Focus
on
Albania
through
the night forest –
moon hanging
on a tree-top
rain-lashed field
rapid streamlets make the soil
subside
river flow
a hungry dog caught
the moon in the waves
dense undergrowth
a streamlet has lost
its way
towards the mosque
or into the blooming garden?
a crossroad
--
Kujtim Agalliu (transl. by Anatoly Kudryavitsky)
autumn
leaves
in the wind
their last dance
--
Kujtim Agalliu (transl. by the author)
cold
moon in the pond
a raven rests in a
riverbank willow
--
Dritëro Agolli (transl. by Anatoly Kudryavitsky)
a
gadfly
on the horse’s tail
a slap on the face
--
Nexhip Bashllari (transl. by Majlinda Bashllari)
early
in the morning
a bird and the sun
on the same branch, playing
--
Konstandin Dhamo (transl. by Anatoly Kudryavitsky)
pond
fallen leaves extinguish
the fire in the water
--
Nexhip Ejupi (transl. by Anatoly Kudryavitsky)
a
procession of ants
in the morning –
the way of the grain
--
Muharrem Gazioni (transl. by Anatoly Kudryavitsky)
ant on the leaf –
dreaming
of flight
three sunny days with you
how strong
the light of your eyes!
first day of the year –
dog-chew bones
go to the rubbish bin
dress lifted
the wind reveals
a girl’s birthmark
two candles
burning their shadows
burning silence
fog –
the shining of
orange pips
--
Millianov Kallupi (transl. by Anatoly Kudryavitsky)
watching
Mount Fuji,
cool and icy –
its heart burns inside
--
Betim Muço (transl. by Shyqri Nimani)
O
volcano Aso,
lend me your mouth, so I
say two words to the world!
counting camellia petals
in the wind –
forgetting my age
--
Betim Muço (transl. by Anatoly Kudryavitsky)
she
spreads her wings
in a fierce claw attack,
this eagle of the cliffs
in Hiroshima,
Misasa river reflects
Sadako-san’s cranes!
--
Shyqri Nimani (transl. by the author)
kingdom
of night
full moon outlines
a couple’s silhouettes
--
Shyqri Nimani (transl. by Anatoly Kudryavitsky)
a
sheet on the roof
this rainy night –
somebody sings in Chinese
--
Ymer Nurka (transl. by Anatoly Kudryavitsky)
apples
falling from the branch –
the wind editing
autumn trees
--
Anton Papleka (transl. by Anatoly Kudryavitsky)
what
a beautiful bird!
hunter, blind
and speechless
--
Ali Podrimja (transl. by the author)
a
parrot –
speaks in Albanian
and opens the cage door
an elderly couple
throw an old bed to the skip
both silent
--
Petraq Risto (transl. by Anatoly Kudryavitsky)
a
lonely glow-worm
softening
the darkness
--
Leidi Shquipanja (transl. by Anatoly Kudryavitsky)
even
the lake flowers
blossoming…
memories of spring
--
Xhevahir Spahiu (transl. by Anatoly Kudryavitsky)
autumn
leaf
letter remains unopened
since the first chilly day
--
Iliriana Sulkuqi (transl. by Anatoly Kudryavitsky)
the
dead of night –
in the owl’s eyes
the coming of a dream
in your window,
dying,
the hunger of a bird
lime blossoms –
this May’s
fragrant dreams
--
Elisabeta Tafa (transl. by Anatoly Kudryavitsky)
this
tree…
its eye has
grain-shaped tears
--
Moikom Zeqo (transl. by Anatoly Kudryavitsky)

"Orange Japanese Flowers" by Alush Shima
(Albania)


The
History of Haiku
in Albania
by
Shykri Nimani
Haiku
first came to Albanian readers as
translations from Japanese. In late 1960s I, then a student at the Academy
of Arts,
was sitting in the American Cultural and
Information
Centre and reading Life
magazine, where I found some
classical Japanese haiku translated into English by H. G. Henderson.
Much impressed,
I started translating haiku into Albanian, and some of my translations
were
subsequently published in the Albanian
magazine called Zëri i Rinisë (The
Voice of Youth). In
1970, I published an illustrated book titled Japanese
Haiku (it was a 49x9 cm bibliophile edition). I then spent
two years in Japan
studying the works of Basho, Buson and Kobayashi Issa, as well as paintings by Utamaro, Hokusai and Hiroshige. Upon return, I translated and published
an illustrated bilingual book titled Japanese
Haiku Poetry (Rilindja,
Prishtina, 1984), in Japanese and Albanian. I based the selection of
Japanese
haiku on Daniel Buchanan’s One hundred
Famous Haiku.
My translations seemed to
inspire Albanian authors, who, in their
turn, started writing haiku in Albanian. Between 1997 and 2007 four
Albanian poets
published full-size collections of their haiku, namely Betim Muço
(1997),
Moikom Zeqo (1999), Milianov Kallupi (2000) and Nasho Jorgaqi (2005). A
few
bilingual books appeared, as well; in Albanian and in another language,
such as
English, Greek, Macedonian, Croatian, Italian.
At present, there are more
than thirty Albanian authors who specialise
in this genre. Most active among them are such poets as Dritëro Agolli,
Ali
Podrimja, Xhevahir Spahiu, Nasho Jorgaqi, Betim Muço, Flutura Açka,
Iliriana
Sulkuqi, Kujtim Agalliu, Mihal Disho, Milianov Kallupi,
Nexhip Ejupi, Moikom Zeqo, Qazim Shemaj, Konstantin Dhamo,
Brikena Cera,
Ahmet Mehmeti and Elizabeta Tafa. There were three haiku anthologies
that
appeared in our country: Agshol
(2002); Haiku (2004), and Albanian Poetesses (2006). We must also
mention a few publications of foreign haiku poets translated into
Albanian.
An anthology of Japanese haiku
translated into Albanian by the poet
Anton Papleka has recently been brought out by Serembe
Publishing in
Skopje
(Macedonia).
It is spanning the period between 15th and 20th
centuries. Haiku
by Matsuo Basho translated into Albanian by the poet Qazim Shemaj have been published in
book-form
on the occasion of the Japanese Culture Week. In the course of it the
League of
Albanian Writers and Artists organised the event modestly called the
Great
Evening of Haiku Poetry, where this book was launched.
In 2001, the Albanian Haiku
Club was established in Elbasan, the
city in central Albania.
Since 2005 the club periodically publishes the magazine called Haiku, edited by the poet Milianov
Kallupi.
Translated by the author
and Anatoly Kudryavitsky
Prof. Shyqri Nimani is a
haiku poet, an academic and a graphic designer.

"Yellow Tulips" by Alush Shima (Albania)

Ezra Pound and
Haiku
by
Mark Lonergan
The
modern haiku in English has evolved in interesting ways. Imagism, the
poetic movement that set in towards the beginning of the twentieth
century in London, owed much to Ezra Pound (1885-1972) who stressed the
importance of brevity, directness and music in poetry. Pound felt that
an image should eschew allegory and even metaphor, and be capable of
being grasped instantly. The haiku form that allows for the
juxtaposition of two disparate images was ideally suited for the goal
and aspirations of the Imagist poets. Writing about his short piece
called “In a Station of the Metro” Pound admitted that he had written
many poems, some of them coming to 30 or more lines, to capture the
poignancy and variety of metro commuters, but was dissatisfied with
them and subsequently destroyed them all because they lacked the
necessary "intensity" of expression – until he wrote the following two
lines:
The apparition of these faces
in the crowd;
Petals on a wet, black bough.
This haiku, or rather a quasi haiku, resembles the poem written in the
16th century by a Shinto priest called Moritake that Pound himself
translated into English:
A falling blossom
Returns to Branch:
A butterfly
It can also be compared with one of Basho’s best known pieces:
on a withered branch
a crow has settled –
autumn nightfall
This was Pound’s idea of capturing the complexity of thought and
feeling immediately, without much ado. The poem strives to go beyond
imagism by intensifying the poetic expression. In doing so it enters
the sphere of vorticism that, Pound felt, rectified some of the defects
of imagism. Successful as a short poem, it fails as a haiku because
only the first line deals with an immediate experience while the second
line involves the memory of an image that the poet uses overtly as a
metaphor. A haiku is a haiku because all the images it conveys occur
simultaneously in a person's present perceptions of the world. To
become a haiku, Pound's poem would have to indicate that he saw the
faces at the same time as he saw the actual petals, in the flesh, not
in memory. Changing the poem around was suggested by Higginson by
utilising the lesser image to suggest the larger image.
Petals
on a wet, black bough;
The apparition of these faces
in the crowd.
The following haiku-like poem by Ezra Pound in Ts’ai Chi’h, perhaps,
brings us closer to the spirit of a true haiku but is lacking the
brevity:
The petals fall in the
fountain,
The orange-colored rose leaves,
Their ochre clings to the
stone.
The minute observation of nature and the subtle play of colour suit the
temper and sensibility of haiku masters.
Ezra Pound’s translations from Moritake Araki's haiku into English
greatly influenced American imagist poets. His famous ‘metro station’
piece became a predecessor of modern-days urban haiku, where topics
such as subways, commuters and shopping centres are ever popular. As
modern society becomes predominantly urban based, it is important to
have a broader approach to haiku and to tap into these rich sources of
inspiration. In this regard Ezra Pound and the Modernist movement were
significant in shaping modern notions on haiku. After all, what many
have thought to be uniquely Japanese appears to have roots in western
literary thought, too.

"Aquarium of Mother Theresa" by Shyqri Nimani
(Albania)
winter dawn
a buzzard quarters
the violet mist
again through the afterglow the ticks of a wren
high over the morning mist a lone goose returns
same space as yesterday drone fly
some of the snow falling
some of it rising
new year’s day
-- John
Barlow (England)
across the lough
hillside shadows
of leafless trees
spectral moon
fields of snow fade
into mist
winter sun
reaching the opposite bank
my riverside shadow
October chill
moonbeams through the buddleia
reveal my breath
snow gone
a darkness returns
to the garden
--
Thomas Powell (Northern Ireland)
snow garden
yellow tipped
daffodil shoots
late autumn
stray cattle canter
past thin hedges
trimming the laurel –
this year’s bright shoots
first to go
storm warning –
jack rabbit caught in the gap
between flash and crack
overgrown garden
an old plough
turning brown
-- Martin
Vaughan (Ireland)
mid-morning shadow –
last dewdrop
rolls off leaf
midge haze –
a dragonfly skip jives
with its reflection
low tide at noon
in the dry rock pool
a limpet ticks
beach reading
tiny rainbows dance
on her eyelashes
-- Marion
Clarke (Ireland)
padding through
the cemetery grasses
her old cat
snails
devour the seedlings
moon-silver path
frosty morning
the aroma of stewed apples
in her hair
-- Dawn Bruce (Australia)
the sand
slips from my fist…
autumn dusk
mirror at first light...
staring into each
other's eyes
40th birthday dream
wandering aimlessly
in the dark forest
--
Chen-ou Liu (USA)
snow-capped
the back yard Buddha
smiles on
spring sun –
a tinge of green
in the grey paintwork
-- Helen Buckingham (England)
leaf-strewn bridge
a ripple rakes
the stream
trail of bubbles...
a water dragon rests
on the creek bed
-- Cynthia Rowe
(Australia)
empty shell
a cicada sings
its heart out
the bible
by his deathbed
dog-eared
--
Quendryth Young (Australia)
night rain
the stone lions
slump forward
distant thunder
white flash
of the cormorant's throat
-- Graham Nunn (Australia)
autumn sunset
the lemon tree aglow
with golden orbs
a corncrake
calls
above the haystacks…
coming of summer
-- Barbara A. Taylor (Australia)
wind
the mirror
without a face
daily walk
the welcome jig
of an emerald beetle
-- Bill Cooper (USA)
sunset
a ground hornbill
sings to the sky
moon glow
snatches of song
in the wind chime
-- Robert Lucky (USA)
sitting on
the embankment
midnight swallows
a jolly plump girl
I messed around with
tugboat
-- Lucas Stensland (USA)
sleepless night –
the blinking
of radio towers
falling snow...
the steady hum
of appliances
-- Ben Moeller-Gaa (USA)
dawn
six starlings on the roof
preparing to jump
after last night’s party, dawn chorus
-- Hugh O’Donnell (Ireland)
fishtank
during the cleaning
an angel’s body
seashore wind
the willow tree
leaning west
-- John Oliver Byrne (Ireland)
sunrise
washed up wood
from a distant campfire
funeral –
trapped in an antique vase
air bubble
-- Bouwe Brouwer (the
Netherlands)
spring in the park
the lawn
chequered with black birds
-- Bernard Gieske (USA)
silver snowdust falls
across the moon–
child’s round face at the window
-- Christine Vovakes (USA)
wrangling
over give and take –
our toddler’s smile
-- Charles Tarlton (USA)
new dog
calling him
by the old one's name
-- Irene Golas (Canada)
March wind
the buzz
of flaking paint
-- Ignatius Fay (Canada)
construction site—
an autumn leaf lands
between withins
-- Lucien Zell (USA – Czech
Republic)
autumn window
the monstera palm
monstera green
-- Peter Macrow (Australia)
open-air
concert…
the soprano upstaged
by kookaburras
-- Nathalie Buckland (Australia)
still water
carp drift
with the autumn breeze
-- Cindy Keong (Australia)
the cracked pot
oozes roots ...
scent of thyme
-- Leonie Bingham
(Australia)
bulrushes
water hen's orange bill
appears then reappears
-- Helen Davison (Australia)
crow feather
the colour of
fallen leaves
-- Lee-Anne Davie
(Australia)
watching closely
over the fallen apples
a garden gnome
-- Patrick Druart (France)
children play
in garden shade
sprinkler hiss
-- Scott Owens (USA)
spring moon
the scent of jasmine
spreading in the night
-- Ramesh Anand (Malaysia)
ants collect
granules of sugar –
daytime moon
-- J.D. Mitchell-Lumsden (USA)
first secrets
only the snow camellias
listen
-- B.T. Joy (Scotland)
fat man in a green shirt
smiling
at a watermelon
-- Robert Witmer
(Japan)
on the campus lawn,
fresh anthills surrounded
by fresh mushrooms
-- Caleb Mutua
(Kenya)
vineyard
we ask for a glass
of water
-- Stella Pierides (Greece)
evening in the mountains
the air holds the song
of a temple bell
-- Seánan Forbes (USA)
Translated
Haiku
the rustling of pages
in the library
a distant river
on a snow-white page
I write the word ‘winter’
in white ink
white butterfly
on a snow-white wall
the pitch-black shadow
--
Herwig Verleyen (Belgium;
translated from the Flemish by Anatoly Kudryavitsky)
warm rain
a snail peeps out
on both sides of the shell
--
Artur Lewandowski (Poland;
translated from the Polish by Anatoly Kudryavitsky)

October
by Steven
Carter
(USA)
They
don’t call it the big sky for nothing. Rowing on Swan Lake late one
chilly afternoon I see diamond-white Mt. Aeneas, cut by frozen
sunlight, dwarfed by thunderheads piling up over the “Chinese Wall” to
the east; southward, mountain ranges leap-frog each other below the
setting sun until the vanishing point, making my eyes ache.
A quiver of
cobras, a battery of barracuda, a sleuth of bears: why not a mystery of
mountains? Before and since Lewis and Clark, humans have travelled
these mountains to find or to lose themselves. Is there a difference?
ripples fade
how the dark
knows the dark

From Another Celtic Shore
"Another Country". Haiku Poetry from Wales
Ed.
by Nigel Jenkins, Ken Jones and Lynne Rees
Gomer
Press
First
published 2011
176
pp; ISBN 978-1-84851-306-8 (pbk)
Available from
the Gomer Press,
Llandysul,
Ceredigion
SA44
4JL U.K.
This
collection is the first ever national anthology of Welsh haiku, and
therefore is destined to be a highly important publication. It
comprises works by forty poets born in Wales or long-term residents
there. Not only their haiku have been included; it also has a scattered
collection of haibun. Tanka are present, as well, and even a rare form
of somonka, i.e. linked tanka, found its way onto its pages. A sequence
of linked tanka was, oddly enough, written not by two poets but just by
one, Leslie McMurtry. The frequently described dualistic nature of a
poet may well account for this kind of ‘dialogue within’.
Most
of the poems are in English; some of them, however, are presented
bilingually, and a poem by Eirwyn George is in Welsh only. Texts are
arranged by topic, rather than by poet, and the topics are “Age and
Youth”, “Culture and Society”, “Daily Life”, “Exits and Entrances”,
“Love and Loss”, “Memory and Imagination”, “Nature Observed”, “People
in the Landscape”, and finally “Shorelines”.
The
poems are followed by “An Afterword: Haiku Poetry in Wales” that gives
a short history of haiku movement in Wales, its appearance in the 1960s
and its further development that intensified in the last decade.
Looking
at the first section, “Age and Youth”, we first see three haiku by
three different poets, then a haibun, eight more haiku, again by eight
different authors, a haiku sequence by Noragh Jones, another haibun,
five more haiku, and finally a third haibun. The same principle applies
to each and every section of the book. Going through it, you have to
constantly switch from one poetic form to another and from one poet to
another. Frankly, I don’t know if it really makes things easier for the
reader. I personally have a liking for well-structured anthologies but
then again tastes differ.
As
the editors stated in the Introduction, “work has been selected,
primarily, for its quality as haiku writing, and secondarily for its
Welsh interest.” Indeed, quality is there. Poems by such accomplished
practitioners of the genre as Pamela Brown, Arwyn Evans, Caroline
Gourlay, Nigel Jenkins, Ken and Noragh Jones, Matt Morden, Lynne Rees,
Jane Whittle would ensure a high standard of any poetry collection and,
carefully selected for this book, make it a worthy read.
A
few examples:
Here’s
an excellent ‘intuitive’ piece by Ken Jones:
Freezing
wind
the
dancing clothes
stiffen
into people
The
following haiku showcases Matt Morden’s keen observation:
end
of holiday
a
square of pale grass
beneath
the tent
The
next poem by Arwyn Evans is refreshingly metaphorical by its nature,
which is rather typical of Celtic haiku, as well as of Japanese, of
course:
Air
the
feathering
of
falcon’s breath
One
of the pieces by Nigel Jenkins made me remember Wallace Stevens who
liked to describe the source of poetic inspiration in terms of ‘more
than rational’ distortion:
hooter
booms –
and
a slice of the city
sails
into the night
Personally,
I would love to see more poems by the English poet Caroline Gourlay who
spent most of her life in Wales, but then, of course, her work is well
known to all the connoisseurs of the genre. Just one example:
insomnia
–
through
the door in my head
another
door
Reviewing
this book in Modern Haiku, Charles Trumbull wrote the following: “A
volume such as this inevitably raises the question of whether there is
a distinguishable "Welshness" about it — whether, after about fifty
years, one can already speak of a Welsh haiku tradition. On the basis
of this anthology, our answer would have to be no. Apart from haiku
with purely local subject matter and poems written in Welsh, the
concerns of the writers and their poetic treatment of them are not
dissimilar from those of their brethren elsewhere.”
One
can argue that the concerns of haiku writers and poetic devices they
choose to use are similar all over the world, and have been since the
times of Basho. This doesn’t prevent us from customarily defining such
schools of haiku writing as Japanese, American, Australian, English,
French, or - dare I say it? - Celtic. And it isn’t the local subject
but rather poetic traditions of the locality that matter. This
determines the way the poets work with the material, not to mention
that the material itself may vary a lot, as the nature can be
strikingly different in various parts of the world.
Having
read this anthology, I can’t help thinking that, despite the variety of
haiku being written in Wales, the Welsh haiku movement is much closer
to the Celtic stream than to the English one, or simply can be regarded
as a part of the former. Of course, one cannot and shouldn’t
underestimate the ever helping presence of a few English born haijin,
residents of Wales and acclaimed masters of the genre, but influences
like this can only strengthen the already strong tradition of Welsh
haiku writing. Efallai y byddant hir hwylio.*
Anatoly
Kudryavitsky
*
And long may they sail (Welsh).

Maeve O'Sullivan. "Initial Response: An A-Z of haiku
moments"
Illustrations
by John Parsons
Alba Publishing, P O Box 266,
Uxbridge, UB9 5NX, U.K.
2011
66 pp.; ISBN
978-0-9551254-3-0
Available from the publisher.
This
is the first individual haikai collection by the Irish poet Maeve
O’Sullivan, her joint collaboration with Kim Richardson, Double Rainbow,
having been published in 2005. The book adorned with a cover image and
two beautiful illustrations by John Parsons comprises 156 haikai poems
grouped according to categories in alphabetical order (e.g. Autumn, Birds and Blossoms, Children, Dearly Departed, Eating, Father’s Death Day, Graduation, etc.,
all the way to Zen/Meditation).
Of course, topics like some of these account for a great number of
senryu (three-line poems that describe human relations), and zappai
(miscellaneous three-line poems) included alongside haiku. In fact,
they may even outnumber haiku in this collection.
In
some of the poems we can trace typically Buddhist themes of renewal of
the cycle of life:
I blow raspberries
into your tiny palm –
sleepy nephew
There
is much delicacy and subtlety in O’Sullivan’s style, particularly in
her travel haiku and senryu, which bring us on evocative journeys to
Spanish, French, Tunisian and Italian (as well as Irish!) landscapes:
Basque flower market
an orange hibiscus
trumpets its presence
and
I tell him I’m alone:
the look of horror
on the gondolier’s face
and
Holy City market
hawkers ignore
the call to prayer*
However
it is when the haiku are most specifically descriptive of the Irish
landscape that they truly excel:
birdsong
punctuated by dialogue –
ewes and lambs
gorse flowers
cutting through their sweet
smell
birdsong
According
to the tradition of senryu writing, this kind of poems is supposed to
be humorous, which the poet duly delivers:
Chinese restaurant
the bride throws her bouquet
we collect our order
her umbrella blows
inside out again –
mother laughing
As
with many of the poems in Double Rainbow, some of the author’s new
works are highly personal and at times deeply moving: dedicated as they
are to the poet’s father, Maurice O’Sullivan. In making this collection
so personal and individual the themes of death, mourning and renewal
are developed extensively. Three particularly poignant poems on the
loss of her Father are:
father's death day
after hours of phone calls
soft November rain
midnight arrives …
ringing in the first
fatherless year
one sixth of his weight
snug
on my left shoulder
Summing
up, we must say that Maeve O’Sullivan has authored a subtle, honed,
personal collection, which encapsulates a keen eye for the natural
world; together with a gentle humour. However it is her studies on the
human heart that are most deeply affecting: an ‘initial response’ to
the pattern of life perhaps?
Sharon Burrell
* The latter senryu was one
of three pieces first published in Shamrock No 1, 2007, which
publication
sadly didn’t get a mention in the book on the Acknowledgements page. – ed.
DOGHOUSE
Books have three collections of haiku poems by two Irish haijin (only a
limited number of copies left of the last two):
Anatoly
Kudryavitsky. Capering Moons. DOGHOUSE Books. Publ. May
2011
John
W
Sexton.
Shadows Bloom. DOGHOUSE Books. Reviewed here
Anatoly
Kudryavitsky.
Morning at Mount Ring. DOGHOUSE Books. Reviewed here
One can get them
postage
free for the price of €12 to anywhere in the world.
Also, check out here
the range of poetry books and anthologies we've published.
DOGHOUSE Books
PO Box 312
Tralee
Co. Kerry
Ireland
Tel: +353 (0)66 7137547
Fax: +353 (0)66 7137547
info[at]doghousebooks.ie

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