Haiku by Roberta Beary for Int’l Haiku Spring Festival 2010 (1)

 

Int’l Haiku Spring Festival 2010 has just started on May 12 on the website of the Akita International Haiku Network in Akita, Northern Honshu, Japan.

At the same time 2010 Bath Japanese Festival , our sister festival, has begun and gives Festival Launch Party in Bath, UK, this evening.

Masuda Aika（桝田愛佳）, a haiga painter, and her mother Masuda Junko (桝田純子), a haiku poet, take part in the party as their special guests from Akita (秋田), Japan.

They exhibit haiga (俳画) and haiku (俳句), showing how to paint haiga for the participants in Bath on May 13.

They also enjoy staying with Alan Summer’s family in Bradford on Avon, Wiltshire for four days, from May 11 till 14.

Here in Akita, we would like to share the delights and high spirits of our festival with each other, reading aloud haiku by Roberta Beary,  first of all. 

Roberta Beary, a haiku poet, in Washington, USA, contributed her haiku book, ‘nothing left to say’  to us in celebration of the first anniversary of the opening of the Akita International Haiku Network.

 

 

Roberta is a haiku friend of Alan’s and mine.

She says in her e-mail as follows:

Hi Hidenori
Thank you for including haiku from my book, ‘nothing left to say’ at the Int’l Haiku Spring Festival in partnership with the 2010 Bath Japanese Festival. I got to meet Alan Summers last September when I traveled to London. He is an amazing person!!

Here is the short introduction: Roberta Beary (www.robertabeary.com) was born and raised in New York City. In 1990 she moved to Japan for five years of haiku study. Her individual poems, an unconventional hybrid of haiku and senryu, have been honored throughout North America, Europe and Asia for their innovative style. Her book of haiku and senryu, The Unworn Necklace (Snapshot Press, 2007), selected as a William Carlos Williams Book Award finalist (Poetry Society of America), was named a Haiku Society of America Merit Book Award prize winner. She also co-edited two Haiku Society of America anthologies both of which were named Merit Book Award winners. Her most recent work, a chapbook titled ‘nothing left to say'(edited by Michael Dylan Welch) is the 20th title in the Hexagram Series of master haiku poets.

 

Here is a photo of me taken in December 2005 at the Kumamoto Hotel in Japan. I was in Kumamoto to receive the Grand Prize in the Kusumakura International Haiku Contest. The prize included a trip to Japan! My winning haiku: thunder/the roses shift/into shadow

 

 

Here is the photo of me which appears on my book of haiku, The Unworn Necklace, winner of the Poetry Society of America Finalist Award. A hardcover edition will be published this year by Snapshot Press, UK.

 

 

Here is a picture of my husband, the writer Frank Stella, and me taken at The White House Christmas Tour 2009. President Obama was out of town that day!

 

Now I present the former 17 haiku from her book.

I tell you about her haiku in Japanese, which helps our Japanese readers appreciate them. My interpretation isn’t given as a form of Japanese haiku. 

nothing left to say

an empty nest

fills with snow

 

言うことは何も残されていない

一つの空の巣

雪で一杯である

 

 

break up― 

my daughter’s voice cracks

across two continents

 

崩壊―

娘の声がかすれる

二つの大陸を横切って

blackout―

my son speaks a secret

i always knew

 

暗転―

息子が秘密を明かす

ずっと知っていた

 

 

blue moon

dad’s phone message

unslurred

 

青みがかった月

パパのフォーンメッセージ

明瞭な発音だった

 

 

third blizzard―

the untuned piano’s

middle c

 

三回目のブリザード―

未調律のピアノの

中間のｃ

 

snowed in

the dog clicks

from room to room

 

雪が中に舞い込んだ

犬が意気投合する

部屋から部屋へ

 

just after midnight

he corrects

her auld lang syne

 

ちょうど真夜中過ぎ

彼が正す

彼女のオールドラングサインを

talking divorce

he pours his coffee

then mine

 

離婚について話し合う

彼がコーヒーを注ぐ

それから私に

 

last train

a can rolls the length

of the quiet car

 

終列車

缶が一つ端から端まで転がる

静かな車両の

 

so much silence

on a path

lit by fireflies

 

底知れない静寂

小径の上

蛍が明かりを灯す

 

rivermoon

we run

out of words

 

川に月が

私たちは走り出す

言葉より先に

 

quiet rain

…the deeper quiet

of uncut roses

 

静かな雨

．．．もっと深い静けさが

伸び盛りのバラたちに

 

piano practice

in the room above me

my father shouting

 

ピアノの稽古

上の部屋で

父が大声で言っている

 

talk of war

 the spin cycle’s

steady hum

 

戦争の話

飛行機のきりもみ降下の円形の

変わらないブーンという音

 

culling figs

 mother and son

speaking again

 

いちじくを摘みながら

母と息子が

また話している

 

snowbound

 reading out loud

to an empty room

 

雪で閉じこめられた

声を大きく朗読をする

空っぽの部屋に

 

not hearing it

 till the cat stirs

birdsong

 

まだ耳にしていない

猫がかき立てるまで

鳥の歌を

 

The latter 18 haiku of ‘nothing to say’ by Roberta Beary appear in the future posting on the website, when we hold our festival again.

Last of all, let me decorate our on line festival with the photo flowers presented by Patricia Lidia, a haiku poet, in Romania.

 

 

― Hidenori Hiruta