Carpe Diem Tokubetsudesu #77 pickles (in the way of Basho) lost episode of March

Dear Haijin, visitors and travelers,

It's Wednesday again and it's time for a new episode of Tokubetsudesu. This week I love to tell you more about one of the most delightful concepts of haiku writing, Karumi (or Lightness). The concept of Karumi isn't a new idea, it comes from the other Japanese arts and Basho has tried to bring that Karumi concept into haiku writing in the, say, last ten years of his life.

It's the last episode of March which I couldn't publish because of the circumstances then, so here it is our last episode "In The Way of Basho" in which we explored the haiku writing techniques used by the master. 

Matsuo Basho (1644-1694)

Basho has meant a lot for haiku. He created several new ideas and writing techniques and was really a master of haiku. During his life Basho became in a way a Zen-Buddhist (he studied under Butcho, a Zen Buddhist monk), however he was never really a monk, only during his journeys.In his time the Japanese roads weren't great, sometimes only small paths and travelers often were robbed  along the way. The most travelers chose to travel like a monk or priest, because that provided them free and save passage. Basho also traveled like a monk or priest, clothed in a black robe and a shaved head.

Basho had a big group of disciples and followers close around him, but also widely spread over Japan.

Basho, the traveling poet (he undertook his journeys almost all in the last ten years of his life), had one goal in his last years. He was anxious to spread his idea, his concept, of Karumi (Lightness) in haiku. He even went on journeys to preach that concept notwithstanding his bad health. A lot of his disciples turned their back to him, because they wouldn't accept (or understand) his idea of Karumi.

Basho, however, tried strongly to "preach" his karumi idea, a technique which was known only from other kinds of Japanese art, for haiku. It's said that he himself managed this technique badly, because he couldn't find the right words to explain what karumi was. There are a few haiku by Basho in which karumi can be found. Here are a few examples:

under the trees
soup and pickles
cherry blossoms

© Basho (Tr. Jane Reichhold)

Ko no moto wa shiru mo namasu mo sakura kana

Underneath the trees,
soups and salads are buried
In cherry blossoms.

Uguisu ya mochi ni fun suru en no saki

A spring warbler casts
A dropping on the rice cakes —
he veranda edge..

© Basho

What is karumi?

Bashô developed this concept during his final travels in 1693. Karumi is perhaps one of the most important and least understood principles of haiku poetry. Karumi can best be described as “lightness,” or a sensation of spontaneity. In many ways, karumi is a principle rooted in the “spirit” of haiku, rather than a specific technique. Bashô taught his students to think of karumi as “looking at the bottom of a shallow stream”. When karumi is incorporated into haiku, there is often a sense of light humor or child-like wonderment at the cycles of the natural world. Many haiku using karumi are not fixed on external rules, but rather an unhindered expression of the poet’s thoughts or emotions. This does not mean that the poet forgets good structure; just that the rules of structure are used in a natural manner. In my opinion, karumi is “beyond” technique and comes when a poet has learned to internalize and use the principles of the art interchangeably.

In a way it brought me another idea. Traditionally, and especially in Edo Japan, women did not have the male privelege of expanding their horizons, so their truth or spirituality was often found in the mundane. Women tend to validate daily life and recognize that miracles exist within the mundane, which is the core of haiku.There were females who did compose haiku, which were called "kitchen-haiku" by literati, but these "kitchen-haiku" had all the simplicity and lightness of karumi ... In a way Basho taught males to write like females, with more elegance and beauty, based on the mundane (simple) life of that time.

Morning Glories

Shiba Sonome, a female haiku poet, learned about karumi from Basho: “Learn about a pine tree from a pine tree, and about a bamboo plant from a bamboo plant.”

The poet should detach the mind from his own self. Nevertheless, some people interpret the word ‘learn’ in their own ways and never really ‘learn’. ‘Learn’ means to enter into the object, perceive its delicate life, and feel its feeling, whereupon a poem forms itself. Even a poem that lucidly describes an object could not attain a true poetic sentiment unless it contains the feelings that spontaneously emerged out of the object. In such a poem the object and the poet’s self would remain forever separate, for it was composed by the poet’s personal self.

Basho also said, “In my view a good poem is one in which the form of the verse, and the joining of its two parts, seem light as a shallow river flowing over its sandy bed”.

That, then, is karumi:  becoming as one with the object of your poem … experiencing what it means to be that object … feeling the life of the object … allowing the poem to flow from that feeling and that experience.

An example by Basho:

White chrysanthemum
I look holding it straight
no dust at all

© Basho

And a few by Yozakura, the unknown haiku-poet

at dawn
I wash my feet with dew
the longest day

Sakura (woodblock) also Karumi

 

feeling alone
lost in the woods around Edo –
just the autumn wind

© Yozakura

Karumi is lightness, simplicity, becoming one with the experience you have on that moment when you are composing your haiku. Karumi is, in my opinion, a higher level of the concept of Wabi Sabi.

I think karumi can only be the concept for your haiku when you are not only a haiku poet, but also living haiku ... Living haiku is being one with the world around you including nature and enjoying the emptiness, loneliness and oneness of being part of nature as a human. A haiku poet (in my opinion) lives with nature, adores nature, praises nature and respects nature.

Haiku is not only a wonderful poem ... it's a life-style.

just one leaf
struggles with the wind
like Basho

© Chèvrefeuille

And here another one in which I hope I have touched karumi:

slowly a snail seeks
his path between Cherry blossoms
reaches for the sky

© Chèvrefeuille

Well I hope you did like this "lost episode". And I hope that it will inspire you to write an all new haiku, trying to catch karumi.

This episode is NOW OPEN for your submissions and will remain open until May 2nd at noon (CET). I will try to publish our new episode, kites, later on. For now .... have fun!

 

Carpe Diem Tokubetsudesu #75 rice gourd (lost episode March)

Dear Haijin, visitors and travelers,

During the circumstances at the end of March 2016 I couldn't post the episodes I had planned. So I have decided to bring this month in the Tokubetsudesu episodes, next to Celestine, the two "lost episodes" of "In The Way of Basho".

This week I will bring to you the episode "Rice Gourd", which was planned on March 29th. Maybe you remember that last month we were exploring the Haiku Writing Techniques (HWT) used by Basho. To explain that HWT I used haiku by Basho as translated by Jane Reichhold.

Okay ... let's look at the "lost episode" "Rice Gourd".

The HWT used by Basho for this "lost episode" we have seen earlier in our second series of Carpe Diem Haiku Writing Techniques. It's called "finding the divine in the common". It's a HWT that seems to happen without conscious control. A writer will make a perfectly ordinary and accurate statement about common things, but due to the combination of images and ideas about them, or between them, a truth will revealed about the divine.
Since we all have various ideas about what the divine is, two readers of the same haiku may not find the same truth or revelation in it. Here, again, the reader becomes a writer to find a greater truth behind the words. Here is an example by Basho that makes this HWT very clear.

the one thing
that lights my world
a rice gourd

© Basho (Tr. Jane Reichhold)

Perhaps it helps to know that rice was stored in a dried gourd. To keep it away from mice, the gourd was hung from a rafter. Though this was the time before electricity and light bulbs, Basho already had this comparison. Yet there is also a deeper meaning. The rice gourd's golden yellow color not only brightened the dim room, but the rice in it furnished the energy to maintain his body while endeavoring to reach the goal of enlightenment. One can also see this poem as a riddle: What is the one thing that lights my world?

divine (energy)

This technique, in my opinion, isn't easy to use, but in this explanation by Jane Reichhold (whom I am very grateful that she gave me permission to use all her work) it seems so easy.
It will not be an easy task to create a haiku in which I use this HWT, but I have to try ... of course.

what a mystery
leaves falling year after year
without mourning

© Chèvrefeuille

Did I succeed? I don't know, but in a way I think in this haiku you can find the divine in the common.

This episode is NOW OPEN for your submissions and will remain open until April 15th at noon (CET). I will try to publish our next episode, clouds, later on. For now .... have fun!

I just loved to share an image of our Yorkshire pup, Rocky:

Carpe Diem #948 brush

Dear Haijin, visitors and travelers,

First of all ... Happy Easter, have a great Sunday.
Second ... I am in the nightshift so that's the reason why I post this episode later than planned, my apologies for that.

In this episode it's about a haiku writing technique which we have seen also in our last series of Carpe Diem Haiku Writing Techniques. Today it's about "yugen".

Yugen is usually defined as "mystery" and "unknowable depth". Somehow Yugen has avoided the controversy of Wabi and Sabi. But since deciding which haiku exemplifies this quality is a judgmental decision, there is rarely consent over which verse has it and which does not. One could say a woman's face half-hidden behind a fan has Yugen. The same face half-covered with pink goo while getting a facial, however, does not. But still, haiku poets do use the atmosphere as defined by Yugen to make their words be a good haiku by forcing their readers to think and to delve into the everyday sacredness of common things.

Here is an example of a "yugen-haiku" by Basho:

Souvenir paintings
what kind of brush first drew
the image of Buddha

© Basho (Tr. Jane Reichhold)

And … sorry I have made it myself a little bit easy, I have a small part of our CD-HWT series re-produced here. Starting with this haiku by Jane Reichhold:

a swinging gate
on both sides flowers
open - close

© Jane Reichhold

Yūgen may be, among generally recondite Japanese aesthetic ideas, the most ineffable. The term is first found in Chinese philosophical texts, where it has the meaning of “dark,” or “mysterious.”

Kamo no Chōmei, the author of the well-known Hōjōki (An Account of my Hut, 1212), also wrote about poetry and considered yūgen to be a primary concern of the poetry of his time. He offers the following as a characterization of yūgen: “It is like an autumn evening under a colorless expanse of silent sky. Somehow, as if for some reason that we should be able to recall, tears well uncontrollably.” Another characterization helpfully mentions the importance of the imagination: “When looking at autumn mountains through mist, the view may be indistinct yet have great depth. Although few autumn leaves may be visible through the mist, the view is alluring. The limitless vista created in imagination far surpasses anything one can see more clearly”.

Yūgen does not, as has sometimes been supposed, have to do with some other world beyond this one, but rather with the depth of the world we live in, as experienced through cultivated imagination.

 

Noh Theater

The art in which the notion of yūgen has played the most important role is the Nō (or Noh) drama, one of the world's great theater traditions, which attained its highest flourishing through the artistry of Zeami Motokiyo (1363–1443).

So ... yugen as defined "mystery" and "unknowable depth" is not a well-known (or often used) haiku writing techniques, but in a way I am attracted to this technique. In a way I feel yugen in our November prompts about the Altai Mountains and our search for what Hamish Managua Gunn (Pirate) calls "shaman-haiku". I even think that in the most haiku shared here at Carpe Diem Haiku Kai we can find yugen, but that's just my humble opinion.

What to do with this haiku writing technique? I think we have to explore this, because I belief that haiku needs yugen, needs "mystery" and "unknowable depth". So let us focus on that in our responses, our inspired haiku, for this episode of “In The Way Of Basho”.

I will give it a try ... I just have to, because how can I expect it from you, as I don't even have tried it myself to catch "mystery" ... yugen ... "unknowable depth" in a haiku? So here is my attempt to write a "yugen-haiku" and a few examples from my archives:

translucent tea cup
hides a deep secret
ghost of tea

© Chèvrefeuille

Or what do you think of this one from one of the former posts here at CDHK:

one empty bowl
thrown away in the sink
the faint scent of tea
as I empty the kettle -
time for coffee

© Chèvrefeuille

 

Cicada Shell

 

And to conclude this episode about yugen I have a tanka for you in which I think we can find yugen too:

from a treetop
emptiness dropped down
in a cicada shell
the soothing sound of spring rain
makes the silence stronger   

© Chèvrefeuille

And as I ran through my archives I found another nice "yugen"-haiku I think. This one I wrote somewhere in 2012 as a second full moon occurred:

it's a mystery
a second full moon
Blue Moon

© Chèvrefeuille

Well ... it has become a (maybe to long) nice episode and I hope it will inspire you to create a "yugen"-haiku or "yugen"-tanka. Have fun!

This episode is NOW OPEN for your submissions and will remain open until March 30th at  noon (CET). I will try to publish our new episode, our last CD-Special of this month, later on.

PS.: I am busy with creating our new prompt-list for April. In April I love to bring your attention to haiga based on modern kigo for spring as gathered by Jane Reichhold in her "A Dictionary of Haiku".

Carpe Diem #947 grass pillow

Dear Haijin, visitors and travelers,

March is running towards its end and we have just a few days to go. This month we are exploring the haiku writing techniques which are used by one of the greatest haiku poets ever, Matsuo Basho (1644-1694). In a way I see him as my sensei, because through his haiku I fell in love with this beautiful tiny poetry form from the far east. Let's go and explorer another haiku writing technique used by Basho.

The haiku writing technique we have today isn't an easy one to understand. Maybe you can remember our first series of CD-HWT at the beginning of last year. One of the haiku writing techniques I tried to explain was "sabi" ... and that's the haiku writing technique which we are going to explore here (again.). This is the haiku by Basho (in a beautiful translation by Jane Reichhold) which will be used to explain this "sabi".

dreaming rice cakes
fastened to folded ferns
a grass pillow

© Basho (Tr. Jane Reichhold)

As Jane says about this haiku writing technique: "It is questionable whether this is actually a writing technique, but the concept is so vital to Asian poetry that it needs to be included".

Sabi refers to the passing of time, which creates a feeling of sadness, longing and melancholy. It's about transient imagery, how things convey how they've lived - their age, their knowledge. Sabi by itself refers to the natural progression of time, and carries with it an understanding that all things will grow old and become less conventionally beautiful. However, things described as "sabi" carry their age with dignity and grace. At the heart of being "sabi" is the idea of authenticity.

"Sabi"?

An example of a haiku in which "sabi" is used:

rocky spring
lips taking a sip
from a stone mouth

© Jane Reichhold

I almost hesitate to bring up this idea as a technique because the word sabi has gotten so many meanings over the innumerable years it has been in Japan, and now that it comes to the English language it is undergoing even new mutations.

As fascinated as Westerners have become with the word, the Japanese have maintained for centuries that no one can really, truly comprehend what sabi really is and thus, they change its definition according to their moods. Bill Higginson, in The Haiku Handbook, calls sabi – "(patina/loneliness) Beauty with a sense of loneliness in time, akin to, but deeper than, nostalgia." Suzuki maintains that sabi is "loneliness" or "solitude" but that it can also be "miserable", "insignificant", and "pitiable", "asymmetry" and "poverty". Donald Keene sees sabi as "an understatement hinting at great depths".

So you see, we are rather on our own with this! I have translated this as: sabi (SAH-BEE)- aged/loneliness - A quality of images used in poetry that expresses something aged or weathered with a hint of sadness because of being abandoned. A split-rail fence sagging with overgrown vines has sabi; a freshly painted picket fence does not." As a technique, one puts together images and verbs which create this desired atmosphere. Often in English this hallowed state is sought by using the word "old" and by writing of cemeteries and grandmas.

"sabi"?

I recall that I wrote a haiku in which I used "sabi" (and its "twin" "wabi"). I have "re-done" this haiku to which I am referring here to a tanka, which I love to share here:

wearing blue jeans
sign of happiness and freedom -
bleached with stones
jeans almost falling apart
can't throw them away

© Chèvrefeuille

Using this technique, the writer puts together images and verbs that create the desired atmosphere.

This episode is NOW OPEN for your submissions and will remain open until March 28th at noon (CET). I will (try to) publish our new episode, brush, later on. Have fun!

Carpe Diem #946 spring evening

Dear Haijin, visitors and travelers,

Poets often used ambiguity to hide the fact that they were writing, about themselves. They would refer to "an old man" or "the traveler", when in fact it was the author having the experience. By doing this, the technique moved the poem from the individual into the universal. This technique was known as "hiding the author". That, however. is not our haiku writing technique for today.

I love to say first something about the technique mentioned above "hiding the author". I think that's one of the stronger rules of haiku. In your haiku there is no need to show yourself, but I also think that it isn't a sin if you mention yourself in your haiku. You are the poet and therefore I think you can and may be part of your haiku, but ... don't overdo that.

Today it's all about a variation on the above "hiding the author" technique. Here is the haiku to which the title of this post refers:

a bell at sunset
also was not heard
a spring evening

© Basho (Tr. Jane Reichhold)

The variation on "hiding the author" as shown in the haiku by Basho is known as "hidden subject". By using this technique the poet wrote about a subject that could not be sensed but only imagined. Asian poets, like Basho and other classical haiku poets, often praised a missing thing. Frequently this was done as a lament for a deceased person, but it was also a way of forcing the reader to think beyond the poem to imagine something that was not expressed in the words.

Basho experimented with this technique and Jane Reichhold ( to whom I am very grateful that she gave permission to use all of her work) mentions, next to the earlier haiku by the master, another one in which he used this technique.

no bell ringing
what does the village do
on a spring evening

© Basho (Tr. Jane Reichhold)

This technique "hidden object" is a nice way to use in your haiku and that's your challenge for today.

Here is my attempt:

mist covers the heath
slowly, slowly the sun rises -
a skylark's song

© Chèvrefeuille

Not as strong as I had hoped, but I think it fits the haiku writing technique for today.

This episode is NOW OPEN for your submissions and will remain open until March 27th at noon (CET). I will try to publish our new episode, grass pillow, later on. For now .... have fun, be inspired and share your inspired poem(s) with us all here at our Haiku Kai.

Carpe Diem #945 pine needles

Dear Haijin, visitors and travelers,

First I have to apologize for being late with publishing our regular and ThemeWeek posts. I will publish today our regular post only and the Theme Week episode "blue" tomorrow.

Today I love to share a very old method of choosing subject material for a poem. This haiku writing technique is known as "Narrating an Admirable Act". The old Chinese poets were the first experts, but the Japanese ran a close second. In the Imperial collections of waka, some of these poems with this attribute were categorized as "laments". Usually the poem is polite bragging of one's goodness or elevating one's poverty to an achievement.

Jane Reichhold shares the following haiku in "Basho, The Complete Haiku" as an example of this haiku writing technique:

burning dried pine needles
to dry my hand towel
such coldness

© Basho (Tr. Jane Reichhold)

poorhouse

I don't understand this haiku writing technique really well, but I have given it a try:

weeping willow
in front of the poorhouse
children's laughter

© Chèvrefeuille

Not a strong one I think and I don't know if this one is correct in the use of this haiku writing technique.

This episode is NOW OPEN for your submissions and will remain open until March 27th at noon (CET). I will try to publish our new episode, spring evening, later on.

Carpe Diem #944 willow

Dear Haijin, visitors and travelers,

First I love to thank you all for your kind and loving words sprinkled on me in response of the Carpe Diem Extra episode about "publishing permission". Thank you from the bottom of my heart.
Second, and I hope you don't mind, I have published a "publishing permission" statement at right side of our Kai, because (thank you Rall for this idea) than it's open and clear how I (can) act as I am creating our exclusive series of CDHK e-books. I am very sad that I have to publish this statement after more than three years being your host.

Okay ... to our new episode of Carpe Diem Haiku Kai. This month we are exploring haiku writing techniques as used by Basho, my sensei, and today there is in a way a connection to our "flute" episode and maybe slightly to the "permission" discussion.

Here is the haiku by Basho which we will use to connect with the haiku writing technique for today:

one patch of a rice field
when it was planted I left
the willow tree

© Basho (Tr. Jane Reichhold)

I think you all can remember this haiku from our "narrow road" series last December, because it's part of Oku no Hosomichi, that famous haibun by Basho. As I am creating this episode I realize that I used this prompt "willow" earlier at CDHK and the haiku I would love to share by myself I have already used in the "flute" episode ... so this will become a challenge to me.

weeping willow

The technique Basho uses in this haiku is known as "response to another's poem". It's a variation on the technique of literary reference, only in this technique the reference is to a usually well-known poem by someone else. This device is a good one to get poetic inspiration flowing by reading the work of others (as we do here very often e.g. your submitted poetry, but also the CD-Distillation feature uses this device) and then finding something else or new to say. In this example Basho refers to a waka by Saigyo from the Shinkokinwakashu:

along the way
where water is running
in the willow shade
I have stopped to rest
for a little while

© Saigyo (Tr. Jane Reichhold)

A wonderful waka I would say, but the haiku by Basho inspired on this waka is a real beauty if I may say so. I think this "response to another's poem" technique is a nice one and easy to use too.

For this episode I love to challenge you to create a (new) haiku or tanka in which you are referring to another poem and please share also the poem which you used for your inspiration. I am looking forward to your responses.

I have ran through the Carpe Diem Haiku Kai archives / pages and I found a nice episode which I wrote in September 2013. It was one of the earliest CD-Distillation episodes about "The Tale Genji". I love to share the poem by Lady Murasaki Shibuku (poetess/writer of the Tale) which I used there for the "distillation".

The evening sky itself
becomes something to cherish
when I gaze at it,
seeing in one of the clouds
the smoke from her funeral pyre

© Murasaki Shibuku

smoke rises to the sky

And this was the haiku which I created as a distillation of that poem. I think this gives you an idea what our technique for today means:

her spirit departs

with the dying of her pyre -
smoke rises to the sky

© Chèvrefeuille

This episode is NOW OPEN for your submissions and will remain open until March 23rd at noon (CET). I will (try to) publish our next episode, a new CD-Special, later on. For now ... have fun!

Carpe Diem #943 flute

Dear Haijin, visitors and travelers,

Through circumstances I have decided to publish two episodes in a roll today, so here is our second episode, which by the way was scheduled for today. It's about a haiku writing technique which explains why classical (and modern) haiku poets sometimes refer to known things literary. It's a kind of haiku in which the poet uses his knowledge of for example, classical poems or mythology.
As we know Basho had studied a lot of Chinese and Japanese literature and poems and that knowledge he exposes sometimes in his haiku. In this haiku he uses his knowledge of his own time.

pining for flowers
or a tune from Gichiku
Mount Yoshino

© Basho (Tr. Jane Reichhold)

In this haiku Basho uses the so called "honki-dori" or "literary references" technique. It's one of the ways writers had of elevating their status by linking their verses to another famous person (or place).
In the above haiku Basho refers to Gichiku.
Gichiku, known as Tozaburo, was a popular flute player in Basho's time whose hit song had the title of "Yoshino", the mountain most famous for its cherry trees and deep snows. The idea was that when the flowers bloomed there would be parties, flute playing would be at its best.

This beautiful Japanese Bamboo flute music titled "Sakura" (a traditional Japanese folk-song) inspired me to the following haiku.

bamboo leaves rustle
cherry blossoms from far away
in the backyard

© Chèvrefeuille

Maybe you know that I have an old Sakura in the backyard who is almost in full bloom right now. To me that's a famous spot in my life, so I thought ... maybe I can write a tribute to my Sakura.

And here is one from my archives (with slight revision) about the willow which was once sung by Saigyo, as we have read in Basho's "narrow road into the deep north" last December.

finally have seen
the willow at the crystal stream
sung by Saigyo

© Chèvrefeuille

Isn't it an awesome idea to link your haiku to a famous person or a famous place? 

This episode is NOW OPEN for your submissions and will remain open until March 22nd at noon (CET). I will try to publish our next episode, willow, later on. For now .... have fun!

Carpe Diem #942 Thorn

Dear Haijin, visitors and travelers,

Again my excuses for being late with this episode which I had hoped to publish yesterday. So today I have two new episodes for you, but I think they will not be a long read ... we will see.

In this episode, Thorn, it's about the haiku writing technique used by Basho in the following haiku:

folly in darkness
grasping a thorn
instead of a firefly

© Basho (Tr. Jane Reichhold)

This not a wellknown haiku by the master, but it's a nice one to look closer at. In this haiku Basho used a writing technique which was very common in waka-poetry. It was also the basis for the maekuzuki or "capping verse". This techniques works by setting up a sitiuation and leading the reader to believe the author is going to relate a certain situation. In the middle of the verse the writer's thinking makes a turn or, as this haiku writing technique is called, a twist and force the reader's mind into a completely different situation. Basho had studied the old waka anthologies and was therefore very familiar with this technique.

In the above haiku the "twist" is in the attention  for "grasping a thorn". The reader's mind thinks "the following line will be about the wound", but than there is the "twist" "a firefly".

Because fireflies appear in the time of the evening when lovers meet, they have the connotation of helping lovers find each other. Thus, the reader is led to think "thorn" is a euphemism, but the addition of the third line swings the poem back around into another situation.

rose and bumblebee

This haiku writing technique is very common in use, but it's not always easy to create a haiku with this haiku writing technique.

Here is my attempt:

smell the roses
their sweet perfume attracts
bumblebee appears

© Chèvrefeuille

There is another nice poetry form from the Far East that uses this writing technique often. Maybe you can remember that I once published an episode of Carpe Diem Little Ones about the Korean Sijo. In this Sijo the twist usually comes in the last two lines.

Here is an example of a Sijo in which you can find the twist at the end of it:

Cherry trees blossoming
for the very first time

spreading their branches,
reaching for the sun

thunderstorms raging,
fragile blossoms scattered

© Chèvrefeuille

This episode is NOW OPEN for your submissions and will remain open until March 22nd at noon (CET). Have fun! Our new episode will follow immediately.

Carpe Diem #941 Heart

Dear Haijin, visitors and travelers,

I once started to write, because I like to play with words and bring them to life through my novels and of course through my haiku and tanka. It's really a joy to dive into the richness of your own language, or in this case here at CDHK, into English, not my maiden language, but it starts to become almost my maiden language.
Today's haiku writing technique used by Basho has all to do with pleasure to play with words. To explain the meaning of this HWT I will also give the romaji translation of the haiku by Basho for today.

tanabata no awanu kokero ya uchuten

for the Star Festival*
even when hearts cannot meet
rainy-rapture

© Basho (Tr. Jane Reichhold)

* see also the post about Tanabata Festival, last October, by clicking HERE



Tanabata Festival (July 7th)

The haiku writing technique of today is Creating New Words and this is waht Jane writes about it:

One of the reasons for becoming a poet or writer is for the joy of working with words. Fairly quickly one finds out, even in a language as rich as English, that there are not enough words to explain or name everything. The writer / poet must either find images for these unnamed states of being or make up a new word.

In the above haiku by Basho we find a "new created word" by him. This "new word" is 'uchuten'. It's a compound word made by Basho incorporating "rain in the middle of heaven" and ecstasy.

A wonderful haiku writing technique which will challenge you I think. Again ... I haven't tried it yet, because of lack of time, but maybe I will come up with something later on.

This episode is NOW OPEN for your submissions and will remain open until March 20th at noon (CET). I will publish our new episode, thorn, later on.

Carpe Diem #940 blossom

Dear Haijin, visitors and travelers,

A new day, a new post in which we will explore a haiku writing technique used by Basho. Our episode of today is about a haiku writing technique which we haven't had earlier here at CDHK. I will try to explain this new haiku writing technique (with the help of Jane Reichhold) to you after this.

This month we are exploring haiku writing techniques used by Basho, my sensei. And I am happy to announce to you all that I will create a CDHK e-book "In The Way of Basho" in which I will gather all the posts about the haiku writing techniques used by Basho and the CD-Specials in which I introduce disciples of Basho, the so called "Shoomon disciples" or "Shoomon school". Next to all the posts I will include your submissions to every post at the end of every chapter (episodes). You can already find a preview at the right side of our Kai, free for download.

Okay ... back to our haiku writing technique for this episode. In this episode I love to introduce "kasuri" or "frame rhyme".

from Kyoto's many houses
a crowd of ninety-nine thousand
blossom viewing

© Basho (Tr. Jane Reichhold)

To understand this "kasuri" technique I also will give you the Romaji translation of this haiku:

kyo wa kuman kusen kunju no hanami kana

By the way this is an early haiku by Basho which he wrote at the age of 22. In this haiku we can already see the splendor of the master.

Maruyama Park Kyoto the best place of viewing blossom

This technique, used by the two haikai schools in vogue in Basho's time (Teimon School and Danrin School), was also utilized in English poetry, where it was also known as the "para-rhyme". An example would be back - buck. This rhyming device had almost completely fallen out of practice in poetry but was recently revived in rap-music. An extension of this technique is still used in jokes. By taking a known phrase or cliché, and then changing one part of it, it is possible to express a new idea. Examples: "He who laughs last thinks slowest." or "Change is inevitable, except from a vending machine". Basho, by changing only one sound unit, was using the frame rhyme.

At the time there was a saying that Kyoto has 98,000 houses. Another phrase is kisen kunju ("a crowd of rich and poor"). Basho changed the kisen to kusen to add another thousand to the number and include the concept of all classes of society.

I think this is a wonderful haiku writing technique, but if you don't mind "I pass" this time to create a new haiku myself, because my English isn't that well to use this "kasuri" or "frame-rhyme" technique. I also think it isn't an easy technique to use ... so .... good luck.

This episode is NOW OPEN for your submissions and will remain open until March 19th at noon (CET). I will try to publish our new episode, heart, later on. For now ... have fun!

Carpe Diem #939 Old Pond

Dear Haijin, visitors and travelers,

In a month full of exploring haiku writing techniques used by Basho there is for sure a haiku which we have to discuss ... yes here it is again Basho's renowned "old pond". This haiku we have seen very often here at Carpe Diem Haiku Kai, but in this month we will look at it from the perspective of the used haiku writing technique.

old pond
a frog jumps into
the sound of water

© Basho (Tr. Jane Reichhold)

In this haiku Basho uses the "sense switching" technique, a technique which we have seen in our second series of haiku writing techniques last year.

This is a favorite of the Japanese poetry masters, but one they used with a great deal of discretion. It is simply to speak of the sensory aspect of a thing and then change in another sensory organ. Usually it involves hearing something one sees, or switching between seeing and tasting.

In the haiku by Basho, this very famous "old pond" the frog not only jumps into the water but also into the sound of water. The mind-puzzle that this haiku creates is how to separate the frog from the water, the sound of water from the water, the frog from the sound it will make entering water, and the sound from the old pond. It cannot be done because all these factors are one, but the reader arrivés at this truth through having the senses scrambled.

Here are a few other examples of haiku in which this technique is used by Basho:

cattle shed
dark sound of mosquitoes
in summer heat

© Basho (Tr. Jane Reichhold)

Jojakkoji Temple (Kyoto)

pine and cedar
to admire the wind
smell the sound

© Basho (Tr. Jane Reichhold)

"Pine and Cedar" is not a well-known haiku, but the sense switching is very clear in this one. This is the background of this beauty:

The Jojakkoji Temple is at the foot of Ogurayama of Saga in the western part of Kyoto. It is considered the site of the villa of Fujiwara no Teika (1162-1241), the famous poet who compiled One Hundred Poems by One Hundred Poets, which is still used as a card game (Uta-garuta). This verse crosses the senses with the line "smell the sound".

This haiku writing technique looks more simple than we think, but on the other hand it's a wonderful technique in which we can make our haiku even more beautiful, stronger, full of images and balance.

Here is my attempt:

the cooing of pigeons
between blooming cherry trees -
the cool rain

© Chèvrefeuille

 

Here is another one ... freshly composed, say an impromptu-verse:

jasmine blossoms
ride on the shoulder of the spring breeze
smell the wind

© Chèvrefeuille
 

This episode is open for your submissions tonight at 7.00 PM (CET) and will remain open until March 17th at noon (CET). I will publish our new episode, a new Tokubetsudesu episode, later on. For now ... have fun!

 

Carpe Diem #938 Iris leaves

!!! Don't forget the voting for our Time Kukai. It's possible to 10.00 PM (CET) to email your votes to carpediemhaikukai@gmail.com

Dear Haijin, visitors and travelers,

In this episode I love to introduce a haiku writing technique used by Basho which we haven't seen here earlier, maybe I have written about in some episodes, but not as a theme. In several of our haiku we can read knowledge we have gained at school, at work or through study. Nothing wrong with of course. In haiku you may use your knowledge.

Basho often used his knowledge of Japanese and Chinese literature and sometimes he uses the "real" knowledge in his haiku. In this technique of today we see a kind of science back and it's in a way comparible with the "paradox" technique. The haiku writing technique of today is called "pseudo science".

iris leaves
I tie them to my feet
as sandal cords

© Basho (Tr. Jane Reichhold)

The "pseudo-science" technique is very close to the paradox but has a slight difference. This technique demonstrates a distorted view of science - one we think is not true, but has the possibility of being true, perhaps when we understand quantum physics or all become poets. When the "other reality" the author was using is explained, the poem becomes absolutely clear. Again, this is an old Japanese tool that was used to make the poet sound simple and childlike but also to confound the reader.

As I was preparing this episode I ran through the haiku by Basho and found another one in which this haiku writing gtechnique, "pseudo-science" is used.

a falling sound
that sours my ears
plum rain

© Basho (Tr. Jane Reichhold)

And here is another one by Basho in which you can see this technique been used:

mushrooms
not yet that many days
of autumn dew

Mushrooms in Dew

I think this is a nice haiku writing technique, but it's not an easy one to use. I have given it a try myself, but I don't think I succeeded.

kimono slipping
fingertips discover silk road
ecstatic sigh

© Chèvrefeuille

And here is another one in which I have tried again:

the day ends
buttercups share their golden light -
the moon rises

© Chèvrefeuille

This episode is open for your submissions tonight at 7.00 PM (CET) and will remain open until March 16th at noon (CET). I will try to publish our new episode, old pond, later on.

Carpe Diem #937 Robe

Dear Haijin, visitors and travelers,

I am still in the nightshift, so my excuses for being late with publishing. This episode we will look at a haiku writing technique which we haven't seen earlier here at Carpe Diem Haiku Kai. Before I explain this haiku writing technique I will first give you the haiku by Basho for this episode and what Jane Reichhold tells about it in her wonderful book "Basho, The Complete Haiku", which I use very often.

kite mo miyo jiube ga haori hana goromo

put it on to try
in-vest yourself
in a flowered robe

© Basho (Tr. Jane Reichhold)

And this is what she tells about the background of this haiku:

The "jiube ga haori" is a padded vest. The "hana goromo" is a flowered robe worn for viewing blossoms. "Haori" sounds similar to "gaori", which means "to surrender to the beauty of flowers", and "kite" can mean both "come" or "wear".

In this haiku Basho uses the haiku writing technique "pun" it's a kind of technique to bring a kind of joke into the haiku. I will explain this a little later in this episode. First I love to look at a few other haiku in which this "pun" is used.



jiube ga haori

These are more the modern use of "pun", because these two haiku are recently written. I ran towards these two by surfing the WWW.

two crows
sit on a bare branch -
attempted murder

© Laure Y.

fishing lake -
an angler catches
the sun

© Burning Rose

And I have ran through my archives to find also an example of this "pun" I think I found one:

white caps shattered
sand rushes around on the beach
a dragon kite

© Chèvrefeuille

 

Proud like a Peacock

 

Another one in which I "translated" "pun" to "humor":

proud like a peacock
the  businessman steps around
stumbles over the sill

© Chèvrefeuille

Japanese poets were master punsters. We have many of the same opposrtunities for puns in English, but contemporary haiku writers may not be as well versed as the Japanese are in using this technique because there have been periods of Western literary history when this skill has been reviled. And even though the hai of haiku means "joke, or fun, or unusual", there are still writers who frown when they encounter a pun in three lines. Basho didn't use the technique much because he was against the overuse of the method by the two other haikai schools of his time. Translators shy away from pun verses because they rarely work in the target language and long explanations can be tiresome to write and read. Fortunately the above haiku by Basho, works in both languages.

This haiku writing technique isn't well documented, because I couldn't find haiku examples written with "pun" by other haiku poets.

I found a few other examples in which this "pun" is used, I couldn't find the poets who did write them, but they are worth reading and sharing.

the year’s first snowfall
the cat bats at the window
to catch the snow birds.

each suburban lawn
a page in fall’s manuscript
burnished with gold leaves.

pierced by falcon claws
red feathers on the white snow
a cardinal sin.

Glasses

And I have tried it myself, but it's not really my "cup of tea" to use "pun":

laugh at me
when I put my glasses on
I am an old man

such a hot day
my shadow needs to cool down
under the willow

cooling down
together with the melons
taking a bath

 © Chèvrefeuille

This episode is NOW OPEN for your submissions and will remain open until March 16th at noon (CET). I will try to publish our next episode, iris leaves, later on.