| kiyotaki ya nami ni chirikomu
aomatsuba |
|
Clear Cascade . . .
falling into the waves
green pine needles |
 -
Basho (1644 - 1694) |
| chohchoh
ya nani wo yume mite hanezukai |
|
ah butterfly--
what are you dreaming
working your wings? |
-
Chiyo-ni (1703 - 1775) |
| tenmoku ni
koharu no kumo no ugoki kana |
|
in the teabowl
this motion of the clouds
of "little spring" |
-
Kikusha-ni (1753 - 1826) |
| hi no oku
ni botan kuzururu sama wo mitsu |
|
in the fire-depths
saw the way
a peony crumbles |
-
KATOH Shuhson (1905 - 1993) |
| sayamame
no yubi ni tsumetaki asa wo tsumu |
|
the snowpeas
cool in my fingers
I pluck morning |
-
KAMEGAYA Chie (1909 - 1994) |
| tateyoko
ni fuji nobite iru natsuno kana |
|
high and wide
Fuji stretches out--
this summer meadow |
-
KATSURA Nobuko (b. 1914) |
| nikogori
ya itsumo mune ni wa kaze no oto |
|
gelled broth . . .
always in my chest
the sound of wind |
-
ISHIHARA Yatsuka (1919 - 1998) |
| n.b.
"Gelled broth" (nikogori) is solidified jelly from cooked fish,
for example, sometimes eaten cold at breakfast. |
| mone no [suiren]
no sekai no oku ya oto mo nashi |
|
deep in this world
of Monet water lilies . . .
no sound |
- Elizabeth Searle LAMB (b. 1917) |
| yuhhi kage
umi no himaku no yuragi keri |
|
the lake sways
in its skin of shadows
just before sundown |
-
Geraldine Clinton LITTLE (1924 - 1997) |
| yuki
wa kurabukuro no ue ni dokuro ni hi |
|
snow
on the saddle bags
sun in skull |
-
Cor van den HEUVEL (b. 1931) |
| Reviews: |
the snowpeas
cool in my fingers
I pluck morning |
-
KAMEGAYA Chie (1909 - 1994)
|
|
After schooling in Tokyo, Chie married a Japanese-Canadian
and emigrated to Canada. The couple were separated and interned
in relocation camps deep in British Columbia during World
War II. After the war, she worked at several jobs, including
teaching Japanese to Canadian Nisei and others. This poem
is from her one small, bilingual haiku collection, "Seasons
in New Denver", published in 1994. I find it striking for
its strong tactile sensations--the texture and coolness of
the snowpeas--and its positive energy. In English, we would
say she was a plucky woman, making a life for herself and
her husband in difficult circumstances. |
|
the lake sways
in its skin of shadows
just before sundown |
-
Geraldine Clinton LITTLE (1924 - 1997)
|
|
Gerrie, as her friends called her, did not start writing
poems until her mid-40s. She wrote and published many haiku,
sonnets, and modern free-verse poems and became a fairly well-known
poet in her generation, serving for a number of years as a
vice president of the Poetry Society of America and also as
President of the Haiku Society of America. This haiku, from
her collection "Star-Mapped" published in 1989, expresses
something I recall from much time spent on various lakes during
the summer. Just before dusk, a calm lake often seems most
alive--not with birds, fish, and other animals, but the lake
itself. It moves as if shrugging off the day and settling
down for night. Gerrie's unique expression "sways in its skin
of shadows" captures just that feeling. |
|
|
snow
on the saddle bags
sun in skull |
-
Cor van den HEUVEL (b. 1931)
|
|
This, the title poem from one of the first small collections
of American haiku, "Sun in Skull" published in 1961, was virtually
unknown until about ten years later, when Cor connected with
our haiku community through the Haiku Society of America in
New York. Cor grew up in rural Maine, and went to California
as a young man. Active in the North Beach scene in the San
Francisco Bay Area, he experimented with incorporating fresh
images of both rural and urban life in his haiku. This poem,
one of a number using images from American Western Movies
of the 1940s and 1950s, has stuck in my skull ever since I
first read it. In December 2002, Cor recieved a Masaoka Shiki
International Haiku Prize, in part because he has edited three
successive editions of "The Haiku Anthology", the most widely-read
book of English-language haiku. But I will always think of
him first for his own exciting American haiku. |
|
