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Showing posts with label juxtaposition. Show all posts
Showing posts with label juxtaposition. Show all posts

Wednesday, October 18, 2017

The Moon is Broken: Juxtaposition in haiku - Alan Summers



The Moon is Broken: Juxtaposition in haiku

 Guest poets will appear in the version for Writing Poetry: the haiku way by Alan Summers. See also:

Also check out:

Haiku and Juxtaposition or The greatest Match Cut in History

http://area17.blogspot.co.uk/2018/05/haiku-and-juxtaposition-or-greatest.html

Haiku (plural and singular spelling) are the shortest of self-contained poetic verses, and yet can often pull from us an emotional reaction greater than the sum of the physical count of words.  This is often obtained by breaking the haiku verse down into two parts concerning the text you can see. It’s where the break is created inside this tiny shell of a poem, which causes a breach or fissure, that is part of the poem, and creates a non-verbal or “something unsaid” that’s a bridge, and thus giving us aspects of white space/negative space.  

Also see:
Negative space in haiku: Writing Poetry: the haiku way

Marco Fraticelli (musician/poet and haiku writer) gives a wonderful account about negative space where he tells the story of a painter, in ancient China or Japan, commissioned to paint four panels representing a flock of crows. Instead of painting numerous crows, he left three panels blank, and on the fourth one, he painted half a crow in flight, as if a flock of crow was just there and had just flown away.  Fraticelli makes this analogy with haiku: 
it’s often what’s not there that counts, what people imagine. Readers fill the gap in their imagination and complete the image: 
illustration©Jessica Tremblay
Jessica Tremblay creates a wonderful illustration with humour relating to Marco Fraticelli. See this and others:

A haiku poem has to carry weight beyond a list of keywords and key phrases that are known to have potential to instigate or evoke an emotion. One of the key aspects of haiku is a combination of tension and resonance, between the words, and its fragments and phrasal sections. One issue if not thought out is where the phrase doesn't take us as far as we might wish beyond the fragment.

Essential components of haiku are literally what is not said in text, using a judicial amount of negative space, also known as whitespace, and MA (間): a void in the poem that produces something in-between the two parts of a haiku; This is where, despite a lack of black (visible) text, this invisible section can add contexuality, sharpness, and tension to the poem as a whole. The core of many haiku is the dance with white space/whitespace, where it’s used parallel to the seen/visible text on the page. Utilising a number of techniques is no easy matter, and taking the eye off the ball has resulted in numerous message or statement epigrams, or flat missives:  Tonality is essential.

Also see:

Juxtaposition is one from many techniques that can be used highly effectively in the extreme brevity of haiku poetry that enables it to be a fully functioning poem.

Summing up and examples:
Juxtaposition  in haiku

Juxtaposition: placing two things that can be physical objects i.e. concrete images.  

Random juxtaposition: two random objects (moving) in parallel, a technique intended to stimulate creativity.

Haruo Shirane:  
'art of juxtaposition relies on a... process of defamiliarization and recontextualization'
Traces of Dreams: Landscape, Cultural Memory and the Poetry of Basho
Haruo Shirane
Stanford University Press (30 Jun 1998)  ISBN-10: 0804730997 ISBN-13: 978-0804730990

Further down I’ll say more about juxtaposition again, but for now just see and recognise juxtaposition in these following examples:


 the rill's trick
a greenfinch moves
its green around

 Alan Summers 
3rd Place, 
2018 Henderson Haiku Contest (Haiku Society of America)

Judges' Commentary:

 This haiku had a couple of earlier versions, or so, and it just goes to show that selecting the 'right' choice of juxtaposition is rewarded, quite literally.

strong wind
the juggler's elbow catches
a pocket hanky

Alan Summers 
BBC - Cumbrian haiku (2004); British Haiku Society members’ anthology: Other (2004)

The golden ratio, a rule of thirds, starts here with strong wind, which on its own doesn’t state enough beyond its words at present; Yet when paired with the 2-line phrase part of the haiku, both work together to expand each other.

Golden ratio of haiku:
Haiku itself works as a frame containing a picture made up of thirds: one single line image and another image across two lines. 


the moon is broken
Battersea Power Station 
from a train window

Alan Summers
1st Prize, World Monuments Fund (New York USA) 2012 Haiku Contest

Juxtaposition results in an image and counter-image that hopefully resonates with the reader beyond the duration of just a single reading.  If we travel by train we often have something framed in the window.  For me, travelling to London (U.K.) on the Waterloo Line, it’s the iconic landmark that Pink Floyd used for an album cover: www.batterseapowerstation.org.uk/floyd/floyd.html 
Another example of zeroing into an aspect of the picture we see when we look at life, be it in a car, a bus or train, cycling, or even walking:

wild peppermint
a dock leaf shadow
clings to the bee

Alan Summers
Award credit:  Commended, The Basho Museum Memorial Anthology,  Ueno, Japan 2001



dark news
the comfort
of crows

Alan Summers
Publication Credit: tinywords 15.1 (March 31st 2015)

Billie Wilson says:
I read this first thing this morning and it has been with me all day. An excellent example of the sheer power that can be captured in the tiniest of poems. It is haiku like this one that drew me into the haiku world, and it is haiku like this one that keeps me here, yearning to write . . . haiku like this one.
  

The haiku is now the title poem for this collaborative collection:







dead sparrow
how light the evening
comes to a close

Alan Summers
Publication credit: 
Haiku Canada Review vol. 11 no. 2 (October 2017) ed. LeRoy Gorman 

“The first line shocks us into the present moment. Sparrows are beloved birds, not only because of their miniature size, but also because of their sweet songs and ubiquitousness. The last two lines depend much on how one reads “light.” Is it light in color, light in weight, or physical light?”
  
Haiku Commentary by Nicholas Klacsanzky


Recently anthologised again, this time by The Wonder Code, is this sound, taste, and smell poem which relies mostly on non-visual imagery, using the golden ratio of rain sound against the calm of an autumn recipe:



lullaby of rain
another pinch of saffron
in the pumpkin soup

Alan Summers
The Wonder Code (2017) ed. Scott Mason: 























http://thewondercode.com


Sometimes two very different things show how alike they are in unexpected ways, or somehow connected despite subject matter, and if we do it subtly then readers can discover the similarities or connection for themselves too.

Sometimes the reader’s discovery is immediate and profound, occurring the instant the poem is read. Sometimes the discovery takes longer; an unwritten question lies in the space between the two dissimilar parts of a haiku. The reader reads between the lines.  

Resonance is created when the reader’s imagination lets him or her discover the connection between the parts.


Traps to sidestep:

Don’t explain, don’t provide a 2-line phrase that explains itself or even the 1-line part.

Cause and effect: Where one part, either the 1-line or 2-line section of the haiku explains the other, or too obviously spells it out to the reader.  We mustn’t patronise the reader, as we should remember that we don’t like to be patronised, whether as a customer in a shop, or in any type of place.  Not everyone is an expert but we have a little common sense and general knowledge, so we must respect the reader, and not spell out things as if they are still in kindergarten.

 Therefore we don't want one part stating the obvious
Cause and effect is the principle of causality, establishing one event or action as the direct result of another: 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Causality

e.g.
fleeting rain
the scarecrow becomes wet
by his gatepost

 fleeting rain
the scarecrow gets wet
by a gatepost

 Actual version:
fleeting rain
the scarecrow leans back
against his gatepost

Alan Summers
Mainichi Shimbun (Japan, April 15th 2015)



Avoid prepositional phrases at the beginning of a haiku

e.g.


on a warm day 
the workman lunches
in his wheelbarrow


Published version:
   
warm day ...
the workman lunches
in his wheelbarrow

Alan Summers
Publications credits: Hermitage (2004); Snapshot Haiku Calendar (2005)
Award credit: Runner-up, The Haiku Calendar Competition (Snapshot Press 2004)


in a strong wind
the juggler's elbow catches
a pocket hanky

or

on a strong wind
the juggler's elbow catches
a pocket hanky


Published version:
  
strong wind
the juggler's elbow catches
a pocket hanky

Alan Summers
Publications credits: BBC - Cumbrian haiku (2004); BHS members anthology: Other (2004)


Play around with seemingly opposite images and subjects, either with new material, new observations, or from any of your one line or two line pieces of writing just waiting to find an interesting partner; or by expanding any lists of one or two words into fully fledged 1-line or 2-line sections of a haiku. 

Just enjoy playing around with them to see if you find any startling, even illogical pairings. Have fun experimenting!

Alan Summers©2012-2021







Alan & Karen regularly run online courses in haiku and related genres. 

Please do keep checking for when our next course might interested you! 

https://www.callofthepage.org/courses/





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Friday, November 11, 2016

Portable words: The other side of the electric fence - Kate Hall's haiku collection "Irises"

































A haiku collection by Kate B Hall, 
President of The British Haiku Society:
http://britishhaikusociety.org.uk

Irises 
by Kate B Hall, Hub Editions (2015) 
ISBN 978-0-9576460-5-6 Price £5

277 haiku, senryu and tanka and one 8 line poem including 7 haiku sequences

To purchase a copy, don't hesitate to email Kate: 

 Kate B Hall <katebhall@hotmail.co.uk>

Book review by Alan Summers
Portable words:
The other side of the electric fence.

As I dived into, and inhabited this collection, I witnessed emerging haiku that go beyond a straight sketch from nature, which is often called shasei in regards to Japanese art.  The shasei technique or approach also tends to be the envisioned early stages of haiku that Masaoka Shiki (1867-1902) suggested.  Too often we see straight sketches that both Japanese artists, and writers of haiku, alongside non-Japanese proponents initially misinterpret, and which Saitō Mokichi (1882 - 1953) puts so succinctly, that shasei is:
"...an expression of ‘animation’ or ‘the divine soul’ and never as a simple linear bordering of objects as contemporary Japanese artists and poets in general took the term to mean."
Paraphrasing from: 
”Saito Mokichi's Poetics of Shasei," 
Japanese Hermeneutics: Current Debates on Aesthetics and Interpretation, edited by Michael F. Marra (Honolulu : University of Hawaiʻi Press, 2002)

In a nutshell:

Masaoka Shiki - Three Ways of Sketching from Life

  1. to copy reality as it is
  2. to select carefully from experience (the next stage)
  3. to include makoto, internal, psychological reality of what is truthful (the third development)
Modern Japanese Poets and the Nature of Literature
by Makoto Ueda (Stanford University Press; 1 edition 1983) 

We can still be objective, and not too subjective, otherwise we risk losing the resonance of the poem.  But we want to catch those invisible tensions that make haiku more than the sum of its parts.  And the visible text is, and can be, very much influenced by what is not there, by the invisible text, that negative space effect that powers the haiku beyond its ‘readable text’.  

Negative space in haiku: Writing Poetry: the haiku way

Why am I excited?   I feel Kate Hall is another poet getting away from the yoke of (perceived) shasei methodology, and that this is an emergent collection.  More later. 

The haiku in the collection are a variety of tones, styles, approaches, and the ones that sing out are often the ones where placement or misplacement of words lift them away from straight description. Whether Kate Hall intended this, I feel she has entered into using misprision (Old French: mesprendre, modern French: se méprendre, "to misunderstand”)… 

Misprision:
“A term used by Harold Bloom to describe the process by which strong writers misread or misinterpret their literary predecessors so as to clear imaginative space for themselves. According to Bloom, every poem is a misprision or misconstrual of a hypothetical parent poem.”
Quote by Greig E. Henderson and Christopher Brown, University of Toronto

…and making use of clinamen, the turn, bias, or twist: “[The] word that Lucretius, in his 2nd century book, The Nature of Things, used to describe how the world works. Instead of describing solid things as fixed and resting in space, he got his readers to imagine that the whole solid spatial world was moving along in the same direction.”
Paraphrased from Pennsylvania State University

Two groundbreaking books touching on this are by Harold Bloom: 
The Anxiety of Influence: A Theory of Poetry and A Map of Misreading both published by Oxford University Press from his piece:
  
Clinamen or Poetic Misprision
Harold Bloom, New Literary History, Vol. 3, No. 2, On Interpretation: I (Winter, 1972), pp. 373-391 Published by: The Johns Hopkins University Press

Often by our mistakes we stumble into the very writing style we didn’t know we were looking for, and so it finds us and not the other way around.

This leads me onto the following haiku which reminds me of Rafal Olbinski whose work is similar to the work of Belgian surrealist Rene Magritte, and where Olbinski describes it as "poetic surrealism”.

I see this very clearly in this haiku:

reading a book
in the park café — through the trees
your blue top

Now Kate Hall could have easily have redacted this to:

reading a book
in the park café
your blue top

Which is a very serviceable haiku, though better with visual punctuation, a cut marker, thusly:

reading a book
in the park café…
your blue top

But by adding that M—dash and adding ‘through the trees’ which echoes Rafal Olbinski and many of his paintings, we have gorgeous fabulism more in step with cutting edge Japanese haiku poets, yet retaining a strong Britishness of its own, and echoing Western surrealism in general.

morning school run
on the back his dad’s bike
eating his lunch

n.b. There is perhaps a deliberate missing ‘of’ or other modifier.

Again this could have been just a perfunctory haiku yet is lifted by the improbable, as also seen in these enhanced imageries that are not just plain concrete but touch on the extraordinary. A lot of Hall's haiku do eschew a number of modifiers which lend that extra bit of poetic surrealism.   Think of a smallish boy buried in his backpack, and eating snacks, and it looks like the bag is eating him, or eating its own packed lunch:  Very British surrealism.

two men on bikes
pass each other singing
an open duet

The use of starlings brings these two haiku into another dimension, with the first dropping the sound of the sea into the reeds:

starlings
drop into the reeds
a sea of sound

And again, where the author has herself turned the starlings homeward:

full moon sunset
a swirl of starlings
I turn for home

And here we have dogs bouncing harebells into a wood:

someone else’s dog
bounces between us
bluebells in the woods

Here we have the playful and strangely forlorn beach scene transformed by the middle verse of the haiku sequence Three from Margate:

father
buries his twins
next to their castle

And partly using something akin to synesthesia via concrete imagery:

amongst the weeds
the pungent smell of fox
and a small leg bone

It’s all in that last line, and that small leg bone.

This childlike almost faerie like verse, where the first line can be read literally, or where dusk is camped, or placed by the author, or the pigeon whose call brings back an idyllic time of childhood between before the realism of adulthood:

camping dusk
pigeon calls echo
childhood bedtimes

Yellow has always evoked emotions for me and appear in many of my poems. The yellow house in a river, which we might logically correct or perceive as “by” the river and not literally within it, reveals something else happening: A parallel narrative, mysteriously conjuring more than the logical content of the sum of its words.  The double spacing between river and heron is intentional by the author, and is effectively used as another way to use white or negative space. 

yellow house
in the river  a heron
walks on water

Kate Hall doesn’t just do one style as these three haiku show, and they remind me of Carol Ann Duffy’s Rapture (Picador; 1st edition 2005), her seventh collection, and book-length love-poem, and her refusal to simplify the contradictions of love:

chilled through
I come home to eat toast
with you

your toothbrush
gone with the slam
of a door

Milky Way night
you see a shooting star
I miss it

Humour is an important device in both haiku and senryu, and brings out the fun in a slightly  surreal image where dogs and their owners are almost interchangeable:

warmer weather
new haircuts for the dogs
and their owners

Her other poetry background comes into force with alliteration and strong use of verbs:

deep dark dusk
on the last day of the year
blackbirds mither outside

Here we have the succinct beauty and yugen bringing out an atmosphere stronger than the sum of words alone:

first long dark evening
I thought I would mind
rain on the window

Alongside this hauntingly intimate image:

in the dark
I cradle snow
on my tongue

As well as haiku and senryu there are tanka that employ subtle changes in the turning of the poem into another one, especially with these two examples:

at the hospital
she doesn’t recognise us
but winks anyway
outside we break the ice
in a muddy puddle

our garden covered
with thick snow
squirrels dig
in the window box
for things they didn’t bury

There is also an eight line poem using well hefted enjambment with ‘on a cliff path’ which again is worth the admission of a journey into her world.  I won’t spoil the enjoyment by quoting this non-haikai poem, although its use of haiku tension at its best makes it so strongly effective.

This is one of my favourite monostich, those last five words resonate deep in my bones:

almost forgotten in a drawer — a photo of sea mist

And the half-said bitter-sweetness of a memory of a mother:

talking about my mother
I bite my thumb
until it bleeds

Although this next haiku appears just to be concrete, the two parts although not distant juxtaposition, yield a richness despite its plainness, and just cheers me up by reading it yet again: 

cold wet day
bright red seats
on the train

I am now excited to anticipate Kate Hall’s next collection, which I hope is already in its embryonic phase.  Perhaps the next collection could be a “New and Selected Works” with great potential titles if two of Kate Hall’s haiku were selected as part of that idea for her next collection.

e.g.

Waiting for Pain Killers

waiting for pain killers
to work — a fall of snow
down the chimney

This haiku is just sheer magical juxtaposition at its best, with ‘waiting for pain killers’ partnered with this phrase:

a fall of snow
down the chimney

Either part of the haiku on its own doesn’t carry the power but coupled together they bring an incredible sense of synesthesia via concrete imagery.

The other great title for a collection, a strong contender as my favourite potential title, would be 

The Other Side of The Electric Fence:

the other side
of the electric fence
always one sheep

Those first two lines apply so strongly for haiku writers, and other poets, who go beyond,  tentatively at first, and I see that is just what Kate Hall is attempting to do, whether beknownst to her or not.   

That last line isn’t as simple as it appears:   As haiku poets we sometimes feel the pressure to conform, to bow before our peers, yet we push ourselves just a little, a little more and a little bit more, until we are fully realised on the other side of that electric fence.

Although as I said this collection has weaknesses, I urge you to buy a copy.   It’s a bridging the gap collection until the anticipated third collection by this writer evolves. 


Review by Alan Summers for Blithe Spirit, journal of the British Haiku Society: http://britishhaikusociety.org.uk/journal/

 To join The British Haiku Society see:
http://britishhaikusociety.org.uk/membership-new/

You can find Alan at Call of the Page where he is co-founder along with Karen Hoy. They run online courses in haiku; haibun (prose+haiku); tanka stories (prose+tanka); shahai (photography+haiku); ekphrastic haiku & tanka; senryu etc...
Call of the Page: www.callofthepage.org




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