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These are short reviews of various haiku books and related books I've read.
Ones I recommend strongly are marked with the exclamation point:
Introductions to Haiku
Haiku |
The Haiku Handbook
Haiku Theory
One Hundred Frogs |
The Japanese Haiku |
Traces of Dreams
Traditional Japanese Haiku
The Classic Tradition of Haiku |
The Essential Haiku |
A Net of Fireflies
Haiku Master Buson |
Haiku: The Poetry of Zen
Other Traditional Japanese Poetry
One Hundred Poems |
Kanshi |
The Ink Dark Moon |
Saigyo
100 Poems by 100 Poets |
Zen Poetry
Haibun
A Haiku Journey |
Basho's Narrow Road |
The Spring of My Life
Modern Japanese Anthologies
Modern Japanese Tanka
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Cage of Fireflies
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Modern Japanese Poetry
Non-Japanese General Anthologies
The Haiku Anthology
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Haiku Moment |
A Solitary Leaf |
Midwest Haiku Anthology
Special Topic Anthologies
Heiwa (Peace)
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A Haiku Menagerie (Animals) |
101 Corporate Haiku (Business)
Outcry from the Inferno (Atomic Bomb Tanka)
This is the book that first got me interested in haiku. It's wonderful wonderful.
It's an anthology of contemporary English-language haiku with a willingness to have a broad
definition of what constitutes haiku. It has lots of good stuff in it, so I hate to
quote so few -- go out and read the whole book. Probably my favorite haiku in
the book is this first one by Bob Boldman. It combines such an odd mixture of feelings
in a very stark image. The last one by John Wills is great for its syntax and its
movement. Marlene Mountain also does a great job of capturing the
heat, the sights, and the sounds of a single moment in an incredibly
concise statement.
JANUARY FIRST
the fingers of the prostitute cold
-- Bob Boldman
summer night clothes whirling in a dryer
-- Marlene Mountain
dusk from rock to rock a waterthrush
-- John Wills
Robert Hass has put together an excellent collection of traditional Japanese haiku.
He has translated most of them quite well, and does an excellent job of
describing their context and of selecting and ordering the poems. Buson is my
favorite of the three Japanese poets presented -- he does an amazing job
at imagery. Basho, to be honest, is not one of my favorite -- as one of the
earliest haiku poets, he strikes me as having many good ideas, but not
being quite so skilled at writing -- of course, to be fair, that's really hard
to judge in translation. Issa has a nice light-hearted view of the world,
but he also seems to be less skilled in description, though I love
Issa's haibun. Nevertheless, I expect
you'll like the few I've picked out here.
Lightning --
and in the dark
the screech of a night heron.
-- Basho
Tethered horse;
snow
in both stirrups.
-- Buson
Snow is melting
and the village is flooded
with children.
-- Issa
A great and highly-readable book of modern tanka. The introduction gives
a solid introduction to the development of modern tanka, both from Japanese
and Western influences. Twenty poets are featured with a short biography
of each and a nice introductory selection. The poems are varied and
interesting. Definitely worth reading.
This is a selection of classic Japanese poetry in translation (the original
Japanese is there too). The poems, mostly tanka/waka, are not my favorite
selection -- mostly court poetry without a lot of the intensity nor the
imagery common in later Japanese haiku and tanka. Nevertheless, the
translations seem fairly good and the poems are all quite accessible.
A thoroughly enjoyable book for those who are interested in the history
and analysis of poetry. This book is the best and most thorough introduction
to renga that I've read. The chapters don't hang together entirely -- they
seem to be a collection of essays published separately, but that's fine.
The best gem of this book is the large collection of alternate translations
of Basho's classic frog poem. Here's my translation:
furuike ya kawazu tobikomu mizu no oto
an old pond,
frog-leaping :
water's sound...
This is a healthy collection of English-language haiku. I'd say it's much
less innovative and much less exciting than The Haiku Anthology. The poems
are almost all on nature themes, without a lot of further depth or insight.
Still, for a traditional view of what haiku should be, this collection
represents it well and presents poems which are direct and clear.
Furthermore, having over 800 poems and 185 poets, nothing beats an anthology
for giving you a broad sense of what various writers are doing and what
can be done with haiku.
Though a short book (78 pages), the collection is a good one:
classic haiku from the 15th to 19th century with a wide selection
from many different authors. I hate footnotes, but this book puts all
of its commentary into footnotes -- nearly every poem has a substantial
footnote. Nevertheless, the commentary is interesting, so squint your
eyes and start reading...
This book reads like a PhD thesis (and it probably is one), so for those
of you who like to read technical literary theory, this is the book for you.
It does provide the most thorough analysis of haiku theory, history, and
writing techniques I've found anywhere, but it is a bit dry. Also, the
dramatic flaw of this book is that the author insists on almost always
writing and translating haiku with the first and third lines rhyming - UGGH!
It sounds awful...rhyme makes every poem seem trite. I found myself
mentally converting each poem into a more natural non-rhyming form as
I read.
This is a very short book -- it can easily be read in one afternoon.
It's a nice straightforward introduction to Japanese Haiku, English Haiku,
and Teaching Haiku. For the novice, even the novice who intends to dig
deeply into haiku literature, this is a very appropriate first book to read
to set the tone for further reading. (It's not really intended for experts
though, so it doesn't have much to offer at that level). Being short, it
seems quite appropriate for a short workshop or for a one-week study of
haiku in a semester poetry class. It gives sufficient examples but doesn't
contain a collection of haiku itself. One beautiful aspect of this book
that it's easy to overlook is that each page has a wonderful little
illustration at the top, and they're almost always relevant to the topic
of the page. They're subtle and easy to not pay attention to, but they're
really nice and worth the attention.
This is a beautifully-constructed book (at least the "giftbook edition") --
an elegant cover and a wonderful collection of haiga (haiku illustrations).
But I have to point out that the translation is about as bad as I can imagine
-- the poems are selected from the best of Japanese haiku masters, but
they are all translated into 2-line rhyming couplets and given titles.
When titles are not in the original version, I think that adding them
clearly conflicts with the minimalist intention of the original.
I can't imagine a more intrusive and distracting style than to create poems
which rhyme in only 2 lines, and the insistence on rhyming every 2-line poem
leads to the overuse of trite and obvious rhymes.
The book also includes an interesting essay on haiku and haiga, where
Stewart tries to justify his form of the translation, but it's clear that
he has a total lack of appreciation for what makes something "poetic" in
English. He seems to fail to understand what can be accomplished in free
verse, and assumes that all "English" poetry must be based on strict rhyme
and meter to be poetic, but translating Japanese haiku into rhymed couplets
is about as absurd as translating English sonnets into 5-7-5 poems on the
assumption that anything else would not be "Japanese poetry". His refusal
to make a more direct translation, on the argument that such a translation
wouldn't be 'a poem', suggests that he fails to appreciate that a deeper
level of poetic value exists in the meaning, the minimalism, and the
profound immediacy of the original haiku.
This is a classical Japanese collection (thirteenth century) of
5-7-5-7-7 verse (waka). It's fairly well-known, though the poetry itself
is only moderately good by modern standards. The poems are generally
self-reflective, and a large number of them are simply plaintive decrees
of love in one form or another. The
version
available on the web is actually an excellent translation in direct
clear language, which does a very reasonable job of preserving the literal
meaning and providing the rich details of the original poems. The book by
Honda, on the other hand, converts each poem into a 4-line poem with an
abab rhyming pattern. In the process, the meaning is sometimes
significantly compromised and the syntax is frequently contorted to make
the rhymes work. Honda also gets caught up in archaic "poet-speak" with
lovely regressions like "ere", "alas", and "lo". In any case, the
online version is definitely worth looking at -- they include wonderful
woodblock prints (in black-and-white) with each poem.
This is a small book, a quick read, that gives witty remarks related
to business, each in the form of a haiku. The haiku isn't bad, but it's
not substantially better than what you can get with a little searching around
the web. So I'd say, save yourself the money and spend it instead
on upgrading your modem. Warriner seems to interpret the principal of
immediacy in haiku as requiring "A twist. A punchline, if you will."
The result, in my opinion, is haiku which is more intellectual than
inspirational. The poems generally lack strong imagery and a sense
of "being there'. The haiku moment is lost in favor of an instant
"surprise".
It's not all haiku, but it's good poetry with a haiku feel.
The book is divided into 4 sections: Chinese poetry, Japanese poetry,
Japanese haiku, and poetry by Shinkichi Takahashi. The selection of
Japanese haiku is quite good -- I particularly like the small selection
of poems by Kikaku, e.g. "Shrine gate / through morning mist -- /
a sound of waves", and the selection by Issa contains several of his
better poems. Takahashi is a modern Zen poet with a surreal feel
to most of what he writes. The Chinese poetry varies, but I found a
few particularly inspiring. For instance, this one by Nan-o-Myo, in
response to the Zen directive of "not falling into the law of causation,
yet not ignoring it": "Not falling, not ignoring-- / A pair of
mandarin ducks / Alighting, bobbing, anywhere." To me it's a powerful
description of a whole sequence of actions visible simultaneously,
without causation, and yet reflecting causation. While the poem
is not haiku by my standards (for instance, it can't be understood
on its own -- the first line has meaning only with explanation of
context), it has many attributes of the finest haiku.
A Haiku Journey
translated by Dorothy Britton
and
Basho's Narrow Road: Spring & Autumn Passages
translated by Hiroaki Sato
These two books are translations of Basho's "Narrow Road to a Far Province".
Basho recounts his journey through Japan with his companion Sora. The
tale is told in prose form with haiku interspersed throughout, in a form
called
haibun.
They encounter and stay with people along the way, from monks to merchants to
prostitutes. They join in renga sessions and visit various
uta-makura, "poetic places" -- places which are mentioned in
traditional poetry.
Britton's version is a quick read and a very reasonable translation, though
more often than not she's a rhymer, creating silly rhymes in the haiku.
The book also has a kanji version in the back, thankfully including
small phonetic hiragana annotating difficult kanji for those of us who
are only students of Japanese.
Sato's version is an excellent translation. The language has a natural
simple beauty and strikes one as being very faithful to the original.
His version is much more the scholar's reference, with extensive and
interesting footnotes, romaji versions of all the haiku, excerpts from
numerous renga composed during the journey, and a complete and annotated
renga at the end called "A Farewell Gift to Sora" which was composed
during the trip when Sora had to separate from Basho and go on ahead
because of an illness.
Saigyo was a 12th-century Buddhist monk who left court life to pursue
priesthood and poetry. He writes waka in a form which seems to be
innovative for its time by focusing more closely on nature themes and
imagery and less on social and emotional situations. Saigyo was a
strong influence on later poets such as Basho.
This book is a selection of Saigyo's poems organized according to seasonal
topics (plus "love" and "miscellaneous"). I enjoyed the poems, though
none in particular stand out as exceptional. The introduction and footnotes
are helpful and explain Saigyo's life in a sketchy fashion, though
apparently very little is actually known about him.
By the same translator as Zen Poetry, this
book contains a good selection of a few hundred haiku. By "modern" is
meant that the poems come from the late 19th and early 20th century --
certainly there aren't any contemporary poems in here, and you'll only
find one or two poets with any sense of the industrial age having
begun. This collection starts with poems by Shiki and continues with
those who have followed in his footsteps. With a relatively short
introduction, this book offers little beyond the poems themselves.
While I found the poems on the whole rewarding, I did wonder whether there
was an aesthetic which encouraged the selection to be mostly fairly
common poems (good, but unexceptional) interspersed with only a few
that were really striking.
For some reason, I was reluctant to buy this book and had trouble taking it
seriously...looking back at the jacket cover I realize that the description
of the book makes it sound trite. Don't let the cover fool you!
This was a very rewarding book. The poems are selections of animal poems
by Japanese haiku masters. The illustrations are beautiful, full-page,
full-color reproductions of Japanese woodblock prints. Each poem is
printed in both English and Japanese, and short but useful biographies
are given for each of the poets and artists. The book contains
about 48 paintings and 120 haiku and is beautifully-crafted.
This is the most wonderful collection of Issa's writings I've ever seen.
"The Spring of My Life" is a haibun of 21 chapters. Each basically starts
with a short anecdote and is followed by a series of haiku on related themes.
The anecdotes are alternately charming, fascinating, and disturbing.
Sam Hamill gives a very readable and honest translation. In the latter
half of the book is a collection of about 160 haiku with English and
romaji versions of each. I started noticing problems in the translations
as I read the Japanese versions -- Hamill has added filler words, making
the moon into a "bright moon" and a frog into an "old frog". Harmless
enough, but unnecessary -- it appears he's done it just for the sake of
making most of the English haiku be 5-7-5, which is hardly justification
enough for altering the meaning of the poems.
Still, this was one of the most inspiring collections of haiku I've read.
The Haiku Society of America
publishes the journal frogpond. I don't know what process determined the
poems in this collection, but the selection is reasonable. For some reason,
I found the poems here about human affairs to be the most compelling, for
instance, "raking leaves" or "boy in the doorway". By far the most magical
poem was this one by Kim Dorman: "monsoon burst--/barefoot girls dash/for
the temple". I can't quite pin down why it feels so legitimate, but
partly it must be that every element is in such perfect unity.
A 1992 anthology of writers from the Midwest or writing about the Midwest.
I really liked the format of this book -- each author had a chance to
write a short essay about themselves and the reasoning behind their poems
-- a great opportunity to get to know people and to see various thought
processes. One unfortunate bias I noticed was what seemed to be an
admiration for the rural lifestyle, and a sense that city-folk couldn't
really have quite the haiku intuition -- it wasn't a major theme, just a
feeling I picked up as I read. I've got two disagreements with this point
of view. First, that nature and seasons are everywhere if you tune your
senses to them. Donald Kelly writes a couple poems in this anthology
about kids in the driveway and pink lemonade that wonderfully capture
the suburban Midwestern experience (as well as being fairly universal).
Second, my concern is that haiku is viewed as being limited to nature
topics. In city life, so often our lives are dominated by other types
of experiences, that are equally legitimate for discussion in haiku,
and I hate to think people might be suppressing those experiences in
their poetry in favor of some kind of pastural worship.
In any case, as a native suburban midwesterner myself, I can vouch for this
anthology as an accurate rendition of midwestern life. It provides an
excellent model for bringing haiku to a specific locale.
These 4 volumes are probably the most unusual of all haiku books.
Blyth attempts a tour-de-force of every topic related to haiku.
Volume 1, "Eastern Culture" covers Japanese art and religion,
haiku technique, haiku philosophy, haiku poets, and various
"states of mind" such as selflessness and simplicity.
Each topic is reviewed in a reflective essay that is not so much
an introduction to the topic as it is a forum for Blyth to grapple
with the issue and attempt to persuade the reader of some point of
view or another. Volumes 2-4 are seasonally-organized collections
of haiku with extensive commentary for each haiku.
It's not completely clear who Blyth intended these books for. First
published in 1949, a slightly outdated world-view peeps through now and
then. As a whole, the books are not really a terribly good introduction
to haiku, since he seems to presume some vague knowledge of terms and
topics before beginning each one. At the same time, the level is simple
enough to be a good second book to read after learning some of the basic
terminology, and the coverage of all things "haiku" is comprehensive.
If anything, the books seem to be aimed at some European-educated literati
-- it's as if he's trying to convince some group of the legitimacy of
haiku by connecting it to traditional poetic and Christian ideals.
Furthermore, while Japanese and Chinese are well-translated, he throws
in untranslated German and Italian without a second thought, as if
any reader could be assumed to know them (don't worry, the book is
still quite readable without knowledge of German or Italian).
Blyth demonstrates himself throughout to be quite well-read, but the
one thing that especially bugs me is that his constant attempts to
relate haiku to European literature seem forced, unconvincing, and
entirely unnecessary.
Even with the odd tone, the books make a very good learning experience.
The analysis of haiku is well-informed, thoughtful, and generally
right on the mark. Blyth is also an excellent translator from my
point of view: he makes a straightforward literal translation, but he
is quite sensitive to the difficult task of preserving the subtleties
and intent of the original Japanese, as well as nicely capturing some
of the ambiguities, which are very hard to capture in translation.
This book has 150 haiku and tanka related to peace written in English and
Japanese (all poems appear in both languages). The book is dedicated
to Senator Spark Matsunaga, who himself was dedicated to the mission of
peace, and this is a beautiful tribute to him. The poems are the result
of an international contest and are of uniformly high quality. There
is very little heavy-handedness or preaching. Instead, a wide variety
of approaches are taken to talk of peace from many unique perspectives,
but speaking clearly to the common human desire for peace. As an example
of one of the poems in this collection that really sparks my interest:
August sunshine
all the children drop their guns
for lemonade
-- Carol Dagenhardt
This is an absolutely excellent and very thorough introduction
to haiku. Despite it's subtitle, the book really doesn't talk much
about writing haiku per se. Rather, the majority of the book
is about the history and theory of haiku. No writing exercises.
All the same, it's highly-readable and does a great job of presenting
both traditional and modern approaches to haiku. The teaching sections
are lesson plans targeted at elementary school age, but the book as a
whole is clearly targeted at adults. The book is full of haiku examples
from around the world
and has excellent appendices: season words, a glossary of Japanese
haiku terms, and a long list of books to refer to.
Kanshi is poetry written in Chinese by Japanese poets, imitating Chinese
form and style. This collection is of Edo-period works which were
written roughly contemporaneously with classic haiku. I have to admit
that these poems don't appeal to me in general. Basically you've got
1. poets writing in a non-native language where they haven't even met
a native speaker; 2. in a strict poetic form that carefully regulates
rhyme, syllable-count, and tone; 3. imitating dead Chinese poets in style;
and 4. translated finally into English. It comes across that way.
The poems are the kind of uninteresting result you expect from an idle
intellectual puzzle. The language is dull. The topics are dry.
Also unfortunate - the book does not include the original Chinese.
As one friend commented, if there's no Chinese, then that's not Kanshi,
it's Eishi (English poetry).
This is a collection of 100 Japanese tanka written by survivors of the
atomic bombs. The poems aren't necessarily well-crafted, but
they have quite a spiritual force. Most describe direct accounts of
the aftermath of the bombs. Nice version with English, Japanese, and
romaji for every poem.
Buson is considered one of the 4 great haiku masters. He was an
artist by trade, and his haiku has a strong sense of imagery and reflects
a keen sense of observation. He seems to have viewed Basho as his
primary influence, and he is probably best contrasted with the other
great haiku masters by having lived a fairly ordinary and relatively
happy life.
This is a good overall compilation of Buson's works.
It includes several introductory essays on his poetry and a brief
biography -- the introductory essays are a bit disorganized, but they
do the job. It also includes a hefty collection of haiku, organized by
season, and a few longer poems, essays, stories, and letters by Buson.
The haiku include romaji and kanji versions, so this is a nice book
for continued study. The book is very practical: I found the translations
quite accurate, if a little less exciting than I'd hoped, but with no
problems I could really point my finger at.
I particularly enjoyed Buson's little "ghost stories" about foxes and badgers.
I found that his poems
inspired me to write quite a bit in imitation, so Buson definitely
had his artistic effect on me.
This anthology was first published in 1972. It contains mostly free-verse
poetry from the 20th century, though it also has haiku, and I think the
section of tanka is by far the best selection within the book. No original
Japanese is included. An appendix gives brief biographies of each writer,
and an introduction puts it all into a jumbled framework. I have to assume
the selection of free-verse poets represents important notables in
Japanese poetry, but something was lacking, whether it was the selection
of poems or weak translations, I can't say. The tanka section has crisp,
pertinent poems with strong, clear imagery -- it may be worth picking the
book up in the bookstore or library and browsing through the tanka.
This is a tremendous scholarly work covering the lifetime of Basho, his works,
and the poetic theory underlying Basho's poetry. After reading this book, you
will undoubtedly read Basho's poetry with a significantly greater depth,
seeing poems serve many functions and having multiple levels of meaning.
Shirane reinterprets and demystifies Basho from a very modern critical viewpoint.
Basho is viewed less as an ascetic or as some kind of mythical priest, and much
more as a poet in his times, with his own set of biases and his particular
approach to marketing himself as a poet. Basho's writing techniques are covered
in detail, including juxtaposition of images, the principal of lightness, the use
of season words, and the combination of traditional influences with contemporary
freshness.
A collection of about 150 tanka from two great female writers of
the Heian period (around 850-1050 A.D.). The poems mostly consist
of private communications with lovers -- romantic, mildly erotic,
or philosophical. The original Japanese (romaji versions) and notes
on the poems are unfortunately piled into an appendix, making it
frustrating as you flip back and forth between the poems and the
background material.
This is a small gift book of 56 pages (67 haiku) and very high production value.
It's chalk-full of beautiful illustrations. It's not a very deep book,
neither a good introduction to haiku nor a good introduction to Zen.
The haiku selections are from excellent writers, but nothing special
about the choice of poems. All of the poems are from other haiku books,
most of which should be relatively easy to find. This may be good
as a gift book for someone who isn't very interested in haiku and wants
a quick and elegant overview, but it's really intended more for display
than for reading.
If you'd like your own haiku book or chapbook reviewed here,
send me a copy at my
address
on my homepage, and I'll be glad to add it. -- Tom
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