Carpe Diem Preview: A taste of Basho's school for haiku, our new feature, soon to come: Hosomi

 

Dear Haijin, visitors and travelers,

I just had to publish a post, just ... because it has been a while. As I told you in our recent CDHK Extra post I will start with a new feature here at Carpe Diem Haiku Kai. That new feature is titled "Basho's School at Carpe Diem Haiku Kai".

In this new feature I hope to share the knowledge of Basho, as he taught at his school. I am looking forward to that new feature, and today I love to give you already a "taste" of it.

Hosomi

Poets are often seen as highly sensitive people, people that can hear and see what ordinary people don't hear or see, as if poets have a thin thread bound to the heart of the essence of life, connected with all and everything around them. Poets have the gift to see the most tiny things around them, think for example about that gorgeous haiku by Basho about "Shepherd's Purse":

furu hata ya nazuna hana saku kakine kana

if you look closely
a Sheperd's Purse flowering
underneath the hedge

© Matsuo Basho (1686)

In Basho's School this hyper-sensitivity is called "hosomi". Poets who are enlightened can find that inner spot to become one with their surroundings, one with nature, as if they are becoming part of it. A kind of hyper-sensitivity for that what you cannot see and that's not visible for others.

Part of this "hosomi" we can see in several haiku by classical haiku poets. An example:

a breath of fresh air -
the voice of the pine trees
fills the empty sky

© Ueshima Onitsura (1661-1738) (Tr. Chèvrefeuille)

In this beautiful haiku by Onitsura we read, what is called "hosomi" ... "the voice of the pine trees, fills the empty sky". This is what "hosomi" is. 

In Western poetry, "hosomi", is the same like "hyperbole" or "exaggeration". Exaggeration is used already several decates to create haiku with. So let us look at another example, maybe you can see the "hyperbole" or "exaggeration".

is that the murmur of the mist -
that almost imperceptible
there among the birches?

© Mizuhara Shuoshi (1822-1981) (Tr. Chèvrefeuille)

I think this "hosomi", this "hyperbole" is a wonderful technique to use in your haiku (or tanka). The goal for this "taste of Basho's School" is to create a haiku (or tanka) in which you use this "hosomi" or "hyperbole".

Here is my haiku in which I hope you can see this "hosomi", this "hyperbole":

deep silence
I can hear the grass grow -
a new day rises

© Chèvrefeuille, your host.

This episode is NOW OPEN for your submissions. You can click on our logo (at the bottom of this episode) to submit your haiku in which you use this "hosomi", this "hyperbole" haiku writing technique.

Carpe Diem Weekend Meditation #117 the cold night

!! Open for your submissions next Sunday, February 23rd at 7:00 PM (CET) !!

Dear Haijin, visitors and travelers,

Welcome at a new weekend meditation here at our wonderful Haiku Kai. I am a bit late with publishing, but I am in the nightshift. This weekend I will give you a nice "fusion-ku" challenge, or "crossroads". That nice special feature in which I ask you to create a "fusion-ku" from two given haiku. Your "fusion-ku" you have to use to create a Troiku (more about Troiku, you can find above in the menu).

Here are the two haiku to create your fusion-ku with and create your Troiku:

spring snow
purifies earth and heaven
our enemies perish

© Mizuhara Shûôshi

the cold night
comes out of the stones
all morning

© Jim Kacian

stones

Two beautiful haiku, with two very different scenes ... both haiku-poets are modern time poets and they are both well known also.

Your task ... create a "fusion-ku" from the two haiku given and create with your "fusion-ku" a Troiku, that nice modern way of creating haiku, based on the Russian sleigh "troika".

Have a wonderful weekend. This weekend meditation is open for your submissions next Sunday February 23rd at 7:00 PM (CET) and will remain open until March 1st at noon (CET).

Carpe Diem Tan Renga Wednesday #13 Winter Chrysanthemum

Dear Haijin, visitors and travelers,

Welcome at a new episode of our Tan Renga Wednesday, that nice special feature about Tan Renga. Your goal is to create a Tan Renga with a given haiku by adding your two-lined stanza through association.

Here is the haiku to work with:

Winter chrysanthemum,
Wearing nothing
but its own light

© Mizuhara Shūōshi (1892-1981)

Winter Chrysanthemum (Japanese Woodblock print by Kono Bairei)

This episode of our Tan Renga Wednesday is NOW OPEN for your submissions and will remain open until February 18th at noon (CET). Have fun!

Carpe Diem #1518 Inkstone and pencil (free style)

Dear Haijin, visitors and travelers,

Nowadays we have computers, tablets and smart-phones we can as we are writing our haiku, tanka and more. By the way I am a little bit old-fashioned, because I still use paper and pen before writing our episodes for CDHK. I love to write old-fashioned, because than I can strikethrough what I have written before I publish it.

In Basho's days they used inkstone and a pencil, like we do nowadays with Sumi-e. Basho, as a traveling poet used those materials very often. It was easy to take it with him and it made it easy to write immediately.

I remember that we had the same theme in our 4th anniversary month, I will give you the URL to that post at the end so you can revisit it. I searched the Internet for a few examples of haiku in which "inkstone and pencil" are used, this example you will know:

suzuri ka to hirou ya kuboki ishi no tsuyu

Saigyo's inkstone?
I pick it up -- dew
on the concave rock

© Matsuo Basho (Tr. Barnhill)

Inkstone

Jane Reichhold's translation of this haiku by Basho I like more:

"inkstone"
picking up a hollow stone
with dew

© Basho (Tr. Jane Reichhold)

I also found a few examples of haiku on inkstone by Issa and Buson. Here are those haiku:

iiwake no tegata ni kooru suzuri kana

upon writing a note
of apology, ice
in my ink-stone

© Issa (Tr. David Lanoue)

kiku no tsuyu ukete suzuri no inochi kana

chrysanthemum dew
is the life blood 
of this ink stone

yamadera no suzuri ni hayashi hatsugoori 

the ink stone
of this mountain temple has it early -
the first ice 

© Buson (Tr. Gabi Greve)

young maple leaves (photo © Olga Volodina)

Another nice classical haiku by a not so renown haiku poet is the following:

waka-kaede kage sasu suzuri araikeri

young maple leaves 
cast a shadow 
I wash my inkstone 

© Mizuhara Shuoshi (Tr. Gabi Greve) (1892-1981)

(*) inkstone is translated in Japanese as "suzuri"

For closure I have a nice haiku from my archives on inkstone:

pen and inkstone
the only things needed on this
uninhabited Island

© Chèvrefeuille

A nice collection of haiku I think. I hope it will inspire you all to create your own Japanese poetry. As you can read in the title you can write in the free-style way. The haiku translation by Jane is an example of "free style", in the free style way you can let go of the rules for writing haiku.

This episode is open for youre submissions tonight at 7:00 PM (CEST) and will remain open until October 16th at noon (CEST). I will try to publish our new episode later on. For now .... have fun!

Revisit: "pencil and inkstone" episode 1070 October 1st 2016

Carpe Diem Tan Renga Challenge Month May 29th: "a single frosty rose" by Mizuhara Shuoshi (1892-1981)

Dear Haijin, visitors and travelers,

Today I have a nice "hokku" of a "classical" haiku poet for you. I had never heard of him, but I ran accidentally to a haiku by him and I liked that haiku very much. Let me introduce to you Mizuhara Shuoshi.

Mizuhara Shuoshi (1892-1981) was a 20th century Japanese poet who was responsible for a trend towards greater emotional expression in haiku.
Shuoshi was the son of a doctor who ran a medical clinic, and as eldest son, he followed in his father’s footsteps and went into medicine. He studied serology, obstetrics, and gynecology at Tokyo University, graduating in 1926. He taught at Showa Medical College, practiced in his father’s clinic, and in 1932 was appointed to the prestigious post of medical advisor to the Ministry of the Imperial Household.
He began writing tanka and haiku as an undergraduate. In the 1920s, he was published in Hototogisu and his poetry was acclaimed. However, he felt restricted by the conservative principles of Takahama Kyoshi and his followers and declared his defection in a 1931 essay, "Truth in Nature and Truth in Literature". Unlike many poets, who rebelled against the rules like the 17 syllable count, Shuoshi instead felt that Kyoshi’s principles of emotional detachment limited his ability to emotionally express himself through poetry. Shuoshi and his followers started a magazine called Staggerbush and dedicated themselves to a more romantic, lyrical type of haiku.
Shuoshi retired from medicine in 1952 and began a series of visits to Buddhist temples. During his life, he published around 20 volumes of haiku. 

Mizuhara Shuoshi (1892-1981)

Before I give you our "hokku" for todays Tan Renga Challenge I love to share a few other haiku written by Mizuhara Shuoshi:

 

woodpecker—
leaves quickly fall
in the meadow

Japanese rain
on the cherry blossoms
moistens his statue

singing skylark...
against the wind blowing through pines,
has descended

lion-dance dancer
shading his eyes with his hand to look
at Mt. Fuji in the sunset

Color of Spring, lion dance at the mansion (woodblock-print by Utagawa Kuniaki (1844-1868))

Mizuhara Shuoshi wrote a lot of haiku and tanka as you could read above. The haiku I shared here are really beautiful, but the one we are going to use is in my opinion a masterpiece, but that's just my humble opinion.

Here is our "hokku" by Mizuhara Shuoshi:

A new year begins
With the blooming
Of a single frosty rose

© Mizuhara Shuoshi

A nice "hokku" to start our Tan Renga with. Here is my attempt to make this Tan Renga complete:

A new year begins
With the blooming
Of a single frosty rose                               (Mizuhara Shuoshi)

clouds of breath pointing the way
towards the old Shinto shrine                      (Chèvrefeuille)

Not as strong as I had hoped. I also don't know for sure if the breath you can see when it is cold is called "clouds of breath".

This episode is open for your submissions tonight at 7.00 PM (CET) and will remain open until June 2nd at noon (CET). I will publish our new "hokku" on our Twitter account.