Shamrock
Haiku Journal
of the Irish Haiku Society
Shamrock Haiku Journal enters the third year of its existence. In the previous two years we have published eight issues, in which we showcased works by two hundred and seventy-two poets who represented thirty-eight countries. We are graterful to all our contributors, and declare our intention to further broaden the geographical scope of our publications.
Announcement
Shamrock Haiku Journal Readers' Choice Award 2008
The following piece by Graham Nunn (Australia) published in our No 5 was voted the best haiku poem that appeared in Shamrock Haiku Journal in 2008:
lookout
point
the stones
share our silence
As
well as providing fresh insight, this haiku evokes for me a
tremendous
sense of awe. The writer in present tense, and the
ancient
stones are
together silent. Looking out and beyond.
Awesome.
The close runners-up were a haiku by Vasile Moldovan (Romania) published in our No 8:
winter
sun
in the snowman's eyes
first tears
and the following piece by Martin Vaughan (Ireland) that appeared in Shamrock No 7:
sunburst
-
scent of wild garlic
fills the garden
A piece by Sergey Biryukov (Russia) was voted the best one-line haiku published in Shamrock Haiku Journal in 2008:
out of the empty sleeve steam
(First published in Shamrock Haiku Journal No 5. Incidentally, translated by the editor)
Many congratulations to the winners!
---------------------------<->----------------------------
Focus on
Poland
calm
sea -
above
me and below me,
a row
of clouds
clear
sky
the garden hose
paints a rainbow
--
Agnieszka Adamska (transl. by Anatoly Kudryavitsky)
a
night at the motel -
light
from passing
furniture
vans
from
my neighbour's house,
only
the voice
of
a crying doll
forest
brook
an
autumn leaf drifts
toward
shore
--
Magdalena Banaszkiewicz (transl. by
Anatoly
Kudryavitsky)
new
moon -
out of
the fragrance of damsons,
nightingale's
warble
cloudless
sky
the
wind swaying the ears
of
flowering flax
weeping
willow -
instead
of leaves,
raindrops
distant
mountains -
through
the blue haze,
ruins
of a castle
All
Souls' Day -
over the old grave,
a wingless angel
--
Grażyna Kaźmierczak (transl. by Anatoly
Kudryavitsky)
away
from home -
even the birds sing
in a foreign tongue
empty
street
the
wind brings
the
sound of flute
birds'
twittering
morning
mist
clears
away
rainy
evening -
over
the stove, mushrooms
drying
on a thread
river
mist -
from
the other shore,
woodpecker's
knock
--
Maria Kowal (transl. by Anatoly Kudryavitsky)
abandoned
fort
a rusty cannon sinks
into jasmine
--
Rafał Leniar (transl. by Anatoly Kudryavitsky)
Saturday
the
wedding procession
passes
a funeral train
autumn
park
on the
stone chessboard,
a few
chestnuts
village
graveyard
black
soil and fresh flowers
scattered
on the snow
--
Artur Lewandowski (transl. by Anatoly Kudryavitsky and the author)
Sunday
lunch -
sitting
in my father's place
for the
first time
golden
autumn
more
and more butterflies
with
pale wings
--
Artur Lewandowski (transl. by Anatoly Kudryavitsky)
autumn
the
smell of mushrooms
in
a suburban bus
fog
over the meadows
yet again, my father forgets
his
macintosh
pond
a
couple of swans
sail
from cloud to cloud
autumn
fog
a
narrow ravine
full
to the brim
cold
evening -
over
the dimming campfire,
a
thousand stars
how
deep the silence!
in the
spider's web,
a
grasshoper
abandoned
house
a mossy
pool
dotted
with tadpoles
old
bridge
a
falling fragment
breaks
the moon
spring
rain -
in the
cherry orchard
white
speckles on mud
old
door -
over
the worn threshold,
New
Year's frost
river
breeze -
sticking
out from the reeds,
long
fishing rods
misty
meadows
jingle
bells
from
both ends
Russian
acrobats
cold
rain tapping
on the
circus tent
spring
thurderstorm
old
gentleman opens
his
umbrella for me
calm
breeze
enough
to scent
a
flowering orchard
--
Aneta Michelucci (transl. by Anatoly Kudryavitsky)
rainy
day -
on the
office steps,
an
unemployed sparrow
-- Robert Naczas (transl. by Anatoly Kudryavitsky)
dawn
over the lake -
so cold
the
blue sky!
empty
nest
bare
branches next to
my
mother's house
pheasants
in the meadow
another bus leaving
without me
late
evening -
on the
sheet of paper,
a
shadow pen
nightingale
in the evening -
closing
my eyes
to hear
-- Mariusz Ogryzko (transl. by Anatoly Kudryavitsky)
end of
summer
the
wind erasing
footprints
spring
cleaning
rustling
leaves
in the attic
last
turn in the road -
from my house, the smell
of
apple pie
end of
winter
only the birch
still in white
wet
night -
wherever
I set my foot,
the
moon
-- Katarzyna Prędota (transl. by Anatoly Kudryavitsky)
autumn
sun
a leaf
falls
onto
its shadow
cold
morning -
in the
trash, a tramp
and a
few birds
All
Souls' Day
fresh
leaves
between
the graves
listening
to silence -
fallen
leaves
at
Chopin's monument
winter
garden
the
fence's shadow separates
white
from white
-- Dorota Pyra (transl. by Anatoly Kudryavitsky)
procession
of clouds
flowers
on her hat
darker
thunderclap
the
sparrowless branch
up and
down
empty
road -
in the old ruts,
fresh
snow
morning
calm -
between
the light and the dark,
a
spider's web
first
date
nightingale's
song
louder
-- Bronisława Sibiga (transl. by Anatoly Kudryavitsky)
awakening -
the
rain from my dream
still
falling
wild
mustard field
warm
wind brings along
the
scent of honey
summer
breeze
shadows
of clouds crawling
along
the beach
frosty
morning -
between two branches,
the skeleton of a kite
broken
mirror
in each splinter
the same pair of eyes
-- Grzegorz Sionkowski (transl. by Anatoly Kudryavitsky)
awakening
view
from my window
still
the same
-- Mateusz Sionkowski (transl. by Anatoly Kudryavitsky)
loneliness
nothing
but advertisements
in my
letterbox
-- Marek Szyryk (transl. by Anatoly Kudryavitsky)
no
stars
only
snowflakes
in the
lantern light
four
empty walls
even my
own voice
unrecognisable
last
walk on the beach
her
shadow has
longer
legs
spring
wind
again the same quiet whistle
under her daughter's window
autumn
drizzle -
on the
washing line,
only
raindrops
--
Juliusz
Wnorowski (transl. by Anatoly
Kudryavitsky)
catching
my breath -
from a
deep vale,
the
roaring of a tractor
a
churchyard oak -
at my
granny's grave,
a
squirrel and I
lightning
in the sky
the
sound of drumming
from an
upturned bucket
sea of
poppies
each
blast of wind
followed
by a wave
path in
the forest
out of
the mist,
woodpecker's
knock
large
shrine on the meadow:
a feral
animal
open to
the skies
-- Adam Zagajewski (transl. by Anatoly Kudryavitsky)
---------------------------<->----------------------------
A Brief History
of Polish Haiku
by Rafał Zabratyński
Shortly after Poland regained its independence after the First World War Polish literature became more receptive to new literary trends, including those coming from oriental countries. However, the first Polish study of Japanese literature was published in the book entitled Historja literatury chińskiej i japońskiej (A History of Chinese and Japanese Literature, Warsaw, 1901) by Julian Adolf Święcicki. As far as translations of Japanese poems are concerned, the first compilation titled Sintaisi-sho, poeci nowo-japońscy (Sintaisi-sho, Modern Japanese Poets) by Antoni Lange was published in Warsaw in 1908. In this book we also find a concise history of Japanese literature in the 19th century.
In 1927, first Polish translations of haiku appeared in the essay by Stefan Łubieński entitled "Sztuka słowa i pieśniarstwa" (The Art of Word and Song); it was included in the book called Między Wschodem a Zachodem. Japonia na straży Azji. (Between the East and the West. Japan Guarding Asia).
After the Second World War the Communists came to power in Poland. This fact accounts for considerably limited interactions between Polish authors and the outside literary world. Socialist realism dominated the Polish literary scene pushing all the other literary trends to the sidelines. That was the reason why no haiku translations could be published in our country in those times. This accounts for the fact that the first Polish anthology of classical haiku Godzina dzikiej kaczki (The Hour of a Wild Duck) appeared in 1966 in Great Britain; it was compiled and edited by Aleksander Janta-Połczyński.
Haiku resurfaced in Polish periodicals only in 1975, notably in the "Poezja" (Poetry) monthly, one of the co-editors of which was Stanisław Grochowiak. For the first time the whole issue of a Polish magazine was completely dedicated to haiku, comprising several translations of Bashō's haiku and a detailed essay by Prof. Wiesław Kotański , which he called "Japoński siedemnastozgłoskowiec haiku" (Japanese Seventeen-Syllable Haiku). The first Polish poet to include haiku in his collection was Leszek Engelking. His book published in 1979 was called Autobus do hotelu Cytera (A Bus to the Cytera Hotel).
The decade commencing in 1980 saw a considerable proliferation of Polish literary works inspired by oriental philosophy; haiku in particular. However, a turning point in the changing attitude towards haiku was in 1983, the year when an anthology of classical Japanese haiku appeared in Poland. The editor Agnieszka Żuławska-Umeda simply called it Haiku. The book was fitted with an introductory essay, the translator's commentary, several reproductions of Japanese paintings, samples of calligraphy, as well as a closing essay on the history of haiku in Japan written by Mikołaj Melanowicz.
The 1990s witnessed a plentiful crop of haiku and related poems in Poland. Czesław Miłosz, one of the Polish Nobel Prize winners for Literature, translated a collection of classical Japanese and contemporary American and Canadian haiku from English, and in 1992 published his translations in the book entitled Haiku. This book provoked an enormous interest in haiku among Polish readers.
The next quality publication followed shortly. In 1993, Antologia kanadyjskiego haiku (An Anthology of Canadian Haiku) edited by Ewa Tomaszewska hit the shelves of Polish bookshops. From November 1994 to November 1995, five issues of the magazine Haiku edited by the poet Robert Szybiak appeared in Warsaw.
At the very beginning of the twenty-first century the first national anthology of Polish haiku finally appeared in our country; it was called Antologia polskiego haiku (Anthology of Polish Haiku) and edited by Ewa Tomaszewska. This study, that also included an introduction about Japanese influences on the European culture and art, was an invaluable source of information on the history of haiku in Poland, as well as on the status quo in contemporary Polish haiku. It showcased more than six hundred haiku and haiku-like poems by nearly eighty Polish authors, and spanned ninety-six years (1905 to 2001).
In recent years the number of haiku poets in Poland has been growing constantly. There are now several groups of haiku poets, all rather informal.
The one that came to being earlier than the other has poets born in Silesia, a region in south-west Poland. The leader of the group, Felix Szuta, is an important writer and promoter of haiku in our country. He is the editor of "Pileus", a literary supplement to "Gazeta Chojnowska" (a local magazine from Chojnow) that published quite a number of haiku by local authors. In 2001, members of the group founded the Association of Polish Haiku Authors in Legnica. This is probably the only formal haiku association in our country. There is another, a smaller group of Silesian haiku poets who gathered around their leader, Krzysztof Karwowski. They mostly publish their works in the periodical booklet called "Pagina".
There is a prolific group of haijin located in Gdańsk, the city regarded as an important cultural centre in Northern Poland. The members of the group won a few awards and commendations in prestigious national and international haiku contests. In 2001, Piotr Szczepański won the Third Prize in the 6th International Kusamakura Haiku Competition. In 2009, Dorota Pyra won the Grand Prize in the 2009 Shiki Special Kukai in memory of William J. Higginson. There is also a large number of creatively active authors who are not associated with any particular haiku group. The Polish haiku scene also includes a few authors living and writing abroad, e.g. Krzysztof Jeżewski (Paris) and Lidia Rozmus (USA).
One of the most original Polish haiku writers is Dariusz Brzóska Brzóskiewicz. He is also a performer, and is known to promote the younger generation poets. Brzóskiewicz wrote haiku for TV programs and collaborated with a few well-known Polish musicians on the artistic project called "Haiku Fristajl" (Freestyle Haiku). It resulted in a CD released in 2006, which has haiku in Polish and Japanese as lyrics. Brzóskiewicz also published a volume of his haiku entitled Haiku Brzóski (Haiku of Brzóska, 2007).
Poland has many good haiku poets whose works are available mostly on the Internet. They take part in various haiku forums, where they can workshop and showcase their poems. Talking of Polish literary online forums, arguably the biggest of them is "Serwis poetycki - [email protected]" (Poetic Website - [email protected]), the address of which is http://www.poezja.org). It has a big number of portals dedicated to various literary genres. One of them is fully dedicated to haiku, and attracts a number of prolific poets, some of which have texts on these pages, e.g. Maria Kowal, Jacek Margolak and Aneta Michelucci. A few of them won awards and commendations in prestigious national and international haiku contests, e.g. Marek Kozubek (the Annual Suruga Baika Literary Prize, Lyrical Passion Poetry E-Zine contests) and Katarzyna Bielińska (the Vancouver Cherry Blossom Festival Haiku Invitational).
In 2005, Grzegorz Sionkowski launched a new Internet forum, which he called "forum.haiku.pl" (http://forum.haiku.pl). It seems to be the biggest Polish haiku site on the Internet. Some of the participants also have their texts here, e.g. Magdalena Banaszkiewicz, Artur Lewandowski, Robert Naczas, Mariusz Ogryzko, Katarzyna Prędota, Dorota Pyra, Bronisława Sibiga, Grzegorz Sionkowski, Juliusz Wnorowski, Rafał Zabratyński. Most of them have their own personal websites or run haiku blogs.
Another valuable haiku resource appeared on the Internet in 2007 when Grzegorz Sionkowski started "mała antologia haiku po polsku" (a small anthology of haiku in Polish) (http://antologia.haiku.pl). It currently presents almost three hundred quality haiku written by more than fifty authors.
Summing up, I would like to mention that in 2003 we had an important haiku gathering in our country. It was International Haiku Conference held in the Cracow Center of Art and Japanese Technology, "Manggha". The motto of that conference was "With haiku into the 21st Century".
As it happens, we still don't have a nationwide haiku association, which hinders Polish haiku groups from steady contacts between them. Another obstacle is a lack of translations of classical Japanese haiku, as well as of contemporary haiku written in the main European languages. Also, we don't have Polish translations of some important works on the theory of haiku (e.g. the oeuvre of R. H. Blyth), nor have we Polish-language versions of the main haiku handbooks (e.g. of those by William J. Higginson and Jane Reichhold). As a result, we are facing the spreading of short-form haiku-like poems that don't have the essence of haiku, whereas real haiku are rare. Nevertheless, it is heartening that more and more Polish haijin not only publish their works in international anthologies, magazines and e-zines but also win awards and commendations in prestigious national and international haiku contests. This means that Poland appears to be clearly noticeable on the modern haiku map.
Rafał Zabratyński is a haiku poet and the moderator of http://forum.haiku.pl
------------------------<>------------------------
St.
Patrick's Day -
expats
form
a
snake
start
of the season
the
myna bird rehearses
its
builder's whistle
old
road
the
sky as full
of
potholes
Boxing
Day
a
fork-lift truck
laden
with mist
--
Helen Buckingham (England)
ants trail across the trail the morning breeze
lifted by salt wind the stonechat's tail
slowly through the corn stubble long legs of thoroughbreds
godwits twist into twilight cold of the marsh
gathering the piebalds what's left of the sun
--
John Barlow (England)
elms
in bud
a
clutch of old leaves
whispering
summer
rain
the
street jacaranda's
deepest
bow
snake country the length of the shortcut
slack
tide
a
sea eagle's shadow
skimming
--
Lorin Ford
(Australia)
resting on the riverside railings a jackdaw and me
across the old rifle range spent burdock
slow
tributary
a
water vole's egress
between
the rushes
--
Matthew Paul (England)
chalk
hills
against blue winter sky -
ghosts of butterflies
first
sticky buds
the cling
of morning light
against
the mist's grain
wake of six ducks
quacking through
--
Diana Webb (England)
island
holiday...
a
cockatoo wolf-whistles
passers-by
heatwave
first
light moving a chive pot
into
the shade
workman's
tea break
morning
sunlight splits
the
steam
--
Cynthia Rowe (Australia)
floating
upriver
the
garbage barge
with
seagulls
paw
prints
disappear
in the snow
wind
under the hemlocks
leaf
shadows
clinging
to the mountainside...
solar
winds
--
Raffael de Gruttola (USA)
train
whistle
across
the midnight moon -
an
owl hoots
red
fox sprints
across
the road in front...
chores
waiting at home
twilight
turn of tide -
the
rising moon pulls sand
between
my toes
--
Rodney Williams (Australia)
the
busy tongues
of barnacles -
tide-pool
sunrise
creak
of
the old dock
frozen in ice
spring
melt -
elk
graze
on the ninth green
--
Patrick M. Pilarski
(Canada)
Christmas
holidays
the
night journey sparkles
with
stars
morning
after
the night before
whirr
of wasps
loud cry
of
the new born
morning
light
--
Dawn Bruce (Australia)
hunter's
moon
a searchlight
scans the sky
icy
bus stop
two strangers share
a streetlamp's glow
day
moon
the snow prints
of bare feet
-- William Cullen Jr. (USA)
rain
at dawn
a glittering spider-web
bars my path
five
fields away
the rookery creche
calls for breakfast
--
Pat Metcalfe (England)
thistle
down
fluffs
in tufts of wind -
distant
taps
a
broken vee
of
geese reunite -
pipe
smoke
--
DM Holmes (USA)
at
the top
of
the stop sign,
trumpet
vine
looking
at himself
in
the glass
he
polishes
--
Philip Miller (USA)
steaming
after
a bath
snow in the back yard
Kamakura
Bay
same smell and sound of surf
on Bull Island
--
Sean O'Connor (Ireland)
patchwork
sunrise
through the leafless trees
red cardinals
after
the snowstorm
sun lights tulip fruit on tree
to bronze
--
Breid Sibley (Ireland)
tropical
storm
sunflower petals fall
on dead leaves
rising
sun...
a roadside beggar
in Buddha's pose
--
Nana Fredua-Agyeman (Ghana)
policemen
saying
"Go home"
to
a homeless man
-- Cheryl Daytec-Yangot (Philippines)
autumn
breeze
a
thrush sings away
into
the blue
--
Terry O'Connor (Ireland)
chaffinch
sings
the
first song of spring
traffic
noise
--
Juliet Wilson (Scotland)
falling
snow
the
postman's footprints
into
the white
--
Lex Joy (USA)
fir
tree dark
against winter sky
pen
and paper
--
Joanna M. Weston (Canada)
city lights stars clad in mist
--
Sabih
Uddin Omar
(Bangladesh)
midnight
silence -
in
a brass gong,
full
moon
--
Judith Johnson (Australia)
early
spring
the
same crocus
under
the maple tree
--
Bernard Gieske (USA)
---------------------------<->----------------------------
Intrusions
by Richard Krawiec (USA)
Another glorious autumn day with my lover, tainted by phone calls and notes from her middle-aged son. Before we leave for church he calls to say he has to pick up his mail, forwarded to her when he moved back from a disastrous 3 months out West to 'find' his life. On the way to church he calls again to tell her what time he'll be there. After church, as we drive to a festival, he calls once more; he's lost the house key and can't find a way in.
Late afternoon, a warm, orange sun slides below the horizon of low roofs. Before we stroll down the leaf-patterned streets, she first calls to make sure he got inside all right. We return to her place to find a note of thanks and apology atop her laptop computer; he used to visit porn sites at her house. I stare at the photos on the refrigerator; her grown son, beaming; a stumbling toddler.
It takes a few minutes to check the bedroom. The previous week, he'd left his shirt draped atop my saxophone case. Nothing this time. We slip into our robes, open a bottle of wine, sit by the fire, dwindled now to embers.
Walden
by Haiku
By
Ian Marshall
The
University of Georgia Press
240
pp, ISBN-13: 978-0-8203-3288-8
Available
via
http://www.ugapress.org
This ample book contains haiku reworking of a number of fragments from Henry David Thoreau's Walden. Ian Marshal extracted haiku ideas from the book and went on to write nearly three hundred haiku poems based upon the Thoreau's book.
Walden (first published in 1854 as Walden; or, Life in the Woods) gives an account of Thoreau's stay in a cabin in a woodland area near Walden Pond, not far from Concord, Massachusetts. As Thoreau mentioned in his book, his cabin was not in wilderness but rather at the edge of the town, in which his family home was. Apparently, Thoreau didn't intend to live as a recluse. He visited other people, and had visitors himself. His main idea was to isolate himself from society, so that, seeing it from the outside, he could understand it better. Thoreau's experiment in simple living and attempted self-sufficiency ensured that the book became one of the best-known American non-fiction books.
Interestingly enough, Walden was written by the author who never heard of haiku. In his turn, Ian Marshall is a Professor of English and a haiku specialist. His main task in this book was to find similarities between Thoreau's prose and the art of haiku. Marshall's literary experiment begins with the first part of Walden, Economy, where Thoreau describes his idea of staying in a small cabin in the woods for twenty-six months. He also calculates his earnings and spendings while he constructs his house and buys and grows his food. In this chapter, as in the following ones, Marshall examines Thoreau's aesthetic principles. While Thoreau was talking about economy, Ian Marshall ponders upon "economy" as the essence of haiku. He mentions one of the main principles of haiku - hosomi, which he translates as "spareness", or "slenderness", or, if I may add my own version, "thrift". This, of course, applies to haiku poets' work with words.
One of the examples of hosomi, i.e. haiku economy, given in the book is the following piece, which could even have been written as a one-liner:
a borrowed axe
returned
sharper
Another piece that I liked here is this:
trying to hear
what is in the wind
I lose my own breath
In the next chapter, Where I Lived, and What I Lived For, Thoreau describes the way he survived in the cabin: he "lived desperately, to front only the essential facts of life." Marshall here talks of another haiku principle, wabi, i.e. the fact that haiku often reflect on desolation and poverty as necessary preconditions for spiritual richness.
The chapter titled Reading conveys the author's idea that classical (here, mostly Greek and Latin) literature is and will always be superiour to popular fiction, widespead in that part of Massachusetts (even in those days!)
Here's one of the pieces (re)created as a haiku (or rather as a senryu) by Ian Marshall:
books
the oldest and best
stand on the shelves
The next chapter, Sounds, has, according to Ian Marshall, more haiku moments than any other. Thoreau here states that one should experience life itself not relying too much on literature as a way to reach transcendence. He meticulously describes all the sounds he hears from his cabin: frogs croaking, owls hooting, cows mooing, church bells ringing; train whistle is criticised for being an alien sound!
frog
tr-r-r-oonk
round
again and again
that
there be no mistake
The following chapters are called Visitors (Thoreau describes here some visitors to his cabin), and The Bean-Field, in which Thoreau describes his efforts to cultivate two and a half acres of beans. A possible pun: "bean field" - "being field" makes Marshall talk about the usage of puns in haiku. Actually, I can contribute another pun - "being filled" - to this - in case somebody collects them.
In The Village Thoreau describes his regular visits to Concord, in those days a small town in Massachusetts, to learn the news, which he finds "as refreshing in its way as the rustle of the leaves." Marshall here suggests that haiku have a social dimension, and talks about linked verse, haikai-no-renga.
The following chapter is called The Ponds. Ponds are "lovelier than diamonds," says Thoreau. This is where the reader has a right to expect good haiku, and Marshall duly provides some:
huckleberries
to know the flavor
ask the partridge
the old pond
not one wrinkle
after all its ripples
In Baker Farm Thoreau describes how he got caught in a rainstorm and had to take shelter in the hut of John Field, a poor Irish immigrant trying hard to make some extra money for his family.
sitting out a storm
under that part of the
roof
which leaks the least
Higher Laws is Thoreau's apologia of vegetarianism, chastity, teetotalism and diligence.
an impulse to eat
woodchuck
not for my hunger
but for his wildness
Brute Neighbors is a chapter about wild animals, his neighbors at Walden. Marshall finds in Thoreau's work two of the Zen qualities described by R.H. Blyth: grateful acceptance and love. Thoreau is prepared to love all the creatures, even if he disapproves of their behaviour.
red ants and black ants
their Battle of Concord
fighting for principle
House-Warming. Having picked berries in the forest, Thoreau also gathers firewood and tries to make his cabin more or less cold-proof before the arrival of winter. Here Marshall talks about using alliteration and assonance in haiku writing.
a lamp
to lengthen out the day
a sharper blast from the
north
Former Inhabitants; and Winter Visitors. Thoreau narrates the stories of those who used to live near Walden Pond, and then mentions a few people who visited him throughout the winter.
a slave's epitaph
the date he died
telling me he had lived
Winter Animals. Again, a very haiku-like background, upon which Marshall draws:
light-footed hare
putting the forest
between us
Here Marshall talks about karumi, or the lightness of haiku, and also about using the juxtaposition of contrasting images. He concludes that a haiku poet has to find the right "degree of separation" between such images.
The Pond in Winter. Here Marshall talks about using metaphors in haiku, and why haiku poets tend to avoid them.
Spring. In this chapter Thoreau describes the thaw and the melting of the ponds. As nature is reborn, so is he, says the writer - and leaves Walden.
a grass-blade
streams from the sod
into summer
Thoreau - and Marshall after him - talk here about living in the present. Marshall quotes Basho who once said that "haiku is simply what is happening in this place at this moment."
In the final chapter entitled Conclusion Thoreau criticises conformity: "If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music which he hears, however measured or far away." Marshall transforms Thoreau's phrase "There is more day to dawn. The sun is but a morning star" into a poem:
more day to dawn
the sun
but a morning star
In the second part of the book, Marshall takes to explain how he actually found the haiku in Thoreau's text, and quotes the fragments of Walden, in which he attempted to highlight the imagery.
Talking about haiku reworking of classical texts, the main questions is, do the resulting texts stand up as original poems? In this case the answer is yes. I wouldn't go as far as to say that all of them are destined to stand the test of time but there's a great number of quality poems in the book, which will surely appease the appetite of haiku lovers. Marshall-essayist is also convincing, so this book shall be useful not only for Thoreau scholars but for all interested in nature writing.
Anatoly Kudryavitsky