate some of the things I had read/engaged with/experienced in my study of haiku. And you have different experiences/perspectives. I can respect that.
But I wonder if we are not arguing at cross-purposes anyway. I guess for me, to go back to one of your original points, my poem is about something that was very close to my own experience - and which I did experience, in a sense, though I have expressed it through another's position in the final poem. That is, I have had the experience of the sparrow not judging me in human terms. Suppose I had written:
winter sky...
the sparrow doesn't know
I'm poor
This would be from direct experience - feeling down and out and as if no-one liked me because I was poor and then I came across a sparrow that seemed not to judge me. Who seemed to just see me as I was - not poor or rich, not black or white, etc. And I gather this would be a more agreeable poem to you, conceptually? But as I said, I wrote this in a rengay in which the theme was racial prejudice and I wrote it about trying to map this experience onto the experience of being black in America, as a way of attempting to understand what it must be like to constantly have your skin colour be judged - and I felt like I could get a handle on it through another experience I had - not that I knew what it was like to be black, but that I could sympathise with some kind of structural prejudice. In renga, unlike the haiku/stand alone hokku, writing from the imagination in this way is extremely common, as I understand it. While I agree in haiku it may not be the dominant path I am interested in it as a possible path. I would say I write far less poems from other people's experiences than from my own - maybe 5% (or less) of my poems are of this kind (direct experience mapped onto some other experience as a method of solidarity/understanding/compassion), while the other 95% are based on "direct experience" (from memory or the present, with varying degrees of changes made when they suit the poem in question). Probably this percentage is not far off Buson's engagement with fictional subject positions/imaginary situations of the past in his poems.
In reference to your Shirane comment - I did read it carefully and I think, as I said, you oversimplified his position. He clearly states: "the "dreams" and the "summer grasses" are BOTH those of the contemporary poet AND of the warriors of the distant past." You said he makes too much of this poem, but I disagree. I feel he makes of it what it is, an extremely layered poem in which both the past and present, both observation and imagination coalesce. My disagreement with you is not a failing on my part, as you imply. It is simply a different perspective on the same thing.
Anyway - I really don't think there is much difference between our points of view in many ways. But you may see it differently.
All the best-
Dick
2 hours ago · Like
Dalvir Gill <
flock of the white geese
pale brown goose doesn't know
he's brown
about an hour ago · Like · 1
Robert Johnston @ Dick. OK, that statement is - IMO - much more balanced. Here is what you took exception to, originally:
"The haiku is usually (classically) used to talk about the poet's lived experience - almost like a diary entry in poetry."
Now I think that is a fair enough statement. It is a moderately stated and accurate.
Here is your response:
" I am not sure that the haiku poem is traditionally used as a kind of diary of lived experience - I mean, I do get what you mean, but at the same time, I think that element is often overplayed."
I didn't say it was "a kind of diary;" I said it usually was "almost like a diary entry in poetry." And if you read the majority of the haiku of Basho, Issa and Buson, you will find this is true. Your response is unnecessarily antagonistic and blunt. It lacks nuance, delicacy.
This tendency to immoderation or exaggeration is found in later notes, too. For instance, you say: "So it's not that I make a little [in fact, you mean "a lot" - Robert] out of a few exceptions, but that it was never a rule - so there are no exceptions."
I have not read a lot of Buson, so I can't say much on him. The examples given by your scholar are interesting. However, I don't know anything about the context in which they were written, etc, so I can't comment. I would suspect, though, that if they are stand-alone haiku, they more reflect present concerns of Buson than they do the concerns of other people in other times. It would seem unlikely that Buson's present situation would not be the true dominant register. Anyway, to be instructed by these examples, I would need to know more about them. - Dalvir Gill Avtar Sidhu, read the whole discussion, comment by comment. i made an entry and delivered a monologue too. LOL
- Dalvir Gill
on a bare branch
a crow has alighted -
autumn nightfall
Basho (1644-1694)
ਪਤਝੜ ਦੀ ਸ਼ਾਮ -
ਇਕ ਨਿਪੱਤਰੀ ਟਹਿਣੀ ਉੱਤੇ
ਕਾਂ ਬੈਠਿਆ ਆਕੇ
ਬਾਸ਼ੋ (੧੬੪੪-੧੬੯੪)
No comments:
Post a Comment