Ban'ya Natsuishi / Right Eye in Twilight

Ban’ya Natsuishi
BIOGRAPHY 

 RIGHT EYE IN TWILIGHT

Ban'ya Natsuishi's haiku collection, RIGHT EYE IN TWILIGHT, has English translations by Ban'ya Natsuishi and Jack Galmitz. The haiku are beautifully set out two to a page with English translations below the Japanese originals. The book is divided into six sections: 1. YUGOSLAVIAN SNAKE; 2. HOLIDAYS IN FRANKFURT; 3. FOLLOWING THE MOON; 4. THE RESURRECTION; 5. RIGHT EYE IN TWILIGHT and 6. MY WAY HOME. Line drawings separate each section.

Ban'ya Natsuishi is a prolific poet. A biographical note, a list of his awards, a selection of his main Japanese publications and overseas publications are given at the end of the book.

He has been hampered by illness in his latter years but he manages to overcome the problems and to continue creating poems with the added awareness of a poet who is threatened with loss of vision; hence the title of the book, RIGHT EYE IN TWILIGHT, and the section of poems of the same name.

He has a unique haiku voice and a professorial eye for significant detail and for the mysteries that he finds in daily life. So he composes his haiku clearly, yet with imagination, and flair. Natsuishi doesn't translate the haiku in 5/7/5 form, but with a flexible style that varies from poem to poem, as in the following haiku from the first section, YUGOSLAVIAN SNAKE:

           

A sick day off from work:

            I receive haiku

            of a Yugoslavian snake

This poem expresses a familiar scene - that of being unwell - yet he is still able to work editing the haiku that have come to him from overseas.

In another poem in this section, the poet refers to his illness

           

Illness in one eye:

            I'm walking

            like a goldfish

The second section, HOLIDAYS IN FRANKFURT, take the reader to Germany where we see a

           

Plaza where books were burned . . .

            now only acacia's flowers

            falling

Sixty years have passed since the Second World War, but we remember (or are aware) of the burning of books. This striking image reminds us of the futility of war and the necessity for peace in the lives of ordinary people. It also reminds us that we should respect other people and their property.

Another sombre haiku from this section is the following:

           

Every flower withered -

            Erika now

            on the cloud

We don't know who Erika is, but we are made aware of her passing. The author is probably thinking about the way in which nature dies and is reborn and the brevity of human life which flowers again in the next life. There is pleasure in contemplating this philosophical haiku.

FOLLOWING THE MOON is a section of travel haiku: we follow the poet on his journey from a remembrance of Japan to Trieste, the Adriatic and on to Ljubljana.

            Following the moon

            from the border

            to the mountain church

is an excellent sketch haiku. Its beautiful description of moonlight, border and mountain church is easy to see in the mind's eye. One can imagine the tiny church, bathed in moonlight, sheltering in the mountains. Another descriptive haiku in this section is

           

A fountain and a bookshop

            behind the church

            in Ljubljana

In the next section, THE RESURRECTION, we are in New York after the destruction of the World Trade Centre:

            New York -

            the terror of dust

            toying with sundown

Here, the alliteration of the 't' in the haiku adds to its value. The words 'terror' and 'toying' are almost opposite words, both used to describe the carnage.

The awareness everyone now has of terrorists is neatly summed up in the following haiku:

           

December

            suddenly an evil look turned toward me

            in a train

The meaning is so clear that readers will understand it without effort.

In Section five, RIGHT EYE IN TWILIGHT, we can see the effect illness has on the poet's sight. The new century brings no relief:

            White mud piles up

            in my right eye -

            a new century

This haiku says that the poet can only see "white mud" with his "right eye". Then he tells us it is "a new century": a time when we may expect things to change, where there should be hope of a better future but, unfortunately, the poet has to come to terms with his gradual loss of sight, probably the one sense he values above the others.

           

Mt. Fuji covered with snow

            a professor will operate

            on a professor

is a more humorous haiku, where two men are equal in a professional capacity, although one is a patient and the other a doctor. Mt. Fuji in the background covered with a blanket of snow symbolises the poet's white and clouded eye.

In MY WAY HOME, the poet is recovering from his operation and thinking about going home.

            On the professor's way home

            a calico cat, a stump

            and amaryllis

This is a lighter haiku to break the solemn mood. The professor can still see and he points out three images for us "a calico cat", "a stump" and "amaryllis". The poet is now starting to recover and is hopefully on a new journey of discovery.

The book ends with the haiku

           

Within the hospital

            Hawaiian mineral water

            house-dust hovering

In this haiku, the hospital, with all its associated pain, the freshness of mineral water and the atmosphere of dust are clearly felt. The third line, "house-dust hovering" effectively conveys the impression of this moment which the author observes with poignancy and relief.

reviewer: Patricia Prime.

Poem by Ban'ya Natsuishi

BAN'YA NATSUISHI: THE EMBRACE OF PLANETS

THE EMBRACE OF PLANETS is an ambitious book of haiku, not only in the amount contained, but in the translations from Japanese into Romanian by Vasile Moldovan; into English by Jack Galmitz, James Shea, Richard Gilbert, Stephen Henry Gill, Jim Kacian, David G. Lanoue and Ban'ya Natsuishi; into French by Alain Kervern and Ban'ya Natsuishi and into Italian by Giorgio Gazzolo, Luca Toma, and Toni Piccini.

There are 111 haiku inside this tiny pocket sized book. The beauty of a book this small is that it is easily carried about, enabling a quick reading of the book, say on the train or bus, over a few days.

There are some wonderful haiku contained within, but one or two have missed something in being translated or adapted into English. However, notwithstanding, the majority are well written.

           

Into the sea of Japan

            lightning's tail

            is plunged

            The embrace of planets

            depends often on

            rumors

            The fever of Genoa

            poetry, soccer

            and ambulances

            The crescent noon

            and the cross align together —

            night in the capital

The entire book is best read as it is divided, in sequences. The writer has organised his material as a type of travelogue, each section representing different countries and cities. In each area, the writer captures the essence of where he is within the small space of the haiku sequences very well, each haiku adds in turn to this overall spirit.

The last sequence of the book catalogues everyday moments distilled from a hospital procedure which sounds like a cataract operation:

           

During the operation

            many times I saw

            a solar eclipse

and follows the progress of the patient: The first view:

            a singing blue

            in the corner of my eye

THE EMBRACE OF PLANETS repays close reading many times and gives a unique insight into another culture's view of the world. Indeed, it could be described as one person's warm embrace of many cultures.

reviewer: Barbara Smith.

BAN'YA NATSUISHI: ENDLESS HELIX

The book is divided into two parts. The first part of the book is called CONCENTRIC CIRCLES. This part presents haiku in Portuguese, English, French, Spanish, and Lithuanian, with one haiku per page. The haiku are contemplative in nature:

           

Where there was a tree

            near the pure spring —

            the noise of saws

This is a somewhat sad poem, and so is the one below, which turns inwardly:

            Under the scorching sun

            I have forgotten

            how to love myself

The second part of the book is called DREAMS. These poems are reminiscent of the naga uta style. They are indeed dreamlike:

           

             Run away, run away

            into the mountain behind the house!

            Planes are dropping bombs.

            And I push my way through pines and ferns.

            I climb deep into the mountain.

            From a path, in a squatting position,

            I gaze up at

            the black serpentine belly of a plane.

This is Ban'ya Natsuishi's third book. He was born in Japan and he is a Professor at Meiji University. He was one of the founding members of the World Haiku Association in Slovenia, and is currently the Director of this association. He is a much loved teacher and in 2002 was awarded the Hekigodo Kawahigashi Prize of the 21 Ehime Culture Foundation, which I was honoured to review.

http://www.geraldengland.co.uk/revs/bs209.htm

Ban'ya Natsuishi / Stupidy and Poetry

Dead Birds

Stupidity and Poetry

By Ban’ya Natsuishi*
BIOGRAPHY

Speech to the World Meeting of Directors of International Poetry Festivals

After Japan’s recent catastrophes of an earthquake, a tsunami, and the consequent nuclear reactor explosion in March of 2011, I find myself thinking of the human condition and its stupidity; first, of Japanese stupidity and then more generally of the stupidity of humanity. I’m obsessed with the idea of human stupidity for these many months.

After the Second World War, French intellectuals, such as Albert Camus and Jean Paul Sartre, looking upon the devastation and ruins of Europe brought about by the ferocity of total war, designed a philosophy and literature in keeping with the irrationality, the stupidity at the heart of humanity and nature. The philosophy they created was existentialism and the literature the theater of the absurd and novel of the absurd.

One of my early haiku has parallels with the existential position of the absurdity of the human condition.

驢馬ノ耳ヘ駸駸トシテ嘔吐スベシ

You must vomit

at full gallop

into a donkey’s ear

(Ban’ya Natsuishi, Shinku-ritsu, 1987, Japan)

After the disasters in Japan in March 2011, though I have not visited the devastated Northeast region of my country, where many cities and villages were simply washed away by the sea’s fury in the tsunami, I cannot forget the riveting images of the tsunami’s catastrophic path of destruction in dirty black and white images broadcast on television. I wrote some haiku based upon my raw response to these events and images.

すべてをなめる波の巨大な舌に愛なし

No love:
a giant tongue of waves
licking everything

誰も見つめられない津波に消された人たち

People deleted
by the tsunami
anyone can stare up

(Ginyu No. 50, May 2011, Japan)

The images I viewed of the tsunami confirmed, as if there were any doubt, that nature is immeasurable in expanse compared to humanity and existentially indifferent to humanity. For the multi-cosmoses man is not even an ant. Needless to say, then, our love for nature is extremely unreasonable. It’s a ridiculous or absurd unrequited love.

And, the question poses itself, especially for writers of haiku, can we really say that nature is beautiful? Can we love nature without hesitation? Can we continue to look at nature as “Mother Nature,” as nurturing nature? The answers to these questions can be found, but these answers would require a rethinking of our mediocre and superficial ideas about nature that have abounded in haiku for centuries.

I feel like I am living like a ghost in capital area of Japan, where physical damage from the three-fold catastrophes of March 2011 is minimal. Almost all the buildings are intact. We don’t find rain of glass fallen from buildings, as I imagined we would after a gigantic earthquake. In fact, only the frequency of trains has been reduced, and some lights have disappeared from the streets. Nevertheless, our streets are still much brighter than European streets. Honestly, only some loss of electricity has occurred. I wrote a haiku to highlight these facts:

極東の不夜城へ津波千年の怒り

For a nightless castle in the Far East
tsunami is an anger
of one thousand years

(Ginyu No. 50, May 2011, Japan)

Concerning radioactivity, our situation is without parallel. Scattered radioactivity might surpass Chernobyl. Fukushima is the notorious capital of radioactivity. I feel that I must express a sincere and humble apology for this unbelievable and dishonorable fact.

Japanese people experienced the A-bomb attacks in Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945. Sankichi Toge, a Japanese poet and an A-bomb survivor of Hiroshima ended his poem “Flames” (Honoo) with these lines:

1945, Aug. 6まひるの中の真夜 人間が神に加えた たしかな火刑。 この一夜 ひろしまの火光は 人類の寝床に映り 歴史はやがて すべての神に似るものを 待ち伏せる

6 August 1945
midnight in high noon
a god was surely burnt at the stake
by men
this night
fires of Hiroshima
reflected on the bed of the human race
then the history
ambushing
something like all the gods

(Sankichi Toge’s Collected Poems about A-bomb, 2003, Japan)

This “something like all the gods” suggests the end of the world, at least as we previously understood it. Is it found also in Fukushima’s burning nuclear fires? These invisible fires are now the rulers of Japan’s continued history. I will dare to say that ambushing “something like all the gods” is Japan’s stupidity that permitted the placement of nuclear reactors from the United States on its pure land even after twice experiencing the unspeakable horror of A-bomb attacks on our islands. In this case, Japan is both responsible and a victim, having forgotten its horrendous previous nuclear experiences. Oblivion lies at the heart of Japan’s stupidity.

In addition to Japanese stupidity, I cannot exonerate the whole of humanity and its stupidity in relying on potentially uncontrollable nuclear reactor accidents and decisively on nuclear weapons.

What can a single man do in the face of this stupidity, this fearlessness in the face of the ferocious? As a haiku poet, I wrote this haiku as a response:

愚かさや海岸の怪獣へ津波

Stupidity:
the tsunami towards
a monster on the seashore

(Ginyu No. 50, May 2011, Japan)

I wonder to myself whether not just the Japanese but are all human beings subject to stupidity? I can answer either yes or no, given the possibility of human wisdom.

In Japan right now, we are experiencing another form of stupidity and that involves Japanese television and newspapers. Japanese coverage of the disasters of March 2011, particularly the Fukushima nuclear reactor breakdown has indulged in misinforming the public. It may be the destiny of any mass media in any country, but since March 11, 2011, Japanese news’ coverage has gone to been engaged in grave excesses to hide the truth, constantly reiterating that “there is no problem, no problem.” This repeated lying to the populace is inexcusable and another example of stupidity.

The consequence of repeatedly lying to the people about the situation in Fukushima’s nuclear reactor has been a complete loss of credibility in the news. People without truth are like ghosts, insubstantial. Contrary to the current situation, Japanese poetry has always believed in the strength and truth of words. At the beginning of the 10th century, a Japanese tanka poet, Tsurayuki Kino, opened his preface of a tanka anthology, compiled by Imperial command, “Kokin-waka-shu,” with quite a confident and suggestive phrase about the nature of language:

やまとうたは人の心を種として万の言の葉とぞなれりける。（中略）生きとし生けるものいづれか歌をよまざりける。

The meaning in English of the above quote is that the human heart is the seed of Japanese tanka poetry, and from it sprouts out numerous leaves; every creature with life, why doesn’t it compose a poem?

Tsurayuki Kino expresses here the poetics of animism quite similar in its way to the beliefs held in pre-Colombian South America. For the Japanese, animals, plants, and men were equally creative and vital poets since birth. Japanese poetry had been tightly connected to all of the vivifying powers of the natural world since its beginnings. Japanese poetry as the expression of the truth of the world was always considered one of the most important aspects of the cosmos.

The essence of Japanese poetry is haiku. It’s greatest masterpiece was achieved in 1689 by Matsuo Basho; in the poem Basho sings a dynamic triangle of nature. Here is the poem:

荒海や佐渡に横たふ天の河

Rough sea--
over Sado isle
extends the Milky Way

This poem is not a mere landscape. This short poem creates a verbal nebula composed of three elements: sea, isle, and Milky Way. Men reside on the isle. For Basho, the nature involving men is the source of poetical and vital power, even if nature shows man no hospitality. Basho was not a simple ecologist; he was an animist with a deep understanding of the unstable and dynamic cosmos.

It’s very easy to say now that Japan’s current stupidity came from a loss of the consciousness of its animistic background. This loss, which highlights human nature at the expense of nature itself, actually levels human activity and leaves it insubstantial and lacking relationship.

On the other hand, what is the main reason for the stupidity of the whole of humanity? Human ego-centrism? Human greed? Human jealousy? Mere ignorance?

After attending many international poetry festivals, I found that so-called human civilization and developed nations had lost the need for poetry and its power. Needless to say, I’m not coming to the defense of communism as an alternative, because it is so often related to suppression and deception.

But, in so-called civilized and developed “free” countries, people seem to be separated from the totality and plenitude of nature, both human and non-human.

On the occasion of guest lectures delivered at Meiji University in Tokyo in 2007, one of my best overseas’ friends, one of the most excellent of Lithuanian poets, Kornelijus Platelis, mentioned a most interesting observation. He said that during the Soviet occupation of Lithuania, poetry was everything for people who had to endure the occupation. Of course, poetry was many things to the people: it was poetry, it was journalism, it was joy, it was challenge, it was tearful. Books of poetry sold very well at that time.

After the independence of his country from Soviet domination, this independence that triggered the collapse of the Soviet Union, poetry has diminished in importance; it is viewed as it is in the West, in general.

The above example shows us that poetry is the essential core of a culture, and westernization and capitalism make poetry minor and secondary in culture.

Platelis wrote a haiku that is very instructive in this regard:

Miškas skendi savy,
tik po storu ledu
upokšnis be garso alma.

A forest has sunk into itself
while under a thick ice
a river trickles.

森は重みで沈み 厚い氷の下 川はちょろちょろ流れる

(Ginyu No. 31, July 2006, Japan)

Poetry, of course, including haiku, may be “a river” under “a thick ice.” Our stupidities: personal, regional, international are the “thick ice.” Poetry cannot resolve our stupidities, but poetry continues to live nonetheless.

Any poet of excellence might not escape from stupidities, but he or she can give birth to poetry like a groundwater. A groundwater might dry up, but it continues to stream, even if the ground becomes desert.

In my youth, when I had a promising future, I wrote the following haiku:

未来より滝を吹き割る風来たる

From the future
a wind arrives
that blows the waterfall apart

Desde el futuro
Llega un viento
Que desparrama la cascada

(Ban’ya Natsuishi, Métroplitique, 1985, Japan)

Poetry as a groundwater can become such a cosmogonic waterfall.

* Japan poet.

International Poetry Festival Tokio´s Director.