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# / Author
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CCI
Hugh Bygott
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Silent blue shadows —
the Spring sea is so alive,
yet the light must fade.
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Zhanna, please keep going — I want to get to 1000 and set a world
record. HB
___________
Easier said than done. :) Zh. |
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CCII
Zhanna P. Rader
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Festival of the Sea —
the gulls, too,
are feasting.
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CCIII
Hugh Bygott
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Spring dawn —
footsteps in the sand, names on cliffs;
everything passes.
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CCIV
Zhanna P. Rader
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Hurricane
reaches the shore
and a ghost town.
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CCV
Hugh Bygott
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Blow winter wind!
Blow until you burst yourself . . .
the sea will be still.
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[First two lines: The Tempest Act I Scene 1, 7]
I experiment here with a new style of haiku. This reference to English Literature parallels Basho's references to Classical Chinese and Japanese Literature in some of his hokku. Buson too, referred to the Japanese Classics. Zhanna will be absent for some days. Hortensia, or other members, would you like to write Poem 206 in this 1000 haiku series? HB |
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CCVI
Zhanna P. Rader
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Hurricane —
boarded-up homes
on the streets-rivers.
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CCVII
Hugh Bygott
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Shadowless crosses —
on the bay the moonlight falls:
etch'd in stone their youth.
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| This is a Second Tradition haiku. As such it avoids the Imagist and Zen influence of the XX Century. As in classical Japanese poetry, one line makes a classical reference. In this case, to line 483 of Coleridge's The Ancient Mariner. I know some people will find this disconcerting; but the time is ripe for new challenges in English language evolved haiku. The above poem is the antithesis of the Lee Gurga Imagist Model of haiku. HB |
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CCVIII
Zhanna P. Rader
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Global warming —
the sea gradually
claims the beach.
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CCIX
Hugh Bygott
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Warm, sea-scented beach —
foaming end-waves caress her feet
. . . the anklets I had clasp'd.
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| Every subscriber is welcome to enter this haiku sequence. I have a strong belief that it is proving to be quite innovative. As we all know, haiku evolved from Japanese poetry. In the Japanese language there are only two tense aspects, complete and incomplete. Why are we so locked into the present tense only? For example, this beautiful Issa hokku — The pink, the pink, why did it break? (written after the death of his child). Many classical Japanese hokku are written with the kireji suffix — keri, including Basho's A Crow at Autumn dusk.. This construction can be translated as present perfect. I suspect that many of the current practices have come from errors in poetic theory in the XX Century. HB |
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CCX
Zhanna P. Rader
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Our small boat —
drenched in cold sea spray,
I watch a storm petrel.
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CCXI
Hugh Bygott
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Intermittent light —
bronzed sea and sky hide her pain:
the Temeraire returns.
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| Listeners to BBC Radio 4 have voted J.M.Turner's Fighting Temeraire as the best loved British Painting. Haiku CCXI is written in the Second Tradition. This tradition from the XV Century includes the intellectual Basho and the greatest philosophical haiku poet, Chiyo-ni. It entirely avoids the imagist-intuitive school of haiku which was a feature of XX Century haiku and persists in HSA definitions of haiku and in much of cuurrent practice. HB |
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CCXII
Zhanna P. Rader
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Submarine accident —
oxygen and hope
are running out.
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CCXIII
Hugh Bygott
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Summer darkness . . .
Once more, alone at the sea-wall,
I ask: Who are we?
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CCXIV
Zhanna P. Rader
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"I'm only a human,"
whispers the Captain
of the drowning ship.
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CCXV
Hugh Bygott
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Spring sea edge —
her petticoat lifted, foaming sand . . .
Eros shakes me again.
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| A haiku in the Second Tradition inspired by the love poetry of Sappho. HB |
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CCXVI
Zhanna P. Rader
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May sea beach —
a girl tells her dog to go and check
if the water's warm.
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CCXVII
Hugh Bygott
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Summer nightmare —
caught in a rip, her dog barks "Come in
. . . the water's fine!"
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CCXVIII
Zhanna P. Rader
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Daydreams —
the crashing sea waves
lull me to sleep.
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CCXIX
Hugh Bygott
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Silent, motionless . . .
A prisoner of loneliness
I hear the surging sea.
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| It is a modern mantra that emotion in haiku should be avoided. Such a position ignores the many beautiful hokku/haiku of Shinkei, Sogi, Basho, Chiyo-ni, Shiki, Kyoshi, Taneda and many others. HB |
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CCXX
Zhanna P. Rader
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Lying on my back,
rocking in the waves. . .
the sky's blueness.
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CCXXI
Hugh Bygott
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Distant blue heights —
new water journeys to the sea . . .
song of the Yangtze.
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CCXXII
Zhanna P. Rader
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A boy at the beach
digging clams with his toes . . .
his little sister's dancing.
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CCXXIII
Hugh Bygott
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Writing your name
in the ebb tide sand, I was sadden'd . . .
innocence of childhood.
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CCXXIV
Zhanna P. Rader
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A harbor seal
flirts with our boat...
until we enter the cave.
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CCXXV
Zhanna P. Rader
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Mewling seabirds
move in and out of Autumn mists . . .
shadows slip out to sea.
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CCXXVI
Zhanna P. Rader
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A whale's fluke
in my camera's objective. . .
just waves in the photo.
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CCXXVII
Hugh Bygott
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Images of youth,
the scent of sea on your skin —
photos fade in Spring dusk . . .
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CCXXVIII
Zhanna P. Rader
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Otter with a shell. . .
a seagull hovers above,
hoping for what?
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| You have an eye for detail Zhanna. In my view, haiku always have a sense of questioning and of purpose. My following haiku has only a tenuous link with yours, but it has a hidden question, as well as a play on the preposition above. HB |
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CCXXIX
Hugh Bygott
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A wild Summer storm —
yet in the ink-blue deep,
the sea is silent.
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CCXXX
Zhanna P. Rader
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New Guinea reefs. . .
a top-ranking female clownfish dies,
her mate changes sex.
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CCXXXI
Hugh Bygott
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Departed fire —
the atoll rests in harmony
with the mirror'd sea.
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CCXXXII
Zhanna P. Rader
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A killer whale —
this time a sea otter's
on its menu.
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CCXXXIII
Hugh Bygott
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Black triangles . . .
Arctic seas, glistening floes disturb
their geometry.
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| I have used in this Second Tradition haiku a kireji technique used in the Japanese classical haiku. This is to cut the second line with a verb. As Keiko Imaoka points out in her excellent article, Forms in English Haiku, Simply_haiku, Autumn 2005, vol 3 no 3, word order is essential in English. Now the accepted view in modern haiku is that a dash should follow a noun phrase. However, in the above haiku a dash punctuation would be inadequate. I have chosen ellipsis so that the reader realises some text is missing, and that the distorted geometry predicate relates to the black Orca triangles and not the Artic seas. Thus the meaning of the word order is preserved. HB |
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CCXXXIV
Zhanna P. Rader
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A dog sea otter
kidnaps his own pup, demanding
food for ransom.
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CCXXXV
Hugh Bygott
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A hermit crab
withdraws from the crowded world
. . . new turtles reach the sea.
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CCXXXVI
Zhanna P. Rader
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Deep sea anglerfish:
the luminescent lure
in its overshot mouth. . .
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| It is actually the wolftrapangler Thaumatichthys axeli. Zh. |
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CCXXXVII
Hugh Bygott
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Autumn wild winds —
your flaxen hair streaming, we tread the foam,
the Sea gods envious.
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CCXXXVIII
Zhanna P. Rader
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Black-Sea pebble beach —
two local lads admiring
the yet-untanned girls
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CCXXXIX
Hugh Bygott
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Do you remember . . .
. . . the summer sea splashing your white legs,
a distant time unknown?
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| As we approach the second anniversary of this series, Zhanna and I again invite other poets to join. HB. |
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CCXL
robert wilson
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my ankles
tickled by your smile
and the gray foam
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CCXLI
Zhanna P. Rader
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Quiet lagoon —
the resting pearl diver
spits on the oysters
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CCXLII
Hugh Bygott
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Shapes in the sea mist
. . . Only the rising moon
eases my longing.
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Dear Vaughn Seward
The first haiku in this series was taken from the opening chapter of The Diary of Lady Kamoshiro no Kuniko
I quote here the last entry. I intend to continue this story in 2006.
THIRTIETH ENTRY XXX
First narcissus —
our subtle perfumes are conceal'd . . .
sandalwood fragrance.
After respecting the customs of the temple, we were directed to a quiet room where Lady Maki and I waited. From the window I could see the first narcissus. A long time passed before Prince Sakune returned accompanied by a rotund man the Abbott, and a tall man of aesthetic appearance, the poet-monk Ario Arioshi. I was immediately struck by the deference Ario gave the older men, and by the fact that the poet bowed briefly, but then seemed unaware of our presence. Indeed, this made me uneasy as did the tension between the Abbott and the Prince who spoke briefly. "Ladies, we have a difficult matter to resolve. The Abbott and I must speak in private." Almost immediately they left the room leaving the three of us in silence. The new sandalwood trays now seemed to be the most immediate presence in the room.
From the Diary of Lady Kamoshiro no Kuniko Thirty-third day of Winter AD 741
If you look at the first entry in the S&H:
The moon in hiding —
dreaming out of loneliness,
I hear the wild sea.
...you could not have deduced that these were Lady Kuniko's words. This is the nature of haiku — to have a meaning far beyond that of the spoken or written words.
I suggested to Zhanna that we attempt a sequence of perhaps ten poems. Here we are, nearly two years later, with over 200 poems written for the series. As you know, Zhanna and I have different styles, but often one of our poems is directly linked to the previous one. This is our ideal, but we don't always achieve it. Zhanna is a very original haiku poet. I am a philosopher and I hold the view, rightly or wrongly, that all haiku are ultimately philosophical. Both of us in the series have tried to innovate. I credit Zhanna with the discovery of internal ellipsis, the enclosure of the dots to the left. I have tried to emulate the XV Century Japanese poets by using classical allusions. I am always trying, often unsuccessfully, to lift my haiku to a high intellectual plane. I am not in the least impressed with Ezra Pound, Blyth, Henderson, Higginsen. Kennuth Yasuda or David Coomier that haiku should be simple statements of sense impressions. If that was the case we would have to get rid of Shinkei, Sogi, Basho and Chiyo-ni as well as many modern Japanese haiku poets.
So Vaughn, if you wish to join the sequence, write your style of haiku which must relate to the sea and add it to the list. Ideally, the poem should have a kigo, but many of our entries do not. It is quite remarkable how one person's haiku often inspires another person to write. I look forward to following you. You are quite free to write without punctuation. As you know, I always punctuate. That is another one of the fine things about haiku — you cannot be compelled to write to suit the views of some authority, in this case, those who control published haiku.
Sincerely
Hugh Bygott |
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CCXLIII
Zhanna P. Rader
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Moonlit waves
crash on the shore,
spray cooling my face.
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I am unsure of the numbering of this series. I'd like to join in but I'm not sure sure how things are numbered; who follows who, and so on.
~Vaughn
Vaughn, there is no any special order. You can post your haiku as often as you want to, except let at least one more person post a haiku after yours. We leave just four haiku on the page each time. Thus, when you post your haiku, please erase the top one. The next number is CCXLIV, and Robert's haiku would need to be erased together with the series number (that changes every ten haiku). Hugh and I each save the whole sequence in our files. We would like for the best ones to be published some place, maybe 25 or less at a time, but we, being both very busy, have not got to that yet. I also dream to translate them into Russian and, perhaps, publish some of them in the Russian section WHR, with permission of the participants, of course. It's O.K. if not all of them are equally strong. The main thing to go on writing. We can always choose the best ones later.
Zhanna |
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CCXLIV
Vaughn Seward
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High tide —
feeling the moon's pull
in the waves.
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CCXLV
Hugh Bygott
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Ebb tide —
the higher seaweed decays . . .
everywhere life from life.
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CCXLVI
Zhanna P.Rader
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Seaweed cafe
overlooking the marina —
we're lost in the menu.
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CCXLVII
Vaughn Seward
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A driftwood tangle
on the beach...clam chowder
on the table.
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CCXLVIII
Hugh Bygott
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Winter nightfall —
the driftwood fades, shapeless . . .
out of its time.
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CCXLIX
Zhanna P. Rader
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Bottom trawling net —
its steel balls roll along the floor,
the habitat crashed.
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CCL
Vaughn Seward
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Nets from the night
are brought in...vultures
circle overhead.
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