Heron Sea, Short Poems of the Chesapeake Bay

I have decided to make my first collection, Heron Sea, Short Poems of the Chesapeake Bay, available for free online through Scribd.com. You can access it by clicking on the title of this post.

Blurbs for Heron Sea:

“Heron Sea is a rich word-tapestry of the Chesapeake Bay area. M. Kei’s attunement to environment and the life it engenders is remarkable. Here is a sensual experience so lovingly detailed that the reader is left with a sense of being there. Do visit the world of Heron Sea, see/feel for yourself.”

—Larry Kimmel, editor of Winfred Press

“M. Kei’s collection, Heron Sea, is a wonderful read on several counts. The poems, primarily tanka and haiku, add up to more than their sum; each is a pleasure to read but all together they comprise a startlingly moving look into the heart of the poet and at the incomparable beauty of the Chesapeake Bay. A Bay dweller, myself, I can attest to the accuracy of M. Kei’s eye and pen. Kei has tapped into the magic of short verse and presented the reader with a collage of amazing depth and insight. Poetry lovers, sailors, everyone in Bay country, and anyone who wants a powerful and beautiful read, should buy this book!”

—Denis M. Garrison, Editor, Modern English Tanka

“M. Kei’s collection is a gem. The personal anthologies of haiku/tanka that I think are best contain a sharp picture of the poet. His is among the best. An authority on Chesapeake Bay, an authority on certain types of boats, an authority on the history of oyster fishing, he is a modern who knows the importance of global-warming and saving the environment. He is never sentimental, and his poems have a special quality of honesty and integrity. The last section on ‘Threnody’ is totally moving. In other words, Kei has written a unique collection whose voice is like that of no one else. I admire it enormously. Kei is coming into his own, and should become one of the best haiku/tanka poets of the decade.”

—Sanford Goldstein, co-translator of Midaregami, Tangled Hair

“In Heron Sea, M. Kei has crafted a poetry of place with lyrical intensity, placing the reader somewhere between the author's heart and the Chesapeake Bay. No cheap sentimentality here—the verse within these pages is filled with hard-earned love, adventure, tragic loss, and wry humor. Kei’s prose Introduction to the book is every bit as moving as the poems that follow. It’s hard not to read this collection without thinking, ever after, that you've been to the Chesapeake Bay area. An impressive achievement.” —Dave Bacharach, tanka poet

I hope you enjoy reading it!

"a wonderful collection of poetry"

Robert Wilson, managing editor of Simply Haiku, one of the major Internet journals for Japanese short form poetry, has reviewed Slow Motion in the current issue of the journal.

"M. Kei has written a book of tanka and haiku about life on a skipjack fishing vessel in the Atlantic Seaboard's Chesapeake Bay. He takes readers on a journey reminiscent of Bashô, allowing them to feel a semblance of place, the tanka and haiku therein giving a vivid picture of life as a skipjack crew member. It's also a rare book in that the majority of the poems are all well sculpted. It displays the author's solid understanding of poetry. Kei is not a traditionalist, and his use of meter and syllabication in many of the tanka is more akin in some ways to free verse and, perhaps, should be categorized as short tanka-like poems."

You can read the entire review (and journal) at SimplyHaiku.com

Thank you, Robert.

~K~

HERON SEA, Short Poems of the Chesapeake Bay

BOOK NOTE: Please Forward to All Appropriate Places

HERON SEA
SHORT POEMS OF THE CHESAPEAKE BAY

Available 9 April, 2007

“Poetry lovers, sailors, everyone in Bay country, and anyone who wants a powerful and beautiful read, should buy this book!”—Denis M. Garrison, editor, Modern English Tanka

March 15, 2007—Perryville, MD

Heron Sea, Short Poems of the Chesapeake Bay, is the first collection of poetry by M. Kei, editor of the critically acclaimed anthology, Fire Pearls, Short Masterpieces of the Human Heart.

M. Kei, an award-winning poet, is well-known on the Upper Bay for his volunteer service with the Skipjack Martha Lewis and the Havre de Grace Maritime Museum. In Heron Sea he has gathered together more than one hundred and fifty poems written while sailing the Bay, dredging for oysters, raising a family, and living on the green shores of Bay Country. All of his poems are true to life portraits of life—and loss—at the Head of the Bay.

Most of the poems are tanka, the five line lyric form originally from Japan, as well as haiku, tercets, and other short forms. All of the poems are immediately accessible, featuring places and scenes instantly recognizable to residents of Bay Country. Denis M. Garrison, editor of Modern English Tanka, said,

“[E]ach is a pleasure to read but all together they comprise a startlingly moving look into the heart of the poet and at the incomparable beauty of the Chesapeake Bay. A Bay dweller, myself, I can attest to the accuracy of M. Kei’s eye and pen. Kei has tapped into the magic of short verse and presented the reader with a collage of amazing depth and insight. Poetry lovers, sailors, everyone in Bay country, and anyone who wants a powerful and beautiful read, should buy this book!”

More praise of Heron Sea:

“Heron Sea is a rich word-tapestry of the Chesapeake Bay area. M. Kei’s attunement to environment and the life it engenders is remarkable. Here is a sensual experience so lovingly detailed that the reader is left with a sense of being there. Do visit the world of Heron Sea, see/feel for yourself.” —Larry Kimmel, editor of Winfred Press

“M. Kei’s collection is a gem. The personal anthologies of haiku/tanka that I think are best contain a sharp picture of the poet. He is never sentimental, and his poems have a special quality of honesty and integrity. The last section on ‘Threnody’ is totally moving. In other words, Kei has written a unique collection whose voice is like that of no one else. I admire it enormously. Kei is coming into his own, and should become one of the best haiku/tanka poets of the decade.” —Sanford Goldstein, co-translator of Midaregami, Tangled Hair

“In Heron Sea, M. Kei has crafted a poetry of place with lyrical intensity, placing the reader somewhere between the author's heart and the Chesapeake Bay. No cheap sentimentality here—the verse within these pages is filled with hard-earned love, adventure, tragic loss, and wry humor. Kei’s prose Introduction to the book is every bit as moving as the poems that follow. It’s hard not to read this collection without thinking, ever after, that you've been to the Chesapeake Bay area. An impressive achievement.” —Dave Bacharach, tanka poet

Excerpts:

I write poetry
like the hills of Maryland,
slow, easy, green swells,
rolling from creek to vale,
with all the time in the world.


the great blue heron
the blue painted ship
the blue silence


no wind tonight
a puddle of silver
in the bay’s darkness,
a full moon
off the port bow


storm bells
the musical tones
of halyards
ringing in the
freshening breeze


she talks as she sails
this old wooden boat
of oyster days
and summer bays
and watermen grown old


these widowed boats,
the men who loved them
gone to their graves


the stone gristmill
broad on the starboard bow,
stories
falling into the bay
from its motionless wheel



If only the leaves
were not so green,
this lover’s heart
might enjoy
a little emptiness.


give me an old dog
(his puppy years worn out)
content to lay his muzzle
on my knee while
I sit beside the fire


the earth is not forever
islands of the Chesapeake
slip into to memory



Link to Publication: http://www.lulu.com/firepearls

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
M. Kei is an award-winning poet and editor of short poems, specializing in the tanka genre. Heron Sea is his first collection. A poet of the Chesapeake Bay, he is the editor of the Chesapeake Bay Haiku Almanac as well as Fire Pearls, Short Masterpieces of the Human heart. His poetry appears in journals such as Modern English Tanka, Simply Haiku, American Tanka, Modern Haiku, and more. He is a winner of the Tanka Splendor 2006 contest and a Runner-up in the Lighthouse Poetry Contest. His poetry appears in the anthologies Haiku Miscellany (Croatia), To Find the Moon (USA), Sixty Sunflowers (forthcoming) and Landfall (forthcoming).

Heron Sea, Short Poems of the Chesapeake Bay

PREVIEW:


HERON SEA
SHORT POEMS OF THE CHESAPEAKE BAY

“Poetry lovers, sailors, everyone in Bay country, and anyone who wants a powerful and beautiful read, should buy this book!”—Denis M. Garrison, editor, Modern English Tanka

Available April 9, 2007—Perryville, MD

Heron Sea, Short Poems of the Chesapeake Bay, is the first collection of poetry by M. Kei, editor of the critically acclaimed anthology, Fire Pearls, Short Masterpieces of the Human Heart.

M. Kei, an award-winning poet, is well-known on the Upper Bay for his volunteer service with the Skipjack Martha Lewis and the Havre de Grace Maritime Museum. In Heron Sea he has gathered together more than one hundred and fifty poems written while sailing the Bay, dredging for oysters, raising a family, and living on the green shores of Bay Country. All of his poems are true to life portraits of life—and loss—at the Head of the Bay.

Most of the poems are tanka, the five line lyric form originally from Japan, as well as haiku, tercets, and other short forms. All of the poems are immediately accessible, featuring places and scenes instantly recognizable to residents of Bay Country. Denis M. Garrison, editor of Modern English Tanka, said,

“[E]ach is a pleasure to read but all together they comprise a startlingly moving look into the heart of the poet and at the incomparable beauty of the Chesapeake Bay. A Bay dweller, myself, I can attest to the accuracy of M. Kei’s eye and pen. Kei has tapped into the magic of short verse and presented the reader with a collage of amazing depth and insight. Poetry lovers, sailors, everyone in Bay country, and anyone who wants a powerful and beautiful read, should buy this book!”

More praise of Heron Sea:

“Heron Sea is a rich word-tapestry of the Chesapeake Bay area. M. Kei’s attunement to environment and the life it engenders is remarkable. Here is a sensual experience so lovingly detailed that the reader is left with a sense of being there. Do visit the world of Heron Sea, see/feel for yourself.” —Larry Kimmel, editor of Winfred Press


Excerpts:

I write poetry
like the hills of Maryland,
slow, easy, green swells,
rolling from creek to vale,
with all the time in the world.


the great blue heron
the blue painted ship
the blue silence


no wind tonight
a puddle of silver
in the bay’s darkness,
a full moon
off the port bow


storm bells
the musical tones
of halyards
ringing in the
freshening breeze


she talks as she sails
this old wooden boat
of oyster days
and summer bays
and watermen grown old


these widowed boats,
the men who loved them
gone to their graves


the stone gristmill
broad on the starboard bow,
stories
falling into the bay
from its motionless wheel



If only the leaves
were not so green,
this lover’s heart
might enjoy
a little emptiness.


give me an old dog
(his puppy years worn out)
content to lay his muzzle
on my knee while
I sit beside the fire


the earth is not forever
islands of the Chesapeake
slip into to memory



Link to Publication: http://www.lulu.com/firepearls

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
M. Kei is an award-winning poet and editor of short poems, specializing in the tanka genre. Heron Sea is his first collection. A poet of the Chesapeake Bay, he is the editor of the Chesapeake Bay Haiku Almanac as well as Fire Pearls, Short Masterpieces of the Human heart. His poetry appears in journals such as Modern English Tanka, Simply Haiku, American Tanka, Modern Haiku, and more. He is a winner of the Tanka Splendor 2006 contest and a Runner-up in the Lighthouse Poetry Contest. His poetry appears in the anthologies Haiku Miscellany (Croatia), To Find the Moon (USA), Sixty Sunflowers (forthcoming) and Landfall (forthcoming).

# # #

Review: Blue Night & the inadequacy of long-stemmed roses

Blue Night & the inadequacy of long-stemmed roses
by Larry Kimmel

Winfred Press
364 Wilson Hill Road
Colrain, MA 01340
winfred@crocker.com
ISBN 978-0-9743856-9-3
$11.95 USD
95 pps 6 x 9 inches


Blue Night & the inadequacy of long-stemmed roses are two books in one by Larry Kimmel, well known as a tanka poet and editor of Winfred Press. Blue Night is a collection of short poems, but the inadequacy of long-stemmed roses is subtitled ‘a collage of cherita’, each of which takes up about one half the book. ‘Inadequacy’ was previously published in 2001.

Blue Night presents various short poems, including free verse, tanka, free verse tanka, tanka sequences, haiku, and others. Generally speaking, Kimmel as at his best in the shorter forms. Some of his longer poems, such as ‘Night Journey,’ lack sufficient tension to justify their length. The same scene was treated more briefly and more effectively in cherita #72:


a streetlamp

casting a path over snow-melt
where five pines stand

that’s all it takes
one moment an insomniac
the next a tourist in Faery


Kimmel is an excellent tanka poet and many of the tanka in the book treat romantic and erotic themes along with their inevitable disappointments.


stark from the shower
to answer the phone,
she dons a robe
of the finest distance

—the girl with the spring desire


Several of his romantic tanka have already been published, but some of the tanka I had not seen before were some of his best. They were striking not only for their quality, but for treating subjects not frequently seen in contemporary English-language tanka, such as the following:


we did what we could
read their letters, figured their taxes,
good neighbors they -
now just a cellar hole
and the lilacs in spring


Included among the poems are several short lyrics of Western prosody that add a pleasant variety:


Two carved their names, enclosed them in a heart,
And still their love grows deep by beechen art,
Though they’ve been twelve and twenty years apart.


The cherita is an invented form created a few years ago by ai li. My previous encounters with it had not impressed me; it seems a fad among poets to create knew poetic forms and give them excessive rules and exotic names. Yet in Kimmel’s capable hands, the cherita offers poetic dignity worthy of serious consideration.

A form of one line, followed by two lines, followed by three lines, it has something of the cinquain’s melody, but is more flexible about syllable count.


a bead curtain sways

long long stockings climb
a dark stairway

when I was a lad
and prince among
the apple carts


Kimmel’s cherita are very tankaesque, selecting ‘tanka moments’ (if there is such a thing) to present in a short image full of emotional resonance. Many of his cherita feel very much like tanka formatted in six lines.


“two Manhattans coming up”

he wants to know
she won’t tell

maraschino cherry
between white teeth
her taunting smile


Particularly interesting are Kimmel’s experiments with tanka in alternative formats. Some of these poems would not be recognizable as tanka if the reader had not previously seen them in five line formats. Yet the alternative lineations provide structure and suppleness that the block of five lines down lacks.


“okay! okay! he’s everything a woman wants.
now what’s for supper?”
the petals
of yesterday’s rose lie around the vase


The poem above could have been rearranged in traditional tanka format (and has been, elsewhere):

“okay! okay!
he’s everything a woman wants.
now what’s for supper?”
the petals of yesterday’s rose
lie around the vase


I argue that Kimmel’s alternative lineation is more effective both as poetry and as tanka, bringing out the two part nature of the structure and the tensions and distances of the relationship. Some critics would argue that if it’s not in five lines, it’s just a short free verse, so why call it tanka?

Tanka is not published in five lines in Japan, so we could just as easily question why five lines has become the de facto form of tanka in English. The five part structure that underlies the five line convention is clearly present in the poem above. Either it’s a tanka or it’s not, and rearranging the lines is not what makes that determination.

~K~

Review by M. Kei
6 January 2007
Chesapeake Bay, Maryland, USA

Review: Blonde Red Mustang

blond red Mustang... a gathering of small poems
Art Stein
Slate Roof: A Publishing Collective
15 Warwick Avenue
Northfield, MA 01360 USA
www.slateroof.com
ISBN 0-9760643-2-4
$11.00 30 pps 9 x 6 inches

blond red mustang is an engaging set of short poems presented in a simple chapbook format. Light and serious verse in various forms such as haiku, senryu, tanka and free verse are arranged in thematic groups. Each has its merits.

The lighter poems are an agreeable diversion and make up a large portion of the book. Stein is particularly good at capturing the humanity of a moment with an apt turn of phrase; the following senryu are typical.

with great deliberation
she chooses
a fortune cookie


prepared for
my new garden
a woodchuck


His tanka are generally more serious. They are often what the Japanese would call ‘dry,’ which is to say, lacking an overt human presence. The following verse from the tanka sequence ‘Winter Beach’ is an example:

green margin
along the tide line
rope of rack
realigned daily
as the moon directs

This is an acute observation of the natural operations of the sea and its margins, a subject often celebrated in poetry, but usually with a romantic rather than an honest eye. As a poet of the water myself, I appreciate the accuracy of his vision, as well as the poetic quality of the scene. Yet this tanka can be read deeper, taken as a metaphor of the human existence (or at least the author’s existence).

The tanbun are also interesting and avoid the very common problem of simply using the prose to explain the poem or the poem to summarize the prose. At first glance there is no apparent relationship between the tanka and its prose, as in the ‘Babe Magnet,’ an observation of an elderly farmer’s charismatic influence on diner waitresses. The tanka that accompanies it is:

lifting off
the river shallows
slow wing beats
a great blue heron
rises

The pairing of the great blue heron and the flirtatious old farmer grants a gravitas that satisfies the reader’s interest. Stein masterfully imbues the old farmer with a roguish dignity that leads us from bafflement to humor to admiration; both for the character and the poet’s skill.

Several of Stein’s longer poems are accompanied by envoys, usually in the form of haiku, but sometimes as tanka. Regrettably, these longer poems with their consciously poetic language fail to please. They contrast well with the starkness of their envoys, providing an interesting interplay between the two, but ultimately fail to satisfy. Nonetheless, the attempt heightens the interest of the poems and inspires a poet to try the technique for himself.

Stein’s greatest skill is the way in which he juxtaposes his subject matter within and without the poems. Similar poems are grouped together to seduce the reader into a particular frame of mind, but not so many that the reader becomes weary. They alternate with other poems that invite a different perspective and so refresh the reader’s attention and interest. The pacing is excellent, leading the reader through a journey on the micro-scale of the poems themselves and on the larger scale of the chapbook taken as a whole work. Would that more poets paid as much attention and did it so well as Stein.

Although not all the poems are to my taste, this chapbook is one I’m setting aside for further study because there is much to be learned and much to appreciate. The journeyman poet and the reader wanting something more complex than the usual pretty poetry books will each find something to reward their attention.

~K~

Review: Slow Spring Water

Slow Spring Water: The Life Poetry of Melissa Dixon
by Melissa Dixon
Introduction by Michael McClintock

Slowspringpress
Victoria, BC, Canada
melissadixon@shaw.ca
ISBN 0-9780815-0-1
$10.00 US / $12.00 Canada
61 pps 5.25 x 7.5 inches


Slow Spring Water, The life poetry of Melissa Dixon, is a professional looking chapbook of 61 pages. It features tanka, haiku, tanka sequences, and haibun. It covers diverse subjects such as the poet’s childhood on the plains of Canada, her migration to the coast of British Columbia, and her visit to an abandoned monastery in India.

Dixon is at her best when she is at her most personal. In her haibun, ‘The Conspiracy,’ she writes about taking her son’s ashes to spread on the sea — prohibited by law, but a law honored more in the breach than the observance. Her son lost his life on New Year’s Day and the family scattered his ashes in May.

winter of waiting
first blossoms touched
by frost

The family enacted its private ceremony and returned, accompanied by seabirds. The astonishing spectacle of thousands of seabirds pacing the boat provides the poet and her family with relief and the restoration of faith in the beauty of the world. As such it is a fitting closure for the haibun. Unfortunately, the last haiku is not strong enough to satisfy.

sooty shearwaters--
wings spread wide
in the field guide

While all of her poems are well-crafted and lyric, her strongest poems are those in which she speaks her heart directly. These are generally tanka, and it is fortunate that tanka make up the bulk of the chapbook.

in my palm a rosy stone
wet-scented by the sea
how right I was
to catch a train and leave
the plains behind

And also:

keening Manitoba winds,
snow piling towards the roof--
wordlessly
my English mother
sets the kitchen table

Both of these tanka paint moving portraits of women, causing us to believe that we have glimpsed something essential about each woman. We cannot help thinking that if we met them in person, we would experience the flash of recognition, I know you.

The power of the known also shows up in her haibun ‘The Caves of Kanheri,’ written about her trip to India. The prose is lively and engaging, full of the wry wit of a wise woman who knows how to ingratiate herself with her fellow travelers.

“Traveling alone in a strange land may be perilous for anyone. But for a woman it can at times work in her favor. She could, for instance, find herself escorted by kind fellow-countrymen to to the hidden heart of that land, where no busses go. They tend to trust her. Does she not speak their language? Is she not reasonably dressed, courteous, interested? Yes, she is company, a friend.”

The prose description of her travels with her newfound companions is delightful, but alas, once she reaches the caves and must grapple with the work of monks long dead, her haiku is not equal to the occasion.

Nonetheless, although her haiku are not as strong as her prose and tanka, occasionally they are perfect One of my favorite poems from the book is a haiku:

worn doorstep
all that’s left of the old house
in the windy field

The image is limpid, original, and powerful. It resonates with all the associations of old houses, loss, and abandonment that the reader has ever seen or experienced. It presents us with a moment that might have been found in a Wyeth painting, but wasn’t; we believe that the poet actually encountered this particular step in this particular field. Although we know she might have made the whole thing up (how could we ever know when a poet is making use of poetic license?), we are convinced that if we went there, the scene would be exactly as she made us see it.

The poetic persona that comes through the book is that of a charming and ingratiating older woman, the kind of person we are pleased to discover sitting next to us on the train or ferryboat. Slow Spring Water is a pleasant interlude between the ‘here’ and ‘there’ of our busy world.

Review by M. Kei
28 December 2006
Chesapeake Bay, Maryland, USA

Review: 17 Minutes

17 Minutes
Matthew Hupert
Neuronautic Press
New York City, NY USA
18 pps, saddle-stitched, 4.25 x 5.5 inches

In this aptly named chapbook that takes about seventeen minutes to read, author Matthew Hupert has provided a number of short poems: haiku, tercets, tanka, limericks, and free verse. He mixes urban and the natural worlds with a distinctly modern funk that finds haiku-like details in all that he surveys, including what he sees from his fifth floor ‘patio’ (his neighbor’s rooftop). When Hubert resists the urge to tell us what he’s telling us and eschews clever rhyme and wordplay, his poems have a stark power.


Love Poem

“No,” you said
unequivocally.
I hadn’t asked a question.


Some of his longer poems manage to maintain this succinctness to good effect:

When your eyes shark me

I dart
into the shoals of my
petulance
clam shelling a safe
place made from old scars
and known pains
inkjet arguments obscuring
my retreat so
I won’t
be your lunch
today


In ‘When your eyes shark me,’ there is no need for the poet to belabor the situation or to linger over his emotional state; the images are effective metaphors for a domestic dispute and its repercussions. There are no unnecessary words here; the poet trusts his art and his reader.

Unfortunately, not all the poems are this strong. Hubert reminds me of one of my other interests: minor league baseball. There is talent and hard work here, but errors, too. Part of the appeal of an emerging poet like Hubert is the hope you will get to see him grow before your eyes, then get promoted to the major leagues.

~K~

Nature and Poetry

Recently a discussion about blind people writing haiku and people writing from imagination versus direct experience occurred on a workshop list. I had the following comments to make:

Experiencing nature directly provides material which can be turned into a poem now or later. I see a definite difference between poems written from those written from direct experience and those which are only imaginary. This is not to say that one is superior to the other, but I much prefer those written from direct experience myself. They are much more likely to offer new insights and to avoid the risk of being vague or generic.

Consider the difference:

summer day
birds on pylons
one different

summer day at the port,
a seagull among the baygulls
perched upon the pylon


How many people realize how many different kinds of seagulls there are? And would a person assume 'marina' or even 'riverfront' unless they were told 'port?' And having picked 'port' doesn't it call to mind other resonances, such as a big container ship among the much smaller pleasure craft, as compared to the seagull among the baygulls? Etc.

These truths of the world do not need to be viewed directly with the eyes, and your blind friend is very wise to point out the importance of perceiving the world through other methods. All too often, those of us who can see base our poetry on what we perceive with our eyes, but the other senses are just as important. In poetry they can be extremely effective for the simple reason that the other senses show up much less frequently than sight, and are therefore more likely to be fresh.

after scurrying
across the cement floor
in bare feet,
how welcome the warmth
of the laundry room

~K~


NB. 'Baygull' is local terminology for inland gulls; they're on the Chesapeake Bay, not the sea, so they must be a 'baygull,' right? True seagulls are huge by comparison to baygulls.

Haiku Writing Prompts at OneBreathPoetry

I stumbled across OneBreathPoetry blog while searching the web and found they had reprinted a poem of mine as a poem for inspiration. (Naughty, naughty, you're supposed to ask first! Consider yourselves to have had a finger wagged at you, ladies.) I liked the sight and was flattered that they thought well of my poetry, and I am even more flattered that they keep referring to me as a haiku poet of international standing, in spite of me telling them that when it comes to haiku I am nobody in particular. I have had a few things published in Modern Haiku, Fish in Love, Haiku Miscellany, Simply Haiku, and Haiku Harvest, but the quality and quanity of my haiku are both inferior to my tanka.

Nonetheless, I like the way they are approaching the teaching of haiku by offering writing prompts, poems for inspiration, and links to participating poets' blogs. The presentation is attractive and not overwhelmed -- too many sites try to do too much and wind up with a page crammed with gewgaws and bad poetry. If you're interested in practicing haiku in a different form than the usual online email lists and bulletin boards, check it out.

Poems for the writing prompts:

Delicious Autumn:

one yellow leaf
clings to the branch
in a world of grey.
~M. Kei from simplyHaiku.com

Containers:

basket womb
full of the fruit
of life
~ M. Kei, from OneBreathPoetry.blogspot.com

Storm:

white fur blending
into white snow
the dead cat

~K~

Bird Haiku

I love blue herons, but other kinds of birds interest me as well. I am interested in the birds I see before me and I am trying to learn their names. So many of the birds, such as the crow and wild goose, have become cliches in poetry. It is hard to write about them. But less common birds and their habits are excellent fodder for poetry.

the slate-backed junco—
a little bit of storm cloud
hopping around my yard

Previously appeared in Nisqually Delta Review, Winter/Spring, 2007.


On a night like this,
not even the owls
have anything to say.

Previously appeared in Haiku Harvest, Spring/Summer, 2006.


low tide,
ducks and yachts
coast into the marina

Previously appeared in Clouds Peak, Fall, 2006.


Traffic radio,
"Wild turkeys in the road."
Rush hour, country style.

Previously appeared in 'Wandering the County,' Honorable Mention, Lighthouse Poetry Contest, 2006.

~K~

Counting Syllables

Recently some one on a tanka workshop email list pleaded to be told the 'correct' number of syllables to be used in writing English-language tanka. I posted the following response:

There is no correct syllable count for English-language tanka, because tanka are not built on syllables. They are built on 'on' which is translated as 'syllable,' but this is an error. The correct translation is 'mora,' which is a unit of sound. For example, the English word 'stretch' is only one syllable, but three mora. str-e-tch. In Japanese, it would be four or five morae.

Since English prosody is built on the syllable, not the mora, it is impossible to make any direct correlation between Japanese 'on' and English syllables. In short, it is linguistically impossible to count syllables correctly in English for the simple reason that syllables are not what the Japanese count.

Japanese and English are extremely different languages. An English verse contains approximately 35% more information than a verse of equal syllable count in Japanese. Therefore, your syllable count in English should rarely exceed 31. Usually English-language tanka fall into the range of 21 - 27 syllables, but there are no hard and fast rules about this.

Some people adopt various alternative schema to mimic the Japanese form, such as the rubric of 'short-long-short-long-long', the adoption of metered feet of 2-3-2-3-3, and various other forms. Most people writing in English settle for the pattern of five phrases on five lines.

Yet even this has problems; Japanese tanka are written in one, two, or three lines, or whatever lineation happens to suit either the style of the calligraphy or the space available. Since Japanese is structurally different than English, the precise arrangement of lines and words on the page does not have the same impact that the choice of line breaks does in English; the calligrapher is free to place line breaks in Japanese where he pleases, but the same is not true in English.

A small number of English-language poets regard the 'on' or mora as not being the most important unit of the tanka; some poets regard the division of the poem into two parts to be the defining feature. Two- part structure is certainly common in tanka, but not universal; tanka have been written with one, two, three, four, and five part structures.

If two part structure is used, English-language tanka frequently places the break at the end of L3, probably due to the influence of haiku, but it could just as viably occur at the end of L1, 2, 3, or 4 and often does in Japanese. Three part structures are not rare in tanka, four and five parts are fairly uncommon, but unitary tanka (no breaks), also referred to as a 'rush of five lines down,' are well enough known to have inspired the name of the first tanka-only journal in English, Five Lines Down, edited by Sanford Goldstein (one of the most prominent translators of modern Japanese tanka) and Kenneth Tamemura.

In short, the translation of a Japanese poetic form to English is not easy, and no one can make it simple for you. In fact, given the profound differences between English and Japanese, I would argue that 5-7-5-7-7 syllables is about the only wrong way to write a tanka. Poems of this length are far too wordy. The Japanese originals are lithe, supple poems.

My advice is: Aim for the greatest possible meaning in the fewest necessary words, pleasingly arranged on five lines.

~K~

References:

Nakagawa, Atsuo. Tanka in English: In Pursuit of World Tanka. Tokyo: New Currents Internataionl, 1990 [1987].

Gilbert, Richard. 'Stalking the Wild Onji: The Search for Current Linguistic Terms Used in Japanese Poetry Circles.' AHA Books Online. Previously published in Language Issues: Journal of the Foreign Language Education Center.(1999, Vol. 5, No. 1). Prefectural University of Kumamoto, Kumamoto, Japan.

Haiku and Rust

Someone sent around the following poem and exerpt:

this deserted mountain
the aged farmer
digging wild potatoes

-- Bashô


"Where the mood of the moment is solitary and quiet it is called sabi...
Sabi is loneliness in the sense of Buddhist detachment,
of seeing all things as happening "by themselves" in miraculous
spontaneity. With this goes that sense of deep, illimitable
quietude which descends with a long fall of snow, swallowing all
sounds in layer upon layer of softness." - Alan Watts, The Way of Zen


Ah, that old sabi nonsense. What a mysterious cult Westerners have made of it!

Sabi means 'rust'. Plain and simple. Thus, sabi is the Japanese 'rustic.' It only appears exotic thanks to the distance in time, space, and culture. More broadly sabi means 'patina of age' which is to say, the deteriorating effect on things caused by age of which rust is the most obvious example, but includes the weathering of wood, the fading of clothing, the build up of soot, etc.

Basho was an urbanite and required an urban setting to make his living, but he did not care for the rat race and tried to opt out as much as possible. Edo had a population of more than a million people in Basho's day. It was a bustling, sophisticated city, obsessed with making money, climbing the ladder of ambition, and enjoying the pleasures of theater, sex, and alcohol. In other words, it was a lot like New York City. I think this is the reason why Basho appeals to us. He tried to resolve the tension between the attractive, yet unnatural, life in the city and his own human need for something deeper and more lasting.

The poem above is an excellent example of sabi -- a rural location, an old peasant, gathering wild foods. It was Basho's genius to appreciate such things; in this he follows the tea aesthetic established by Sen no Rikyu approximately a hundred and fifty years earlier. Basho was rebelling against a materialistic, urban life. Rikyu also rebelled against the conspicuous consumption that had been the hallmark of the tea ceremony in his day; it was Rikyu who made the door to the tea hut so small that even the shogun had to get down on his knees and crawl.

To chase after Zen does no good if one doesn't give up materialism and consumerism. If materialism and consumerism are abandoned, there is no need for Zen. Zen is not about doing or not doing. Zen just is.

~K~

Haiku Example - modern

Modern haijin (haiku poets) feel little obligation to stick with the formality of lines and syllables, but retain the insistence upon a caesura and a seasonal reference. Well written modern form haiku do not need either punctuation or capitalization because the structure of the poem is such that it is plain where the breaks occur and what kind they are. This is why so many haiku appear to have been written by people under the influence of e. e. cummings. However, Japanese has no capital letters and no punctuation marks, Japanese uses verbal symbols such as 'ka' for a question mark and 'kana' for an exclamation. Because the punctuation must be written out is another reason why English-language haiku are longer than the Japanese; English can use punctuation and capitals, thereby packing more into a sentence than the equivalent Japanese sentence. Ergo, those who strive to match the Japanese aesthetic also pare down their verses.


stars
tattered green and white
hanging on the line

~M. Kei


In the poem above, there is no need for punctuation marks at the end of the first and second lines, the phrasing is obvious. At first glance this poem might seem to lack a reference to nature and the seasons, but it is definitely there. The words 'stars' invokes the stars in the heavens and it is only as the rest of poem is read is it realized that the stars are terrestrial ones. The haiku does not explain exactly what those stars are, but that they are hanging on the line implies a patchwork quilt. The tatters in turn tell us more about the quilt itself -- an old, well loved quilt. As for why it is hanging on the line, that too is obvious for anyone familiar with the rhythms of the country life: It's spring cleaning time. Old quilts are washed and hung to air them out at the end of a winter season. Thus the poem has an extremely strong seasonal reference and though the object is a manmade one, the freshness of the spring air pervades the poem. The long lasting and much loved quilt pairs well with the endless cycle of the seasons and the happy feeling that people get when spring finally arrives. Even the choice of the quilt's colors, green and white, invoke the sense of spring.

All this may seem terribly contrived, but it isn't. The poem also features something I regard as being a distinguishly feature of the genre of haiku, something that gives it real merit in my eyes: Reality. The scene as written actually happened. The quilt was made by my mother (now deceased) for my daughter when she was a baby. That baby is now a high school graduate. The quilt is worn and tattered from being loved to death and has been washed and hung on the line every year. This poem was written a couple of years ago but has now acquired a special poignancy; after my mother passed away at Thanksgiving of 2005 my daughter folded up the quilt and put it away to save it as a special keepsake of her grandmother.

When a poet is deeply in tune to the nuances of a lived life, poetry is the natural result.

Haiku Example - formal, traditional and modern

This haiku is composed of lines of 5 - 7- 5 syllables in the formal English-language form. It is divided into three phrases, indicated by the line breaks. It lacks a caesura so many editors would consider this not to be a haiku; however, some editors do permit the use of a single, grammatically correct sentence as a haiku. Read aloud it has no natural pauses.

the whirling snowfall
batters my weary heart with
insistent beauty

~M. Kei
Previously published in Haiku Harvest, Summer, 2006.


This poem could just as easily be written as a single line, and indeed, in Japanese, haiku are so written. It is a convention of Western languages to write them on three lines:

the whirling snowfall batters my weary heart with insistent beauty


Perhaps the reason Westerners prefer the three line form is because multi-line stanzas are so ingrained in Western traditions that it doesn't 'look like a poem' unless it is composed of multiple lines. Nothing in English tradition is as short as the Japanese haiku -- another reason why many Westerners have trouble regarding haiku as 'serious' literature. Anything so small much be easy to write, enit? Yet strict modernists would consider both versions of the poem to be excessively wordy. They would strip out all adjectives and adverbs as well as personal references, leaving:

snow--
batters the heart
with beauty
~M. Kei


While there is a certain severe beauty in micropoems, the limits of the form do not provide the flexibility I prefer. As a poet I prefer to utilize length and brevity, lyricism and objectivity, and all other approaches as I see fit. While I value the structural integrity that forms provide, forms should be guidelines, not dogma.

Haiku Example - formal, classical

Haiku - classical, formal English-- 5 - 7- 5 syllables, caesura, seasonal reference. This haiku is divided into two phrases, with the pause (caesura) coming at the end of the first line. The sound-image of pine trees soughing in the wind makes this nature poetry; the human reference is secondary to the natural phenomenon. This piece is classically formed, Japanese poems did not have titles, but they were often accompanied by 'headnotes' that gave information about the occassion of the composition of the poem, or some other information to help understand the poem in context. In addition, the poem makes reference to 'pine surf' which is an ancient Japanese phrase describing the sound of pine trees in the wind. It shows up in numerous poems and is much older than the haiku tradition. Haiku itself is a relatively recent (17th century) offshoot of older Japanese genres. (More on them later.)

Upon hearing the approach of Hurricane Isabel.

'Pine surf' they called it,
those old poets who loved storms
as much as I do.

~M. Kei

Previously published in Haiku Harvest, Summer, 2006.


kumo haruru
arashi no oto wa
matsu ni are ya
tsuki mo midori no
iro ni haetsutsu

~Saigyo (b 1118, d 1190)


the clouds blowing and
the storm roaring like surf
in the pine trees;
the moon also
a deep green

trans. M. Kei

The above poem is a 'waka,' not a haiku, but more on waka later. To me this poem evokes the greenness not just of the pine trees, but the storm as well. I too have seen the green tornado sky in one quarter of the heavens with a ragged full moon revealed by a break in the clouds. Awesome! However, that is not the conventional interpretation of the poem.

The sound of storm winds
clearing all the clouds away
is up in the pines--
where even the moonlight now
seems of a deep green hue.

trans. Steven D. Carter, from Traditional Japanese Poetry

Haiku

What is haiku? For the average North American, a haiku is an exercise from elementary school in which they learned that the poem was composed of three lines of 5 syllables, 7 syllables, and 5 syllables, or 5-7-5. While this is the original form of haiku in Japanese, the Japanese method of writing syllables means that the content of the poem is briefer than could be contained in the same number of English syllables. Thus in English, formal haiku adheres to a format of a short line, a long line, and a short line, the whole to be spoken in a single breath. Yet this is not the Japanese practice -- Japanese haiku are written in a single line. This leads to English haiku written in one line. But Japanese haiku are also distinguished by a caesura, or pause, that connects and links two ideas, usually two images, which causes some English-language haiku to be written in two lines. Nonetheless, three lines is the most popular because the phrasing of Japanese naturally breaks into the alternating pattern of 5-7.

Various other patterns are proposed as well, while others have abandoned the idea of 'counting' syllables, lengths, words, beats, or anything else. There is general consensus among poets and scholars that 5-7-5 is NOT what defines a haiku in the first place. No, what defines haiku is that it is seasonal poetry about nature.

If you're familiar with the 'joke-ku' 'haiku error messages' and your banal elementary school 5-7-5 poems about kittens, you may be baffled to discover that these in no way qualify as 'haiku.' They are what the Japanese call 'zappai' -- or parodies, knockoffs, jokes, etc. Certainly there is a place for such things -- we all love a good joke and parody is as much an art as poetry -- but they aren't haiku.

Haiku must have some sort of reference to nature or the season in it. Period. It's a genre, you see, not a form. Other poems are written in the same form, but are not the same genre. As mentioned above, zappai shares the form, but not the content. Another popular genre using the same form is senryu. Sometimes called 'humorous haiku,' it began as the 'lighter side of life,' and has evolved into a serious genre that can treat serious subjects. The chief difference between senryu and haiku is that senryu is about human nature while haiku is about nature. There is overlap between the two and novices are often hard-pressed to tell the difference.

Further, many magazines call themselves 'haiku' magazines but publish both senryu and haiku without distinction. Some publications will even go so far as to subdivide between haiku and 'hokku' -- but this is splitting hairs to a degree that will only frustrate the novice. Haiku magazines do not publish zappai; they don't consider it to be 'real literature.' Zappai doesn't need any help getting published; the world is full of people willing to forward it to everyone they know via email.

Introduction

Kujaku Poetry is the web site of M. Kei, a Chesapeake poet working in the Japanese short forms (haiku, senryu, tanka, kyoka) and related forms. He is also the editor of the Kyoka Mad Poems email forum at Googlegroups and Editor of the Chesapeake Bay Saijiki (haiku almanac) at the World Kigo Database .

Kei is a true Chesapeake poet, as his white ancestors were among the first European settlers in the region in 1628 while his Native American ancestors have been here for thousands of years. When he can escape from making a living, he serves as a volunteer deckhand and docent aboard the skipjack Martha Lewis.

This page will include occasional posts of poetry, opinion, news, and general musing on poetry, boats, and life in the Chesapeake Bay.