Haiku by Richard Stevenson in Canada

2010/06/26

 

On June 1, 2010, we received an e-mail from Richard Stevenson in Canada,  whose subject is Haikai Submission to Akita International Haiku Network site.

He says in his e-mail:

Greetings from Southern Alberta!

Thought I’d send along a few things.  ( A bio note is included at the end):

 Bio Note

Richard Stevenson lives in southern Alberta, Canada, and teaches English and Creative Writing at Lethbridge College.  The most recent of his 24 published books are Wiser Pills (Frontenac House, 2008), Tidings of Magpies (Spotted Cow Press, 2008), and The Emerald Hour (Ekstasis Editions, 2008) and a first collection of tanka and kyoka, Windfall Apples (Athabasca University Press, 2010).

 I have been interested in The Emerald Hour among his published books.

 

  Part of Its introduction is as follows:

In The Emerald Hour, poet Richard Stevenson returns to the Japanese forms of haiku and tanka, seemingly the simplest yet most precise of poetic forms. This is his third book of Japanese forms published by Ekstasis Editions. In the first of the series, Hot Flashes, explored Stevenson’s experience of living and teaching in Africa, using haiku to capture the essence of that colourful world. In A Charm of Finches the poet returned home to Alberta, a land more familiar but no less exotic when viewed through the lens of haiku. Now in The Emerald Hour Richard Stevenson focuses clearly on nature, the traditional subject of Japanese forms. From settings such as idyllic Henderson Lake, shown in evocative photographs by Ellen McArthur, to interior British Columbia and hometown of Lethbridge, Stevenson, offers monuments to moments, even Basho would enjoy.

 

young robin chortles —
the kitten’s gray flanks ripple
in waves in response

幼いコマドリがクスクス笑う ―

子ネコの灰色のわき腹がぴくぴく動く

応えて波立てて

 

 

dog days of summer —

do I water the plants

or write a haiku?

夏の土用　―

植物に水をかけようか

または、俳句を詠もうか？

 

 

harvest moon —

my wife’s keister competes

between the sheets

中秋の名月　―

私の妻のお尻が張り合っている

二つのシートの間で

 

 

Got a metal Christ

on a sculpted cross

in the new restaurant.

Gotta fire pole

centre stage!

金属製のキリストを得た

彫刻された十字架に

新しいレストランで。

火柱を持っていた

中央の舞台！

 roadie puts a

tambourine on the

skeletal sculpture

of Christ on a cross

in a fire hall restaurant!

ローディーが置く

タンバリンを

骸骨の彫像の上に

十字架のキリストの彫像

消防署のレストランで！

 

 

most blossoms bolted —

the day lilies’ megaphones

announce themselves

たいていの花が早咲きの花を咲かせた　―

キスゲのメガホンが

表明している

 

 

apples red-cheeked —

a cabbage white rummages

among the leaves

赤色のほおをしたリンゴ　―

白いキャベツがくまなく捜している

葉の間を

 

 

firepole centre stage —

what was once a fire hall

is now a restaurant!

火柱の中央の舞台 ―

かって消防署であったところ

今はレストラン

On June 22, I received another e-mail from Richard Stevenson as follows:

Dear Hidenori,

It would be an honour to appear on your web site in Japanese translation.  Thank you so much!  Of course I’m happy with your suggestions.  Indeed, if you’re interested, I might even be able to get my photographer friend, who did the beautiful black and white photos for The Emerald Hour, to send along some photos of our lovely Nikka Yuko Japanese Gardens — a gift of the Japanese to the citizens of my fair city of Lethbridge ( See http://www.nikkayuko.com/ ).

You might want to go online and have a look at the place.  It’s one of the most beautiful sites in the city, a place I like to go often in the summer months when I’m not teaching.  I’ll be launching my new book, a collection of Tanka and Kyoka, Autumn Windfalls (Athabasca University Press, 2010) there in a few weeks. 🙂

Thanks for all your support. 🙂

Richard

Here I would like to refer to the Nika Yuko Japanese Garden a little and present some photos of the garden to you.

The Nikka Yuko Japanese Garden offers you an unforgettable experience, combining the beauty of nature in a serene setting. From the first spring blossom to the final autumn leaf, the Garden is an oasis of tranquility. Step through the entrance gate, leave the bustle of everyday city life behind, and refresh your senses. A host or hostess in traditional Japanese clothing will greet you and highlight the Garden’s many features, or give you a guided tour.

Established during Canada’s Centennial in 1967, Nikka Yuko was built to recognize contributions made by citizens of Japanese ancestry to the multi-cultural community of Lethbridge, Alberta, and as a symbol of international friendship. Its name was created from the Japanese words Ni (from Nihon meaning Japan), ka from Kanada or Canada, and Yuko, which translates as “friendship” to mean “Japan-Canada friendship”.

Last of all, I show you some Japanese translations of parts of the introduction of  The Emerald Hour.

  『エメラルドの時間』　の紹介の一部の和訳は次の通りです。　 

『The Emerald Hour（エメラルドの時間）』　の中で, 詩人リチャード・スティブンソンは俳句と短歌の日本の詩型に帰っている、見た目では、詩型の中で最も単純ではあるが、最も明確なものである。　これは、エクシスタス版で出版された日本の詩型の第３番目の本である。そのシリーズの最初では『Hot Flashes,（暑いきらめき』は、アフリカでスティブンソンが生活し、教えた体験をくまなく調べ、その色彩に富んだ世界の本質をとらえるために俳句を使用した。　『A Charm of Finches （フィンチの魅力）』では、詩人は故郷のアルバータに戻ってきたが、俳句のレンズを通して眺めるともっと親しみを持てて以前に劣らず魅惑的な所となっている。この度、『The Emerald Hour（エメラルドの時間）』　の中でリチャード・スティブンソンは明らかなことに日本の詩型の伝統的な主題である自然に焦点を当てている。エレン・マッカーサーによる自然の牧歌性を呼び起こさせられるような写真に示されているが、田園詩的なヘンダーソン湖のような背景から、ブリティッシュ・コロンビアの内地や故郷であるレスブリッジにいたるまで、芭蕉でさえ楽しむだろうと思われるように、素晴らしい様々な感動の瞬間に記念碑をささげている。

日加友好庭園（The Nikka Yuko Japanese Garden）について 

―　その一部の和訳　― 

日加友好庭園（The Nikka Yuko Japanese Garden）はあなたがたに忘れがたい経験を提供し、落ち着いた背景の中で自然の美を組み合わせています。 最初の春の花に始まり、最終の秋の紅葉にいたるまで、庭園は静寂のオアシスである。

入口の門から歩み始め、日常の都市生活の喧噪を後に残し、あなたの感覚をさわやかに一新させてください。伝統的な日本の着物姿の男性、あるいは女性の案内係があなた方にご挨拶し、庭園の多くの呼び物に脚光を当てながら説明し、また、ガイド付きのツアーも行っています。

１９６７年カナダの百周年祭の期間に日加友好が確立され、庭園は日本人を先祖とする市民たちによるアルバータのレスブリッジの多文化共同体社会への貢献を認識するために、そして国際友好の象徴として造園されました。 庭園の名前は（Japan を意味する日本から取った）日本語の‘日（Ni）’とKanada or Canada　から取った加 (ka)　を合わせて命名されました、そして Yukoは日本とカナダの友好という意味の”friendship”(友好)として翻訳されます。　 

I sincerely hope that you will visit the Nikka Yuko Japanese Garden, and that you will write haiku or tanka there.

I also hope that you will enjoy reading the works of poetry by Richard Stevenson. 

The next posting ‘Haiku by Vishnu P Kapoor in India’ appears on July 3.

―　Hidenori  Hiruta 

Posted in Haiku, Tanka | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments »

Haiku by Narayanan Raghunathan in India (1)

2010/06/19

 

On May 20, 2010, I received a comment on our website from Narayanan Raghunathan.

He says in his comment as follows:

Dear Hiruta-San:

I humbly request you to visit our site

http://www.wonderhaikuworlds.com/

Please translate Haiku which you like into Japanese.
Please post your Haiku and translation on our site: It will surely get translated into other languages.

Narayanan Raghunathan.

 His portrait is taken  by Charles (Satheesh Thittamangalam).

 

First of all, I would like to introduce him to you.

Narayanan Raghunathan (b. 28th June 1953) son of late Sri Raghunatha Iyer and Smt. Rajalakshmi Raghunathan.

Fields Of Interest 

Om, Philosophy (Upanishads, Vedanta, Sri Aurobindo, Philosophy of Science etc), Universal Mysticism , Poetry (Free Verse, Haiku, Tanka, Senryu etc), Religion (Mantram, Mownam Nyaasam, Sandhyaa Bhaasha Sanskrit Tawhid ), Music (Karnaatik, Dhrupad, Musicology), Dance, Mathematics (Number Theory, Infinite Transcendental Numbers, Set Theory and Foundations of Mathematics, Infinite Continued Fractions, Algebra etc) ~ Photography, Graphics ~  

Two books of philosophical aphorisms published few years ago.

1] Kalki The Last Coming

 
2] Scrap Bits From The Note-Books Of A Lunatic.
 
 

 

A book on the Mathematical Infinity ~


3] The Solitary Infinity ~ Obituary to Transfinity

Two books of Haiku Poems ~ 


4] Infinite Flame Silences

 

5] Apocalyptic Rapture  [ With Amanda ]

Founder and director of

Wonder Haiku Worlds.

I was active on various websites related to poetry & Haiku. I wrote as RUDRA & brahman~narayanan in Photo Haiku Gallery & as RUDRA in midnight edition!

Secondly, I would like to present his haiku to you with my Japanese translations.
 

Mon, Jun 14th 2010 :: English  
a cherry blossom 　　　　　　　　　　桜の花 

 falls on the still pond ～　　　　　静かな池の上に散る　～
 
a frog watches 　　　　　　　　　　　  カエルが見守る

Save Earth Campaign ~ 　　　   　　地球を救う運動 ～
 

 

 

Mon, Jun 14th 2010 :: English  
summer monsoon ~ 　　　　　　　　　夏の季節風 

 musical waters fall in                        音楽的な水が落ちる
 
subdued light  　　　　　　　　　　　       　弱い光の中に　　　　　　　　　　
 
 

 
   

 

Jun 9th 2010:: English  

fireflies flutter away 　　　　　　 　 int蛍がひらひら飛び去る

to the vast sky, become 　　　           広漠とした空に　

 
 
 

twinkling stars   　　　　　　　　　  　 キラキラ光る星になる

 

 
 
 
 

 

 

 

English translation by Narayanan Raghunathan. Posted on Sat, Jun 5th 2010, 10:54
     
the crow watches 　　　　　　　烏がじっと見る 
own crow’s face on  自分の顔を 
the water’s face 水面に映った		    
     
May 22nd 2010 :: English  
jumping over 　　　　　　　　　　 　 跳び越える　　
the twilight sky ~ 　　　　　　　　  薄明かりの空を　～　
a ruby puddle  　　　　　　　　　　      真紅の水たまり　　　　　　
           

 

May 16th　2010 :: Ｅｎｇｌｉｓｈ  
lone star twinkles 　　　　　　　　　ひとつ星がキラキラ光る 

 on an ancient sky ～　　　　　　　　太古の空に　～ 
  
 

a fragrant breeze 　　　　　　　         良い香りのそよ風　
 
 

 
   
 
     

 

Jun, 16th 2010 :: English  
i cough ~ 　　　　　　　　　　　　　    　私はせきをする　～ 
a thunder for ants at 　　　　　 　ありたちにとっては雷　 
the coffee pond 　　　　　　　　  　    コーヒーのたまりで

 

May 11th 2010 :: English  
a dandelion 　　　　　　　　　　　    　タンポポが
 evades evades evades 　　　　　 　逃れる　逃れる　逃れる　 
the child’s hand　　　　　　　　　　 子供の手を

 

May 11th 2010 :: English  
a dove perches                              　鳩がとまる 

 on a winter minaret ～　　　　　冬の光塔に ～
　
evening namaz   　　　　　　　 　     夕方のｎａｍａｚ
 
 

 

 

 
May 11th 2010 :: English      
an ant walks 　　　　　　　　　　　  アリが歩く 
through the hieroglyphs 　　　 象形文字を通って 
of my ant haiku 　　　　　　　 　   私のアリの俳句の  		    

 

Tue, May 11th 2010 :: English  
coffee lake ~ 　　　　　　　　　   　   湖でコーヒー ～　
ants’ suicide squad 　　　　　 　 アリの自殺分隊が 
arrives to conquer　　　　　　  　征服するために着く

 

May 11th 2010 :: English  
table-top cosmos ~ 　　　　　　    テーブルの上のコスモス　～　
a fly flutters among 　　　 　     ハエがパタパタ飛ぶ　　
scurrying ants   　　　　　　　　       動き回るアリの間を

 

May 8th 2010 :: English  
dove orchid ~  　　　　　　　　       はと色のラン　～ 

 a blue butterfly in                     青い蝶々
　
fragrant sunlight  　　　　　　      香りの良い日光の中の
 
 

 

 

May 8th 2010 :: English  
vanda blooms ~  　　　　　　　 　 ヴァンダの花が咲く　～ 

 ants investigate yellow           アリたちが調べる　黄色い
 
orchid architecture 　　　　　 　ランの建築物を
 
 

 

 

Apr 13th 2010 :: English  
spring rain ~　　　　　　　　　　 　春の雨　～
 a squirrel descends 　　　　　      リスが駆け下りる　
the bamboo pole   　　　　　　 　    竹の棒を

 

Last of all, I would like to show you his photos to you.

I sincerely hope that you will enjoy haiku and photos by Narayanan Raghunathan.

The next posting ‘Haiku by Richard Stevenson’ appears on June 26.

 

― Hidenori  Hiruta

Posted in Haiku | Tagged , , , , | 2 Comments »

Haiku and the Japanese Garden by Michael Dylan Welch

2010/06/12

 

On May 18,2010, I received a comment on haiku by Roberta Beary for Int’l Haiku Spring Festival from Michael Dylan Welch as follows.

 

Nice to see these translations of Roberta’s poems from the book!

Michael

 

 

Since then we have been exchanging e-mails.

  

First of all, I would like to introduce Michael to you.

 

Michael Dylan Welch is passionate about poetry, especially haiku, which he has been writing since 1976 and teaching since about 1990. He has won first place in numerous poetry contests, and has had his haiku, senryu, tanka, and longer poetry published in more than a dozen languages in hundreds of journals and anthologies, including two Norton anthologies. He edited the quarterly haiku journal

Now I post his essay ‘Haiku and the Japanese Garden’ with my translations.

When I told him to take it up in our website, he sent me an e-mail on June 9, saying as follows.

Thank you — I would love to have you present that essay and your translations. You might also be interested to know that I recorded that essay on audio, with koto and shakuhachi music by Elizabeth and John Falconer, for the Seattle Japanese Garden audio tour. The track is available for online listening or download. If you go to http://www.seattle.gov/parks/parkspaces/japanesegarden.htm and scroll down to Audio Tour, there are links there to iTunes and RSS. Click either one to get a list of all the audio tracks. My recording of “Haiku and the Japanese Garden” is the second-last track (track 11). If your site also linked to this, that would be great. You can also click the “Audio Tour Liner Notes” link to get a description of all the tracks and the credits for the recordings. Thank you again!

And do let me know if I can answer any questions you might have as you do your translations.

Michael

Haiku and the Japanese Garden First published on the Haiku Garden Poetry Readings site in 2004, and also recorded for the Seattle Japanese Garden audio tour in 2009.There’s something poetic about a garden. Sometimes any garden will do, but a Japanese garden seems especially poetic. As you walk around such a garden in the flow of the year’s season’s, you may notice a fallen camellia blossom, a blade of grass set to swaying by a passing dragonfly, a drying oak leaf clinging to a mushroom, or frost sparkling on a bright red berry. These details inspire poetry the world over. In Japan, they often inspire a special genre of poetry known as haiku.  

               mountain morning— 

              all over the red berry bush 

              snow in tiny heaps 

Haiku seeks to capture these details, these brief moments of keen perception and intuition, recording them so that the poet and reader—or listener—might share and celebrate their universal authenticity.

              clicking off the late movie . . . 

              the couch cushion 

              reinflates 

 

Haiku is a poetry of nature, but it is also a poetry of human nature. Haiku gives readers feelings, and shows human existence amid nature. Not all haiku are about beauty, but they are always about what is real. We have an emotional reaction to the poem’s image, sense perception, and seasonal reference. On reading a good haiku, we are mentally and emotionally moved to experience what the poet experienced, yet we do so without being told what to feel. We simply see it, touch it, taste it, hear it, and smell it through the words—and thus feel it. We leap into intuitively feeling and understanding what the poet deliberately left out of the poem so we could figure it out for ourselves. This is the magic of haiku, and the Japanese garden is an ideal place to make the most of this magic.

             winter wind— 

             kite string tangled 

             in the garden trellis

At a Japanese garden, you can walk around and notice the ponds, the bushes, the flowers, the fish, the birds. Or you can learn their names, notice their details, notice their seasonal changes. Bashō, the great Japanese haiku master, said to “learn of the pine tree from the pine tree, and of the bamboo from the bamboo.” He meant to ground yourself in the authentic, to be in the present, and to see the thing itself deeply and freshly, rather than your interpretation of the thing, and not to be distracted by what is going on other than where you are and what you are doing at the present moment. By writing haiku about what you sense in the garden, you can make the garden a more vibrant place, and by learning haiku that others have written and sharing them with others in the garden, you can also enrich the experience.

             tulip festival— 

             the colours of all the cars 

             in the parking lot

So what is haiku? It is a brief poem capturing a moment of deep perception of nature or human nature, using the techniques of pause or juxtaposition (kire in Japanese) and seasonal reference (kigo). The juxtaposition of two parts of the poem creates tension that the reader can resolve by figuring out their relationship. A seasonal reference grounds the poem not only in very real and present time but in the grand sweep of each season’s metaphorical associations, as well as to other poems that use the same seasonal foundation. You can compose haiku well by writing about things themselves rather than your reactions to those things.

              an old woolen sweater 

             taken yarn by yarn

             from the snowbank

 

Haiku is often misunderstood as a “form” of poetry, being merely anything that can be written in a pattern of 5-7-5 syllables in three lines. That pattern applies to traditional haiku in Japanese (although they count sounds, not strictly syllables), and is not used by the great majority of dedicated haiku poets writing in English. Also, the genre is too often tarnished by “joke” haiku that claim the name of haiku but nearly none of its highly developed aesthetics. Though haiku in English has been mistaught in schools as a “5-7-5-syllable” poem, such a focus on form, and an incorrect form for English at that, minimizes the much more significant characteristics of the two-part juxtapositional structure and the seasonal reference.

              morning chill—

             the bag of marbles

             shifts on the shelf

 

Haiku are typically rooted in objective description (avoiding metaphor, simile, and other rhetorical or subjective devices, including judgment and analysis), and always try to leave something out (often the feeling one experiences) so that it might be implied. It is thus much harder to write than its deliberately simple language would imply. As French philosopher Roland Barthes once observed, “haiku has this rather fantasmagorical property: that we always suppose we ourselves can write such things easily.”

              home for Christmas:

             my childhood desk drawer

             empty

In English, haiku objectively suggests a moment of here-and-now realization (an “aha” moment) about nature or human nature, or human nature in the context of nature, usually presented in three lines using no set syllable pattern. Haiku typically avoid using a title, rhyme, or other devices that call attention to the words themselves (or to the poet’s cleverness) rather than what the words signify. American haiku pioneer James W. Hackett gave good advice on this topic: “A haiku,” he said, “is like a finger pointing at the moon, and if the finger is bejeweled, one no longer sees the moon.” Indeed, haiku are not meant to be obscure or private, and should, as Jack Kerouac once wrote, be as simple as porridge.

              warm winter evening—

             the chairs askew

             after the poetry reading

 

Not only can a Japanese garden inspire poetry, but so can the rest of the world. Haiku is a means of sense awareness, of mindfulness, a poetic window to the suchness of the full range of existence. You can take haiku sensibilities cultivated in the Japanese garden and apply them to the rest of the everyday world, making the ordinary extraordinary as you write haiku and see the world with wider eyes.

 

 

和訳

俳句と日本庭園

最初２００４年「俳句庭園詩歌リーディング」サイトで発表され、２００９年には「シアトル日本庭園」オーディオ・ツアー用にも録音された。

庭園には何か詩的なものがある。どんな庭でも時々このような面があるが、日本の庭園は特に詩的なように見える。一年の季節の移ろいを見せるそのような庭園を散策する時、あなたは散り落ちた椿の花に、そばを飛び過ぎてゆくトンボによって草の葉が揺れていることに、乾きつつあるナラの木の葉がキノコにぴったりくっついているのに、あるいは、霜が明るい赤いベリーの上で輝いているのに気が付くかもしれない。細やかなこれらひとつひとつが霊感を与え世界中の詩歌を生み出している。日本では、霊感を受けてしばしば俳句として知られている独特な詩歌のジャンルを生み出している。

山の朝―

赤いベリーの藪じゅうに

ちっちゃな塊の雪が

俳句はこれらの細かいことひとつひとつをとらえて、鋭い認識と洞察によってつかの間の瞬間を表現しようする、そして詩人や読者―あるいは聞き手―が普遍的な真正なるものを分かち合い、そして賛美するために記録する。

最近の映画をクリックして消す．．．

長いすのクッション

またふくらむ

俳句は自然がテーマの詩であるが、人間性がテーマの詩でもある。俳句は読者に感情を与え、自然の中での人間的な存在を示す。全ての俳句が美しさについて詠まれているわけではなく、俳句は真正のものは何かについて詠まれている。

私たちは詩のイメージ、意味の認識、そして季節への言及に対して感情的な反応をしめす。すぐれた俳句を読む時、私たちは詩人が経験したことを経験してみたい気持ちに精神的にそして感情的にもなります。しかし、私たちはどんなことを感じるべきか言われなくてもそのようにしているのである。私たちは言葉を通じてただ単に見、触り、味わい、聞きそして匂いをかぐのである ― そしてこのように感じるのである。私たちが自分一人で理解できるように詩人が詩の言外に入念に残したことを直感的に跳び込むように感じ取り、理解するのである。これが俳句の魔術であり、日本の庭園はこの魔術を最大限に活用する理想の場である。

冬の風 ―

凧の糸がからまっている

庭の格子に

日本庭園であなたは散策し、池、灌木、花、魚、小鳥に気がつく。あるいは名前を覚え、細かいことに一つずつ気づき、季節の変化に気がつく。偉大な日本の俳聖である芭蕉は、松の木から松の木のことを学び、竹から竹のことを学ぶようにと言った。芭蕉は次のようなことを言わんとしていた。自分自身の基になるところを真正なるものに置くこと、現在の今にあること、そして物事を自分で解釈しないで物事自体を深く新鮮な目で見ること、そしてあなたが今いるところ以外で起こっていることで混乱させられないこと、そしてあなたが今現在の瞬間になしていること以外に起こっていることに混乱させられないことなどを言いたかったのである。庭園で感じることについての俳句を詠むことによって、あなたはその庭園をもっとわくわくする活気に満ちた場所にすることができる、そして他の人たちが詠んだ俳句を学習し、庭園で他の人たちと俳句を分かち合うことによって、あなたも経験を豊かにすることができる。

チューリップ祭り―

全ての車の色

駐車場の中の

それでは俳句はどんなものだろうか。自然あるいは人間性への深い認識の瞬間をとらえて表現する簡潔な詩である、そしてポーズあるいは並置（日本語では切れ）そして季節への言及（季語）の技法を使う詩である。詩の二つの部分の並置は読者がその関連性を理解することによって自分で決着させることのできる緊張を創り出す。季節への言及により詩はとても現実的で現在の時だけでなく各季節の持つ隠喩から得られる連想の見事な広がりに基礎を置いている。同じような季節の基盤を使う他の詩にも言えることである。物事への反応よりもむしろ物事それ自体について書くことによってあなたは上手に俳句を詠むことができます。

古い羊毛のセーター

納屋毎に取られた

雪堤から出てきた

俳句は３行の５－７－５の音節の型で書かれる単にそのような詩形であると誤解されることがよくある。その型は日本語で書かれる伝統的な俳句（厳密には音節でなく拍で音を数えるけれども）にもあてはまるが、俳句に打ち込んで英語で俳句を詠んでいる大多数の詩人には使われていません。また、俳句というジャンルは、俳句の名称をつけることを主張するがその俳句のどれもきちんとした形で高いレベルに美学を展開していない「ジョーク(冗談)」的なもので俳句本来の質が低下させられていることがあまりにも目につくことである。

英語で詠む俳句は学校で「５－７－５の音節」からなると間違って教えられているが、そのような形に焦点を与えることと英語での俳句として間違った形になっていることにより、二つの部分の並置からなる構造と季節への言及というもっとずっと重要な特徴が軽視されている。

朝冷え ―

大理石の袋

棚の上で位置を変えている

俳句は典型的な場合は事実に基づく記述（判断や分析を含め、隠喩、直喩、そして他の修辞法を用いること、あるいは主観的な表現は避ける）に根ざしたものであり、そして俳句は何かが暗に示されるように（しばしば人が経験する感情など）それを常にはずして置くようにします。このように十分な思慮により簡単な言語が暗に示すことになるが、それよりも実際に書くことの方がずっと難しいのである。

フランスの哲学者であるロナルド・バーズがかって観察したように、「俳句はこのようなかなり素晴らしい特質を持っていること：そして、私たちが自分でそのようなものを容易に書くことができると常に仮定している」と。

クリスマスのために家へ

私の子供時代の机の引き出し

空っぽ

英語では、俳句は自然あるいは人間性、もしくは、自然の状況の中での人間性についての今ここでの認識のある瞬間（「アハ」瞬間）を客観的に暗示する、そして設定された音節型を使わない三行でたいてい呈示される。

俳句は典型的な場合言葉が意味するもの以外にタイトル、韻、あるいは、言葉それ自体に（あるいは詩人の巧妙さに）注意を呼ぶような他の表現を避ける。

アメリカの俳句の開拓者であるジェームズ・Ｗ・ハケットはこの話題に関してアドバイスをした。「俳句は月をさす指のようなものだ。もし、その指に宝石の飾りがついていれば、人はもう月を見ないのです」とハケットは言いました。

本当に、俳句は不明瞭だったりあるいは私的なものであるような意図で書かれていません、そしてジャック・ケローアックがかって書いたように、俳句はポリッジのように簡単であるべきです。

温かな冬の晩　―

椅子が傾いていた

詩が読まれた後に

日本の庭園が霊感を与えて詩歌を生み出すことができるだけでなく、世界の他の庭園もそうすることができます。俳句は感覚による認識の手段であり、心に留める手段であり、全範囲に渡って存在の本質を見渡す詩的な窓のようなものである。あなたがたは日本の庭園の中にはぐくまれた俳句の感性を受けいれて、日常の世界の他の分野に応用することができる。俳句を詠み、世界をもっと幅広い視野で見ながらありふれたことをおどろくべきことにすることができる。

The Japanese Garden Celebrates 50 Years!
Sunday, June 6th 2010

This three-and-a-half acre formal garden, located within the Washington Park Arboretum, was designed and constructed under the supervision of world-renowned Japanese garden designer Juki Iida in 1960. Since then it has won the hearts of locals who appreciate its artfully-placed trees, shrubs, flowers, stones, lanterns, ponds, paths and bridges that create a harmonious balance of northwest and Japanese garden design.

  

HOURS – 2010 Season

Feb 16 – Mar 21 – Tues-Sun – 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.
Mar 23 – May 2 – Tues-Sun – 10 a.m. to 7 p.m.
May 3 – Aug 15 – Mon-Sun – 10 a.m. to 8 p.m.
Aug 16 – Sep 20 – Mon-Sun – 10 a.m. to 7 p.m.
Sep 21 – Oct 17 – Tues-Sun – 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.
Oct 19 – Oct 31 – Tues-Sun – 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.
Nov 2 – Nov 14 – Tues-Sun – 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.

* Garden closing times are subject to weather, available light, and impacts of daylight savings time.

* Admission rates and Garden activities vary according with our events schedule.

 

I sincerely hope that you will visit Seattle Japanese Garden, and that you will enjoy audio tour by Michael, and write haiku. 

The next posting ‘Haiku by Narayanan Raghunathan’  appears on June 19.

― Hidenori  Hiruta

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Haiku by Kala Ramesh in India

2010/06/05

 

On May 20, 2010, we received a comment on ‘Haiku by Aju Mukhopadhyay for Int’l Haiku Spring Festival 2010’ from Kala Ramesh in India.

She said in her comment as follows:

Hi Thorfinn Tait,

I would like to share my published work with you.
I do write haiku, tanka, haibun, senryu and renku.
I came to know about your site through Aju Mukhopadhyay.

warmly,
Kala Ramesh 

 

 She also sent me another e-mail.

Dear Hidenori Hiruta san,

Sending my work for your site.

Please take time over your translation, because I’ve sent tanka and Haibun too, which might need more time for proper translation, I feel, since they are longer.

I’m given you many poems, please choose whatever you like from each genre.

Thanking you,

warmly,

_kala

 

Kala Ramesh kindly contributed her work of poetry and her bio.

Bio

Kala Ramesh has long had a fascination for Indian classical music and is an exponent of both Carnatic and Hindustani Classical Music styles. She was fortunate to undergo vigorous training from leading musicians. She has worked extensively on Pandit Kumar Gandharva’s compositions and Nirguni bhajans along with the paramparic bandishes of the Gwalior Gharana, under the guidance of Vidushi Smt Shubhada Chirmulay, Pune.

Kala has made a concerted effort to understand the ‘spirit’ behind Kumarji’s gayaki – incorporating the vigour and the vitality, which is so inherent in his style of singing and she has performed in major cities in India.

Coming from an extremely artistic and culturally rich South Indian Tamil family, Kala believes, as her father is fond of saying, “the soil needs to be fertile for the plant to loom”. She also feels she owes this poetic streak in her to her mother. Kala is keen to see children in India take to haiku and its genres.

Kala is the deputy editor-in-chief of The World Haiku Review; is a member of the editorial team of Modern English Tanka Press’s new anthology, Take Five: The Best Contemporary Tanka 2008/2009/2010, is on the panel of the literary e-journal Muse India, for the areas of haiku and short verse [http://www.museindia.com/feature17.asp]; and was the in-house editor for Katha, New Delhi for the book Seeking the Beloved: The Poetry of Shah Abdul Latif (2005). Since April 2009, she has acted as Katha’s Poetry Editor and, in this capacity, edited an e-book of haiku, senryu, haibun, tanka, and haiga encompassing the work of 35 Indian haiku poets–the first such book to come from an Indian publishing house!

Currently, she is also the lead poet (sabaki) of a Kasen renku with six other international renkujin: experimenting, discovering, and incorporating the traditional renku with the Rasa Theory of India (which consists of nine rasas or emotions, namely erotic, comic, sorrow, anger, valour, fear, disgust, wonder and tranquillity, traditionally known as the nava rasas). Kala heads the World Haiku Club in India. As director, she organised the World Haiku Club Meeting at Pune in December 2006. The four-day 9th World Haiku Festival she organized at Bangalore in February 2008 was sponsored jointly by Sri Sri Ravi Shankar Ji and Sri Ratan Tata Trust

Soundings, a UK journal of politics and culture, (Issue # 38 Spring 2008) showcased Kala’s work on their page: Leading Writers of Haiku: at www.soundings.org.uk  Four haiku were selected for the Snapshot Press Haiku Calendar Contest (2009); Solo exhibition in Three Lights Gallery at http: www.threelightsgallery.com/kala.html .(Spring 2009); Featured Haiku Poet with 25 haiku showcased: Simply Haiku (November 2009)  http://simplyhaiku.com/SHv7n4/haiku/feature.html & an individual page in Simply Haiku (Autumn 2009) http://simplyhaiku.com/SHv7n3/haiku/kala.html  Winner, Tanka Splendor Award (2009); an exclusive interview on tanka online live from January to July 2010 http://www.tankaonline.com

Here I present some haiku by Kala Ramesh with my Japanese interpretations.

 

Haiku

 

 

morning star
the way I hold on
to dreams 

 

明けの明星

私が歩み続けている道

夢の実現へ

 

lotus viewing . . .
the flowering
within

 

蓮を注意深く見ている．．．

花が咲いている

内側に

 

receding wave . . .
crab holes breathe
the milky way 

 

退いていく波．．．

カニの穴が呼吸する

天の川

 

the pause
in a dragonfly’s glide—
noon shadows 

 

一休み

トンボの滑空―

真昼の陰

 

howling wind —
an autumn note within
the bamboo flute

 

風がヒューヒュー　―

中に秋の調べ

竹の笛

 

new year’s eve
all that I could have left
unsaid . . . 

 

大晦日

残してきたもの全て

言われないまま．．．

 

feeling as if
on a summer cloud …
hill temple 

 

夏の雲の上にいるような感じ．．．

山寺

 

 

the waterfall rock-tumbling speckled rhythms 

 

滝　　岩を転がり落ちる　　点々としたリズム

 

 

trying to know me
deep within me

autumn day 

 

私を知ろうとしている

私の心の中の奥深く

秋の日

 

 

wading through
leaves. . . with each step
the thoughts

 

歩いている

葉の中を通って．．．一歩毎に

よぎる思い

 

 

desert sands …
I enter the whole
of nothingness

 

砂漠の砂．．．

私は入る全体に

無の中の

 

Credits: [first publication]:

morning star – Modern Haiku (Summer 2010)

lotus viewing – Magnapoets (November 2009)

receding wave – Honorable Mention, 9th Mainichi Haiku Contest International Section (2009);

the pause – Among the Lilies: A White Lotus Anthology (Spring 2008)

howling wind – Commended, British Haiku Society, James W. Hackett International Haiku Award (2007)

new year’s eve – moonset (Spring/Summer 2008) – Featured haijin of the issue

 

 

  

a wave curl swathed in moonlight the chiselled girl’s face

 

巻き付けられた縮れた巻き毛　　月光の中　輪郭のはっきりした少女の顔
   
forest tent …
a firefly switches on
my smile 

森のテント．．．

蛍が揺れる

私の微笑みに

  
   
  my fear …
the darkness
between stars 

私の恐れ．．．

暗やみ

星と星の間の

 
   
modern art in squares in and out of endless squares 

終わりのない四角の中の四角、

そして四角の外の四角の

現代芸術

 

  
   
_kala says “searching” is the one word that seems to say everything about her. She went through the path of Indian Classical Music, first instrumental then vocal, from South Indian Classical crossed over to North Indian Classical music, performed in various cities in India. Then plunged into Yoga, Hindu Philosophy and Vipassana—and this accidentally led her to haiku in 2005, and since then it has been haiku, senryu, tanka, haibun and renku that she breathes.

 

The next posting ‘Haiku by Michael Dylan Welch’ appears on June 12.

―　Hidenori Hiruta

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