Thursday, March 2, 2023

KXSW ~ yotsumono

 



 
KXSW* --
agencies and native tongues
connect in live streams


above this rag-tag village
eagles stay a constant course


the 'best in the west'
hop on board that yellow bus
certain of a win


once the creek fills up with fish
there'll be circles 'round the drum


*KXSW is best heard near dawn on a weekday morning, US central standard time; it will offer your spirit power

 

 

Monday, January 30, 2023

snow is falling ~ yotsumono

 

 















snow is falling --
it makes a sound
like no other


they're losing their viewers
hand over fist


in the wake
of drunken fishermen,
never mind the risk


"his name was Jordan Walker"



Thursday, May 5, 2022

April Fools ~ Yotsumono

 

 
 

 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
ice sheets slow the river,
a snow drift crowds the bridge --
April Fool's Day


tight to the landing
a boat rocks gently through the night


cracked cups
 and fresh coffee,
we share another cigarette

 
adding a touch of lacquer
makes a thing new again
 
 
 



Monday, February 15, 2021

Kotatsu ~ Yotsumono

 

 

thoughtless
a field mouse tests the air--
Buddha's chair
 
algorithms quickened
the laptop warms its core
 
o' sweet Valentine
this tweet goes out directly   
from my heart to you
 
a couple's quiet cuddle
under the kotatsu
 
 

 
 
 

Thursday, January 21, 2021

Skeletons For Sale ~ Yotsumono

 

 

skeletons for sale--
the seed corn gone
just after Hallow's Eve

egg whites poured on water
torchlight sun-wise round the house

mountain life
is so fast paced
since wi-fi's gotten here

honeybees in the city
searching for a blossom

 

 


 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sunday, December 20, 2020

Withering Winds: a translation

 

 

Withering Winds


Journeying so far in the rain, my hat has split apart at the seams. Nightly my paper coat does battle with the elements.

Having grown familiar with poverty, I try a little self-pity. But there was once an eccentric fellow - a crazy waka Master - who travelled these parts stirring up the countryside. And it occurs to me to simply take my turn:


Basho  



crazy verse,
caught in the withering winds
alas how I must look
like Chikusai —

Basho
狂句こがらしの身は竹斎に似たる哉

who's that - a spray
of sasanqua on his hat?

Yasui たそやとばしるかさの山茶花

at dawn
the Water Keeper
opening up the liquor store  

Kakei 有明の主水に酒屋つくらせて

a red pack-horse tosses dew from her mane

Jugo か しらの露をふるふあかむま

Korean grass
it's slender blades
stripped of any scent

Tokoku 朝鮮の細りすすきのにほひなき

as daylight dwindles
fields of rice are mown

Shohei 日のちりちりに野に米を苅





this little retreat,
here may the heron
find a place to rest

Yasui わがいほは鷺にやどかすあたりに

willing the hair to re-grow
such is my lot

Basho 髮はやすまをしのぶ身のほど

all the illusion
and heartache she says
squeezing dry her breasts

Jugo いつはりのつらしと乳をしぼりすて

desolate tears
shed at a timeless stupa

Kakei きえぬそとばにすごすごとなく

in the cold of dawn
a shadowed figure
starts to build a fire

Basho 影法のあかつきさむく火を燒て

sheer penury
has made the owner homeless

Tokoku あるじはひんにたえし虚家

the koman willow
in the paddy field
soon to drop its leaves

Kakei 田中なるこまんが柳落るころ

tugging a boat through the mist
is he lame?

Yasui 霧にふね引人はちんばか

with a sideways glance
askance
to weigh the dainty moon

Tokoku たそがれを横にながむる月ほそし

retired from court,
now for noisy neighbours

Jugo となりさかしき町に下り居る

number two nun
asked if the blossom
at the guards has peaked

Yasui 二の尼に近衛の花のさかりきく

butterflies in weeds
she blows through her nose

Basho 蝶はむぐらにとばかり鼻かむ





a conveyance,
the gap in its screen
allows the glimpse of a face

Jugo のり物に簾透顔おぼろなる

now - a voice -
fire that bitter arrow!

Kakei いまぞ恨の矢をはなつ声

the outlaw’s
commemorative pine
broken by the wind

Basho ぬす人の記念の松の吹おれて

for a time Sogi’s name
went with a river

Tokoku しばし宗祇の名を付し水

removing my hat
to get a good soak,
cold northern drizzle

Kakei 笠ぬぎて無理にもぬるゝ北時雨

a single endive
pushing through the dieback

Yasui 冬がれわけてひとり唐苣

shattered shards
of white on white, are these
remains not human?

Tokoku しらじらと砕けしは人の骨か何

cuttlefish bones,
a northman's divination

Jugo 烏賊はゑびすの国のうらかた

the riddle of this
sadness unresolved,
mountain cuckoo

Yasui あはれさの謎にもとけし郭公

an urn of limpid water
in one night!

Basho 秋水一斗もりつくす夜ぞ

Japan's Li Po,
his temple quarters,
gazing at the moon

Jugo 日東の李白が坊に月を見て

tucked in the lutist's hood
a rose of sharon

Kakei 巾に木槿をはさむ琵琶打





remembrance
for a long dead ox,
grass by evening light

Basho うしの跡とぶらふ草の夕ぐれに

a small basket of shad
borne on her head

Tokoku 箕に鮗の魚をいたゞき

my prayers
to the morning star
that I might be with child

Kakei わがいのりあけがたの星孕むべく

little sister's eyebrows
officially today!

Yasui けふはいもとのまゆかきにゆき

silken gauze,
the bathing water
strained of Shiga blossom

Tokoku 綾ひとへ居湯に志賀の花漉て

a walkway trailed
in deep wisteria shade

Jugo 廊下は藤のかげつたふ也



Translation by John E. Carley, with his daughter Edith Carley

    November, 2013 Rossendale, Lancashire, England 



Early Morning Heat

 

 

John Carley conducted this twenty stanza Nijuin renku in 2013. It went on to win the Grand Prize in the Haiku Society of America Bernard Lionel Einbond Competition6.

It was quite an achievement in itself, and one might say under the conditions he suffered, absolutely amazing. John, however, was invigorated by the session. With his trademark aplomb, John’s thoughtful leadership and encouraging nature drew on the strongest attributes of each author, combining them to produce a poem of the highest quality. The judges' comments concur:

“ … when the sabaki (lead poet) communicates with clarity and the renju know just what is required, the result can be a polyphonous harmony, in which the very differences in the poets' voices are harnessed to strengthen the unity of the whole. Such is the case here.

It is no exaggeration to call 'Early Morning Heat' a tour de force, and the judges feel no hesitation in awarding the Grand Prize.”


Early Morning Heat

a line of ants
in the courgette flower —
early morning heat

S

perhaps you’d care
to share my parasol?

J

country-western
and native songs,
a circle round the drum

W

she pastes her happy snaps
to a favourite page

C

           * * *



seeking, hiding
way beyond the curfew
shadows and moon

L

in the blackberry basket
a taste of river fog

S

the chameleon’s tail
curls between
red, orange, yellow

C

with a shiver of silk
her stocking hits the floor

J

everyone answers
to the name of Smith
at Honeycomb Hotel

L

the street-sweeper
returns a gallic shrug

S

           * * *



misunderstood
a frog jumps into      whoops
the bouillabaisse

L

a smear of something
stains my new saijiki

J

snowbound highways
lined with deer,
the moon in every eye

W

lemmings stream across
a frozen lake

C

over and over and over
on hold
the first four bars of Bach

W

all that Dresden china
turned to dust

J

           * * *



granddad hides his stash
of sticky toffees
in the glove box

C

a blackbird tugs a worm
out of a hole

L

rising above
the dry stone wall
waves of white blossom

W

between our dreams of spring
a bridge of sand

S




Composed January 18 to February 15, 2013
John Carley, England (sabaki) - J
Lorin Ford, Australia - L
Cynthia Rowe, Australia - C
Sandra Simpson, New Zealand - S
William Sorlien, USA - W 

 

image 

 

 

Sunday, June 28, 2020

Cisco ~ Yotsumono


  forest verdure -
 from each a separate branch
squirrels natter and nag  


on every certificate
a check mark next to climate change

Nylon and Velcro
trading even up
for canvas and leather


before he passed on
'Cisco was a friend of mine





Friday, May 22, 2020

election year ~ yotsumono



election year -
they take it on the arches
when the bus breaks down


neutrino particles
rushing backwards through time


safe at a distance
petals of apple blossom
carpet the ground 

 

did anyone hear
what happened to Zika?


Sunday, April 12, 2020

red ink ~ yotsumono




















 

blustery day -
crowds across the commons
mingle and merge


pleasantries punctuated
with a crack of gum


handing back change
her cherry blossom tattoo
fresh with red ink


today's the day
I'll paint my mailbox blue





Tuesday, March 31, 2020

flu season ~ yotsumono























the man in black
puffs his inhaler -
flu season

never looking up
no one notices the crow

queue at full stop
I steal a glance at
the nape of her neck

gritty snow
in the bus stop's shadow




Earthquake Season ~ New Junicho









earthquake season -
the avocado
rolls this way & that


wave upon wave
a rainbow in curved air


so beautiful
this time of year
the moon over Hiroshima


the bitter aftertaste
of my twig tea


dead roach
buried in the flower pot
hastily snuffed


the doors of perception
rapidly closing


100 billion neurons
tapped deep
to granite secrets


they swap their faces
back again they swap


amid the smell of paint
he coaxes
a small smile from her


blind in the fragrance garden
witch-hazel


flies all swatted,
the lightest touch
on the divining rod


we gasp at the delights
of Tokusatsu


Earthquake Season – A New Junicho
hokku – Sandra [shasei]
wakiku – John [cultural - music]
daisan – Willie [cultural - politics]
#4 – Alan [shasei]
#5 – Bill [shasei]
#6 – Lorin [cultural - literature]
#7 – Lorin [gendai]
#8 – John [gendai]
#9 – Sandra [cultural - art]
#10 – Bill [shasei]
#11 – Willie [cultural - religion]
ageku – Alan [cultural - film]

Composed at Issa's Snail
28th February to 23rd March 2011

John Carley – UK (sabaki)
Bill Dennis – USA
Lorin Ford – AU
Sandra Simpson – NZ
William Sorlien – USA
Alan J. Summers – UK



Earthquake Season: Tomegaki

When a renku sequence is completed in Japan the poem-leader (sabaki) will often write a tomegaki (closing note). This can take the form of a general debrief, addressing a variety of points raised during the course of composition, or it may take a single issue and examine it in some detail. In truth the present notes stretch the concept of 'tomegaki' somewhat as they are written a considerable time after the poem's completion.

What it is, in terms of what it is not

The seasons must be important to renku. Every glib description of a particular type of sequence is couched in terms of how many spring blossoms or autumn moons there are and the order in which they must appear (if in doubt see the notorious Renku Reckoner by a certain Carley J E). As for the many season words themselves: the Big Boy's Book of Kigo can now boast as many as 15000 listings. That's enough to write 813 Kasen without danger of repeating oneself. Or, for those serious about their rules: one must now write 813 Kasen before one is allowed to repeat oneself.

In so far as the New Junicho casually dispenses with such technicalities it is tempting to analyse it in terms of what it is not. As Wilde observed: the only way to get rid of a temptation is to yield to it, but first let's look at the New Junicho in terms of what it does. Definitely.

What it definitely does do

Renku is not poetry-by-numbers. By junking a barrow-load of convention the New Junicho does the invaluable service of pointing out that renku verses might have the correct number of lines, the correct number of camellias, the correct number of happy thoughts, and employ the correct type of seisokuzuke (correct-linkage), yet still be in every way ghastly. Of themselves moons, blossoms and frogs-in-ponds guarantee absolutely nothing whatsoever. Such things may be the prompt or context for good writing. They do not constitute the writing itself.

More of definitely

An interesting feature of the New Junicho is that whilst it dispenses with a host of the more familiar fixed topics, the ones it introduces are not just plucked out of the air. As Ashley Capes remarks elsewhere in this journal, give or take a few silicon chips, the topics in his newly proposed cultural category find their counterparts in the more high-brow medieval linked verse known as ushin renga, which in turn fed into the Basho-school haikai-no-renga. For all that they no longer appear at fixed positions in Basho's Kasen such topics as religion, philosophy, literature, drama, and song are very much present. So much so that in the opening movement – jo – they are effectively barred!

Neither is the idea of gendai (modernistic) verses without precedent. In his recently advanced Rokku the contemporary Japanese poet and critic Haku Asanuma devotes an entire movement to verses which must employ experimental prosody. But perhaps more surprising is the evidence from Basho's own writing which suggests a degree of ambivalence towards strictness of form; some of Kikaku's stanzas in the latter part of The Verse Merchants (Shi Akindo) are so radical that editors duly 'corrected' them, believing them to be the result of transcription errors. Or drunkenness. And in terms of content, so pervasive is the effect of official deification that it is sometimes difficult to understand quite how unusual some of Basho's subjects and treatments were.

The word 'deification' brings us inevitably to miserly Masaoka. Much as one would like to dismiss Shiki out of hand his theory of shasei remains a valuable, if far from unique, examination of how verses centred on lived experience protect a poem from artificiality. Given that the New Junicho dispenses with fixed seasons and seasonal topics perhaps Mr Capes' proposed shasei verses can take up some of the slack in terms of grounding us in the real world.

Which is where we came in. Or rather, where the itch of temptation started. It is a truly radical step to formally dispense with the seasons of said 'real world', so it is inevitable that the New Junicho will be scrutinised in terms of what it may or may not do as a result.

A bit definitely, or perhaps not very

So let's throw together some headers which describe the functions of seasonal reference in renku and see how the New Junicho measures up:

Correctness

Argument: Some people believe that the inclusion of an appropriate season word, at a preordained juncture, is a requirement. It ensures that a verse is correctly composed i.e. that it follows the rules.

Counter: Such people have strange personal habits and should be shunned.

Variety

Argument: Renku is not thematic; it is quintessentially anti-thematic. Central to the genre are notions of totality and oneness-through-variety. The natural world is seen as indivisible from the affairs of man. Verses which express the full range of seasons are therefore guarantors of diversity and extent.

Counter: The topic categories of the New Junicho do not proscribe any form of content. Given that in renku a topical designation is a contextual element only there is no more reason for a New Junicho 'literature' verse to exclude a mention of 'winter' than there is for a Kasen 'winter' verse to avoid also referencing 'literature'.

Reality

Argument: It is important to be real in one's writing. One should depict lived experience. A lack of artificiality is most readily found in relation to the natural world.

Counter: It depends on whose natural world. What it the value of writing about cherry blossoms if you live in the Sahara? For many, lived experience is as likely to be urban. Or virtual. And when was the last time you pounded rice cakes?

Vertical Axis

Argument: Season words and topics have hon'i (poetic essence) – the cluster of values and associations which are conjured up by the mention of a particular bird, agricultural activity, festival etc. These overtones can add layers of resonance to a verse where a direct reference would sink it.

Counter: Films, tunes, books, characters, political events have hon'i too. "Bzzt. Bzzt. One... small… step. Bzzt."

Special Sensitivity

Argument: Something in the national psyche makes the Japanese soul uniquely attuned to the relationship between man and creation. The seasonal almanac, the saijiki, represents a special resource of poetic insight which is lost if we can no longer rely on the seasons as a centrepiece of our poem.

Counter: There's nothing like a bit of racial stereotyping to warm the cockles, eh!

Cohesion and Linkage

Argument: When a group of verses share the same season they follow a logical chronology. Specially in longer forms of renku as a timeframe unfolds it adds an element of cohesion. Even in the shortest forms, like the Junicho Old, where a pair of verses share the same season the automatic association allows other elements in the verse greater scope to tighten or loosen the linkage at will.

Counter: Yes. True. But to link through the season alone is poor writing. What should be a contextual element mustn't be elevated to the foreground. If renku is not thematic, a season cannot be treated as a theme. The New Junicho avoids this pitfall.

Cycles

Argument: The structure of the Kasen makes it plain that fine renku relies more on re-contextualisation than on novelty. We can see this clearly in the loosely cyclical distribution of the seasonal passage. As autumn moon comes round again we don't just duplicate the earlier verse, we use the superficial sameness to show difference.

Counter: Hmmn. Also true. But that's really only crucial in the Kasen, and to a lesser extent in the Triparshva, or a long Rokku. And if you are skilful enough you can achieve the same effect by other forms of subversion of what is initially seen as a repeated element of one sort or another.

Stages

Argument: Highly prominent verses such as autumn moon and spring blossom work in combination with the folio divisions to act as staging posts in a poem's development. So a seasonal reference can evoke the cyclical qualities of the seasons whilst marking the linear evolution of the poem itself.

Counter: True again. But again also only really relevant to longer sequences. Junicho the Older doesn't have folio divisions and doesn't oblige spring blossom or autumn moon either. If that's all the arguments you can muster we're done here.

Conclusion

Nobody ever learnt anything by following a set formula. Art is not created by default.

The New Junicho has merit by dint of innovation alone. But it has more to recommend it. The new method highlights aspects of practice which have been lost or ignored whilst obliging a comprehensive re-evaluation of attitudes to seasonal reference, both as components of a verse, and as elements of the overall structure of a poem.

It may be that the approach Mr Capes has originated will not lend itself as readily to longer sequences. But Earthquake Season was only ever intended to be a twelve verse poem. And the experience of reading it is more important than the meaning of 'New', 'Junicho' or 'Renku'.

Erm, while we're on the subject of making things up – there's no such word as seisokuzuke (correct-linkage). Sorry.

John Edmund Carley (UK)


Sunday, October 13, 2019

Degachi









**


Call for hokku (three preferred), any season, in comments

* An introduction to Renku by John Edmund Carley



Yotsumono ~ tassels




red and yellow silks
weave tassels on the corn --
 the crows ply every row



on a rainy Midwest morning,
muted shades of grey



I found inspiration
from the very first page
 of that new best seller



neither merit nor dishonor
in lines of 1's and o's












Little Book of Yotsumonos





Saturday, October 12, 2019

Untitled





muted colours
predominately green -
another day of rain



the crow's raised wings
their sheen in this sleet!



* *
* * * (daisan)
* *



* *
* * * (ageku)




Saturday, July 27, 2019

Yotsumono ~The Slightest Blush





in names I can't pronounce
their words a reverie --
ripe persimmons

the slightest blush,
from her lips not a sound



a good student,
hating himself,
does what he's told


neutrons in the reactor's core
at critical mass









Little Book of Yotsumonos









Monday, December 10, 2018

Facebook ~ Yotsumono








daytime moon--
figures in crayon scrawled
on every door



2 am it rained; now
the dogs bark at any noise



ever since we left,
that sofa we abandoned
sits there on the curb



logged on to facebook
in a language not my own





;;;;;





.