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# / Author
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DCCCI
Hugh Bygott
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Winter rain —
crossing a puddle, she lifts her skirt:
practised elegance.
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DCCCII
Naia
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spinning the crystal
even though there's no sun...
we imagine rainbows
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DCCCIII
Zhanna P. Rader
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Standing there,
withered flowers in his hands...
my aching heart.
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DCCCIV
Hugh Bygott
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Cornflowers blooming —
seeking the hidden passion,
we search each other's eyes.
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DCCCV
Trish Shields
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an eagles feather
caught against driftwood
your gentle touch
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DCCCVI
Zhanna P. Rader
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These red roses
from you... saying "I'm sorry"
eighteen times.
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DCCCVII
Terry A. Steudlein
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dry eyed —
she slips his ring in the mailer
UPS pickup station
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DCCCVIII
Hugh Bygott
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Winter silences —
the widower drifts into dreams...
. . . lost and future loves...
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As a philosopher, I have no doubt that real haiku are about people. I smile at the Shiki shasei-fiction. Ironically, the best Shiki haiku are non-shasei. Of course, nature is essential to our consciousness, but the physical world in the absence of humanity is incomplete.
In my view, the most powerful line in poem DCCCVIII is (of) “lost and future loves.” No matter who we are, all of us are driven by this idea. For this reason the haiku sequence Eros is the most outstanding sequence on any website or in any print journal. Let us continue on toward 1000, 2000 and beyond to 10,000. HB |
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DCCCIX
Naia
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has it been eons,
or has this longing just begun...
fingers in the pond
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DCCCX
Zhanna P. Rader
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Freed from her love,
she goes picking buttercups —
sunny April day.
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DCCCXI
Betty Kaplan
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in her diary
"he loves me, he loves me not"
the dandelion
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DCCCXII
Hugh Bygott
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The blackthorn whitening —
her slender fingers stroke my cheek...
. . . this stress of deep desire.
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Two facts seem inescapable. (a) It takes more English syllables to translate a given Japanese proposition expressed in mora. (b) Each mora in Japanese has the same time duration, but English syllables differ in length. Thus the haiku poet is faced with a dilemma. If time duration is the criterion, then fewer English syllables will have the same time duration as 17 mora. This is the position taken by the minimalists who often drop to 14 and below. If meaning is the criterion, as is the case with the philosophers, then the 17 needs to be extended to 20 syllables. It seems to me that 6 - 8 - 6 is the natural form for English.
One benefit of the extended number of syllables is to allow for more regular stresses on the English words. Thus line 3 of poem DCCCXII reads this STRESS of DEEP deSIRE using iambic metre.
The kigo, the blackthorn whitening (Spring) is symbolic of the woman’s lacquered finger nails, warning of the dangers to come. HB
hi. i'd like to point out that minimalism is a philosopy, too. and meaning is, of course, the criterion for all communication (unless you are a dadaist or nihilist). the minimalist seeks to say more with less. she does so by saying "when i say less, there is more room for the reader to create meaning out of their imagination." when you say more, there is less room for the reader's imagination and interpretation(s) to operate, as "everying up to the margin" has been said. the art of suggestion plays a role in haiku, and suggestion is a pointing to something that the reader must find for himself, regardless of the intention of the haijin. that's where "aha!" comes from.
with kindest regards,
ek [Wade German]
Dear Wade German
Thank you very much for your comments on Eros DCCCXII. I often add these notes hoping that someone will engage me in debate. Regretably, it rarely happens. You are quite right, and I am wrong. Minimalist haiku is a philosophical position and such haiku have meaning. I should have expressed myself more clearly. My view is that minimalists sacrifice meaning. This method of writing haiku was originally based on a criterion of sound duration based on onji theory. Now minimalist haiku writing is a method in its own right.
If we compare our positions, you write short haiku and I write long haiku (the maximalist postion). However, there are so many inconsistencies. Why do short haiku terminate at 9 to 13 syllables? Why not 5 or 1? Why do long haiku fluctuate around 19 to 21 syllables? Why not 25 or 30, or more specifically 31 English syllables?
There is a very good reason why 17 sound units is so suitable for haiku. It is no accident that the greatest poetry, Homeric verse, was written in lines of 17 sound units in Classical Greek, the dactylic hexameter. This corresponds to normal breathing. Since all poetry was originally spoken, the amount of air exhaled in one breath is important.
Now you can argue against me that many of my Eros poems cannot be said in one breath. You may notice how I pause after the opening line. I always use a dash after a noun phrase or prepositional phrase. Consider Eros DCCCXVI:
A lonely widow —
This is the indication to take a second breath.
autumn winds seeking pining leaves [Line 2]
stream instead her golden hair.
However, now another problem arises. [Remember, I am a philosopher.] A maximalist haiku may contain a minimalist haiku within it. What do you make of line 2? Is it a haiku?
There is a lot more to be said. Thank you again for your interest. May I ask you to join the Eros team?
Sincerely
Hugh Bygott
hi,
glad you found some of my comments interesting. just so you know, for me it's not a matter of being right and wrong, but only a matter of writing long. let me clarify a bit.
i don't think minimalism is about sacrificing meaning. it's just that there is suggestion involved in haiku. which means, there is a certain degree of not saying involved in the composition of this kind of poem. and by saying more - which doesn't necessarily result in added meaning, by the way - you take away suggestion. for me, judging good haiku is not about structure and mechanics, but the phenomenology of the matter, the aesthetic experience of the the thing. and this is something that we cannot quantify. i can't pour my experience of a haiku into a glass and measure it.
but what i can do is describe a kind of quality of "good" haiku. that is, i can perceive a certain similarity in length of breath or breadth of the experience. and that experience is inevitably something short and rarified. for example, like breathing in a quick blast of cool mountain air. and it arises out of suggestion. i don't get the sense of a sustained breeze in "good" haiku. it seems to me this is one reason why the best haiku translators usually manage to get the job done in 3-5-3 or less.
it is only an opinion of course, but i think trying to stuff more and more meaning into a haiku goes beyond the spirit of the thing. however, tanka is for capturing the longer breeze.
kindest regards,
ek |
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DCCCXIII
Zhanna P. Rader
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Bluets —
he sees her eyes
in every petal.
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DCCCXIV
Hugh Bygott
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Unfulfilled Spring —
In waking and in dreaming,
I long for her.
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DCCCXV
Zhanna P. Rader
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Southern snow
and my darling's frowns:
fast-melting.
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DCCCXVI
Hugh Bygott
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A lonely widow —
autumn winds seeking pining leaves
stream instead her golden hair.
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DCCCXVII
Zhanna P. Rader
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She adds
some clove to his soup —
its enchantment.
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DCCCXVIII
Hugh Bygott
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Sounds in the summer air —
I take her hand as we climb the stairs:
anticipation...
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DCCCXIX
Zhanna P.Rader
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Winter night —
she slowly writes his name
on the frozen window.
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DCCCXX
Betty Kaplan
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how luscious
the peeled tomato —
her nakedness
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DCCCXXI
Hugh Bygott
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Winter moonlight —
I listen to her softly breathing,
the sap yet to rise.
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Since I do not believe in the theory of the haiku moment, I have constructed this maximalist or major haiku as an exercise in English language poetic metre.
Line 1 consists of two spondaic feet, a spondee being two stressed syllables.
Line 2 has 4 stresses with the ninth syllable fading.
/ / / /
I listen to her softly breathing
This line looks like an iambic tetrameter. The final line has two feet, an iamb followed by an anapaest, sap and rise bearing the stresses.
/ /
| the sap | yet to rise |
Students of classical hokku will notice the juxtaposition of lines 1 and 3. Does line 3 repeat line 1? Is line 3 symbolic of love making? All these subtleties as well as English metre are not really avaible to minimalist or minor haiku. HB |
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DCCCXXII
Zhanna P. Rader
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Empty beach —
he sweeps the sand off her skin
with a gull feather.
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DCCCXXIII
Hugh Bygott
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Unfulfilment —
the greening willows greet the dawn;
but I, alas, must wait.
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A great deal is made of the tonal uta rhythms of Classical Japanese poetry. This is as it should be. Why then do we abandon the beautiful stress rhythms of the English language when composing haiku?
In the above major haiku there are nine iambic feet with the stress on the second syllable. There is a symbolism here which would be entirely lost if the poem was truncated into a minor and inferior composition.HB |
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DCCCXXIV
Terry A. Steudlein
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night dreams —
reaching out for her,
falling out of bed
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DCCCXXV
Zhanna P. Rader
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To enlarge her assets
a la Dolly Parton,
she uses Photoshop.
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DCCCCXXVI
Hugh Bygott
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Unbuttoning her gloves,
I kiss each delicate finger...
Sweet lilac time.
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Dear Subscribers
Betty Kaplan is quite right. We have tried to write a sequence which has elegance. While a lot of modern poetry contains expletives and crudities, this is not acceptable for Eros. This so called modern poetry is really prose cut into strings.
The sexual love relation is one of the most beautiful characteristics of human life. The loss of love and unrequited love are driving forces in poetry. This is true of Elizabethan sonnets as it is for classical Japanese renga.
The art of haiku is fundamentally about allusion. Much of modern haiku is simply short empirical sentences or expressions. In my view, we should aim at subtleties and not plain statements.
Sincerely
Hugh Bygott |
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DCCCXXVII
Betty Kaplan
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A closet —
now only empty hangers;
once full of love
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DCCCXXVIII
Zhanna P. Rader
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Birch-tree catkins —
secure in her marriage,
yet this loneliness.
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DCCCXXIX
Hugh Bygott
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Mourning night winds —
In the winter darkness, I wonder
how she now might love.
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DCCCXXX
Naia
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his fingers down my spine...
like feathers, these autumn leaves
lifted in a breeze
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DCCCXXXI
Hugh Bygott
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A withering rose —
she too is frail with splendour gone;
yet his still so constant love.
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DCCCXXXII
Naia
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I remember him
in a hundred, no, thousand poses...
this unbearable cold
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DCCCXXXIII
Hugh Bygott
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Unseen, wild violets —
Tonight you shall be honoured
. . . placed between her breasts...
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| How deep is a woman’s desire! Wild violets. Chiyo-ni HB |
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DCCCXXXIV
Betty Kaplan
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Lingering day
always there; his presence
in his favorite chair
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DCCCXXXV
Trish Shields
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re-reading
my letters, never sent
one white daff in the garden
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DCCCXXXVI
Hugh Bygott
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Pure lily —
as she first tastes the wine of love,
how parched are her lips!
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DCCCXXXVII
Naia
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spring fog...
this feeling of being
untouchable
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DCCCXXXVIII
Betty Kaplan
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the longing
for his arms to hold me —
a tulip opens
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DCCCXXXIX
Bardell Colin
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through all time
men and women and ...
always through time
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DCCCXL
Hugh Bygott
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A flourish of silk
— lilacs in and out of moonlight —
lost love remember’d.
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DCCCXLI
Michele harvey
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first date...
cockleburs on his sleeve
bolder than I
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DCCCXLII
Naia
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alone in this place
where we danced beneath stars...
retracing footsteps
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DCCCXLIII
Hugh Bygott
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Even wild winds —
so with passionate love: it passes
like a summer storm.
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DCCCXLIV
Zhanna P. Rader
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Approaching storm —
startled by a seabird’s cry
she presses to his chest.
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DCCCXLV
Hugh Bygott
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Winds through flower fields —
But I, more gentle than the wind,
thrill her by my touch.
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DCCCXLVI
Zhanna P. Rader
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He sends his love to me
with red chrysanthemums —
daydreaming.
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DCCCXLVII
Hugh Bygott
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Autumn mountain —
We walk in silence, love words waiting
as if caged birds.
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| The first line is an oblique reference to a Chiyo-ni hiraku. HB |
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DCCCXLVIII
Trish Shields
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calloused hands
work through fallow fields
memories crop up
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DCCCXLIX
Hugh Bygott
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Bluebells at her feet —
she too hangs her head, awaiting
his delicate touch.
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| Native English Bluebell, Hyathincoides non scripta. In Scotland, Wood Hyacinth. |
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DCCCL
Zhanna P. Rader
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As they dance,
the fragrance of the tea rose
pinned to her hair.
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