Dear
Haijin, visitors and travelers,
It's Wednesday again and it's time for a new
episode of Tokubetsudesu. This week I love to tell you more
about one of the most delightful concepts of haiku writing, Karumi (or
Lightness). The concept of Karumi isn't a new idea, it comes from the other
Japanese arts and Basho has tried to bring that Karumi concept into haiku
writing in the, say, last ten years of his life.
It's the last episode of March which I couldn't publish because of the circumstances then, so here it is our last episode "In The Way of Basho" in which we explored the haiku writing techniques used by the master.
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| Matsuo Basho (1644-1694) |
Basho has meant a lot for haiku. He created
several new ideas and writing techniques and was really a master of haiku.
During his life Basho became in a way a Zen-Buddhist (he studied under Butcho,
a Zen Buddhist monk), however he was never really a monk, only during his
journeys.In his time the Japanese roads weren't great,
sometimes only small paths and travelers often were robbed along the way. The most travelers chose to
travel like a monk or priest, because that provided them free and save passage.
Basho also traveled like a monk or priest, clothed in a black robe and a shaved
head.
Basho had a big group of disciples and
followers close around him, but also widely spread over Japan.
Basho, the traveling poet (he undertook his
journeys almost all in the last ten years of his life), had one goal in his
last years. He was anxious to spread his idea, his concept, of Karumi
(Lightness) in haiku. He even went on journeys to preach that concept
notwithstanding his bad health. A lot of his disciples turned their back to
him, because they wouldn't accept (or understand) his idea of Karumi.
Basho, however, tried strongly to
"preach" his karumi idea, a technique which was known only from other
kinds of Japanese art, for haiku. It's said that he himself managed this
technique badly, because he couldn't find the right words to explain what
karumi was. There are a few haiku by Basho in which karumi can be found. Here
are a few examples:
under the trees
soup and pickles
cherry blossoms
© Basho (Tr. Jane Reichhold)
Ko no moto
wa shiru mo namasu mo sakura kana
Underneath
the trees,
soups and salads are buried
In cherry blossoms.
Uguisu ya mochi
ni fun suru en no saki
A spring
warbler casts
A dropping on the rice cakes —
he veranda
edge..
© Basho
What is karumi?
Bashô
developed this concept during his final travels in 1693. Karumi is perhaps one
of the most important and least understood principles of haiku poetry. Karumi
can best be described as “lightness,” or a sensation of spontaneity. In many
ways, karumi is a principle rooted in the “spirit” of haiku, rather than a
specific technique. Bashô taught his students to think of karumi as “looking at
the bottom of a shallow stream”. When karumi is incorporated into haiku, there
is often a sense of light humor or child-like wonderment at the cycles of the
natural world. Many haiku using karumi are not fixed on external rules, but
rather an unhindered expression of the poet’s thoughts or emotions. This does
not mean that the poet forgets good structure; just that the rules of structure
are used in a natural manner. In my opinion, karumi is “beyond” technique and
comes when a poet has learned to internalize and use the principles of the art
interchangeably.
In a way it
brought me another idea. Traditionally, and especially in Edo Japan, women did
not have the male privelege of expanding their horizons, so their truth or
spirituality was often found in the mundane. Women tend to validate daily life
and recognize that miracles exist within the mundane, which is the core of
haiku.There were females who did compose haiku, which were called
"kitchen-haiku" by literati, but these "kitchen-haiku" had
all the simplicity and lightness of karumi ... In a way Basho taught males to
write like females, with more elegance and beauty, based on the mundane
(simple) life of that time.
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| Morning Glories |
Shiba
Sonome, a female haiku poet, learned about karumi from Basho: “Learn about a
pine tree from a pine tree, and about a bamboo plant from a bamboo plant.”
The poet
should detach the mind from his own self. Nevertheless, some people interpret
the word ‘learn’ in their own ways and never really ‘learn’. ‘Learn’ means to
enter into the object, perceive its delicate life, and feel its feeling,
whereupon a poem forms itself. Even a poem that lucidly describes an object
could not attain a true poetic sentiment unless it contains the feelings that
spontaneously emerged out of the object. In such a poem the object and the
poet’s self would remain forever separate, for it was composed by the poet’s
personal self.
Basho also
said, “In my view a good poem is one in which the form of the verse, and the
joining of its two parts, seem light as a shallow river flowing over its sandy
bed”.
That, then,
is karumi: becoming as one with the
object of your poem … experiencing what it means to be that object … feeling
the life of the object … allowing the poem to flow from that feeling and that
experience.
An example
by Basho:
White chrysanthemum
I look holding it straight
no dust at all
© Basho
And a few by Yozakura, the unknown haiku-poet
at dawn
I wash my feet with dew
the longest day
 |
| Sakura (woodblock) also Karumi |
feeling
alone
lost in the woods around Edo –
just the
autumn wind
© Yozakura
Karumi is
lightness, simplicity, becoming one with the experience you have on that moment
when you are composing your haiku. Karumi is, in my opinion, a higher level of
the concept of Wabi Sabi.
I think
karumi can only be the concept for your haiku when you are not only a haiku
poet, but also living haiku ... Living haiku is being one with the world around
you including nature and enjoying the emptiness, loneliness and oneness of
being part of nature as a human. A haiku poet (in my opinion) lives with
nature, adores nature, praises nature and respects nature.
Haiku is
not only a wonderful poem ... it's a life-style.
just one
leaf
struggles
with the wind
like Basho
©
Chèvrefeuille
And here
another one in which I hope I have touched karumi:
slowly a
snail seeks
his path
between Cherry blossoms
reaches for the sky
© Chèvrefeuille
Well I hope
you did like this "lost episode". And I hope that it will
inspire you to write an all new haiku, trying to catch karumi.
This episode is NOW OPEN for your submissions and will remain open until May 2nd at noon (CET). I will try to publish our new episode, kites, later on. For now .... have fun!
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