by Jane Baker
Basho is rightly famous but why does the western world know so little of his contemporaries? Deep in Basho’s “old silent pond” dwell all sorts of interesting other frogs – Kikaku’s that “command the dark”; Onitsura’s “froglets” that in summer “sang like birds” but with winter’s onset “bark like old dogs”; Joso’s “good Buddhist frog…/ rising to a clearer light / by non-attachment” as well as Issa’s “fat frog / in the seat of honour / singing bass”.
An introduction to haiku
Rosny Library Meeting Room, Bligh Street, Rosny Park, Hobart – near Service Tasmania.
Haiku are tiny poems that were first written hundreds of years ago. People from all over the world are discovering the pleasure of these condensed capsules of poetic insight, so that Haiku-in-English has become the fastest-growing literary genre. Today’s haiku have their beginnings in ancient Japan, but today’s poets use haiku to express the uniqueness of everyday experience and the environment they live in. A haiku captures a moment in time and shares that experience with a reader. The skills developed by writing haiku can make all types of writing more vivid and immediate.
by Alison Williams
This article was first published in Yellow Moon 18, Summer 2005, pp. 30-31, and is reproduced here with the kind permission of the author.
Alchemy is sadly missing from the curriculum, and so it is possible that you may not be aware of something called prima materia. Prima materia is said to be the original pure substance out of which everything was created, and is so easily overlooked that only a master alchemist recognises it as the vital ingredient of the Philosopher’s Stone.
by Janice M Bostok
The spring moon
Shines Godlike
Upon a flower thief
At work on a hill. 1
Issa was born in Kashiwabara village, Japan, the first son of a farmer. His childhood name was Yatarô but he was registered with Nobuyuki as his first name and Kobayashi as his surname. Issa did not have a happy or fortuitous life. While he was still young (at the age of about three) his mother died. His grandmother took over raising him. Later she also died and his father remarried. His stepmother eventually forced Issa to leave home at the age of thirteen.
by Janice M Bostok
Perched upon the temple bell
the butterfly sleeps 1
Buson was originally named Taniguchi Buson (pronounced boo-sahn). He later changed his name to Yosa Buson. It appears he had more than one pen-name or ‘go’ throughout his lifetime. (Particularly as there are various seals that he used on his paintings.)
by Janice M Bostok
Most of you who have heard of the short Japanese poem haiku will no doubt have heard of the haiku master Matsuo Bashõ. He is considered the first of the four Japanese masters who are the pillars of the development of the haiku poem. In the west, we are probably first introduced to him in translation and many of us say we fell in love with haiku because of Bashõ’s work. Of course, there has been much more development of the haiku over the years in Japan, but this is the starting point where we are introduced to haiku and become serious about wanting to write it in English.
Judge: Billie Wilson, Juneau, Alaska
FIRST PLACE
summer dawn
the bones of the bonfire
charred black
~Kate Bosek-Sill, Rochester, NY
A new day is dawning, and the remains of this fire remind us that yesterday is gone forever—as fully consumed as the wood (the “bones”) of that bonfire. There is a nice edge of wondering why the fire was built. The use of “bones” is not only intriguing within the haiku, but within the context of etymology, since “bonfire” comes from the medieval “bone-fire.” This is an excellent poem to be read aloud. The inner play of the long “o” sound of “bones” with the short “o” in “bonfire—the near-rhyme of “dawn” and bonfire”—and the alliteration of “b” words in the second and third lines—add layers of pleasing sound.
SECOND PLACE
whaling station—
the weight of rust
on the snowline
~Ron Moss, Tasmania, Australia
An unusual topic. The freshness of the material is appealing, and the juxtaposition is compelling. Even in abandonment, the very existence of this station “weighs” heavily against human history. The damage done is powerfully captured in understatement: that feather-light rust is like blood against the snow.
Continue reading “RESULTS FROM 2007 ANITA SADLER WEISS MEMORIAL HAIKU AWARDS”
And the congratulations keep coming… Haiku Oz would like to congratulate Peter Macrow for his recent success in the Rain Haiku competition.
Peter’s haiku:
waiting
for spring rain to stop
I clean the shower
has been selected to be published in a forthcoming anthology of the winning entries.
