A bit more on haiku….

The plums, peach blossoms are done: the cherries and apple to come.  The pears are blooming and so are the roses. There is only what is outside, to see with eyes, as there is little energy right now with allergies.

I have struggled with terms in Japanese poetry such as yugen, mono-no-aware and other Zen and Zen-sounding concepts.  A poet strives for the quality of mono-no-aware; that the sense of a poem must reach beyond the words themselves, even to an ‘elegant sadness’.

As for yugen, an aesthetic feeling not explicitly expressed, rather a ‘ghostly’ presense.

These are noble and heady concepts, rich with cultural experience and a deeper study.  I believe you grow into this understanding only with time. For me, I am too new a poet to understand these things or to apply them with any honesty.

Saigyo says we start with direct observation and see where this takes us.  This spring, putting in my garden, suffering from a vertigo of unknown cause, being mostly on my back with plenty of time to stare out the window, to observe the passing of hours, well, these poems below are nothing more than that: they are a modest product of an attempt to get closer to an aesthetic I don’t really understand.

Lady Nyo

Haiku

A pale crescent moon

The sky colored lavender

Nothing more to wish.

…

Acid green pollen

Stains the landscape of spring

Life-force of Nature.

.

..

Morning glories bloom

Entangling wrought-iron fence

Warms the cold metal.

…

Dawn east-sky moon glows

A thin half-cup spills on soil

Seeds stretch out their arms.

Jane Kohut-Bartels

Copyrighted, 2021

“River of Death”, from “Song of the Nightingale”

 

“Song of the Nightingale” is a tale in 12 episodes about a marriage in 17th century Japan. Lord Nyo and Lady Nyo, he a samurai and she from the powerful clan Fujiwara, have been married since she was fifteen. Now she is thirty and Lord Nyo sixty. Magic, a tricky Tengu and a baby plucked from the surface of the moon figure in the story.

The poetry of Saigyo is noted: where it isn’t his,  it’s mine.
Episode 11 is a scene from a battlefield, as Lord Nyo is a general in the provincial army of Lord Mori, an aging and despot daimyo in north west Japan, near Moon (Gassan) Mountain.

Lady Nyo…but not the one in the story.

–

THE RIVER OF DEATH, episode 11

There’s no gap or break in the ranks of those marching under the hill:
an endless line of dying men, coming on and on and on….
—Saigyo

–
When the news of Lady Nyo
Birthing a son
Reached Lord Nyo
He was far from home,
To the east,
Over mountains
In dangerous, alien territory.
–
A general in the service
Of his lord,
The gore of battle,
The issue of ‘dying with honor’
Began at first light,
The air soon filled with sounds of battle-
Dying horses, dying men
Drawing their last gasps of life,
Churned into the mud of immeasurable violence.

–

The river of death is swollen with bodies fallen into it;
in the end the bridge of horses cannot help.
—Saigyo

–
Death, not new life
Was before his eyes at dawn,
And death, not life
Pillowed his head at night.
–

A battle rages around me,
But inside this old warrior
A battle rages inside my heart.
It is heavy with sorrow,
So tired beyond my old bones.

 

What good have we done
In watering the soil
With blood and offal
of sons?
–Lady Nyo
–

He stunk with the blood of battle
As his bow and swords cut a swath
Through men in service to another
And when the battle horns went silent,
With tattered banners like defeated clouds
Hanging limp over the field,
Acrid smoke stained everything
And the piteous cries of the dying
Echoed in his ears.
He wondered if his life would end here.

But the gods that he didn’t believe in
Were merciful.
His thoughts turned from fierce, ugly warriors
Towards home and a baby.

Still, he could not leave.
He was caught by status,
The prestige of his clan.
He could not desert the
Fate set out from birth.

Ah! This was fate of a man in servitude
To his Lord Daimyo.
This was the fate
Of a man chained to Honor.

Still, in the darkest hours of the night
The soft and perfumed shape of his wife
Floated down to him from the fleeting clouds,
Came to him through the smoke of battlefield fires,
And he turned on his pallet
To embrace this haunting comfort.
–

Off in the distance
There I see my loved one’s home
On the horizon.
How I long to be there soon
Get along black steed of mine!

—from the Man’yoshu
–

Jane Kohut-Bartels
Copyrighted, 2015-18

“Song of the Nightingale” was published on Amazon.com in 2015

 

“Saigyo, Poet and Priest and also a Samurai”

 

Saigyo became a poet/priest, but before that he was and came from a samurai family.  He was, at the age of 22, a warrior.  He always struggled with his past in his long years of travel, wondering how this  former life impacted on his religious vows.  His poetry reflects this issue.

 

Lady Nyo

—

Not a hint of shadow

On the moon’s face….but now

A silhouette passes–

Not the cloud I take it for,

But a flock of flying geese.

–

Thought I was free

Of passions, so  this melancholy

Comes as surprise:

A woodcock shoots up from marsh

Where autumn’s twilight falls.

–

Someone who has learned

How to manage life in loneliness:

Would there were one more!

He could winter here on this mountain

With his hut right next to mine.

–

Winter has withered

Everything in this mountain place:

Dignity is in

Its desolation now, and beauty

In the cold clarity of its moon.

–

When the fallen snow

Buried the twigs bent by me

To mark a return trail,

Unplanned, in strange mountains

I was holed up all winter.

—

Snow has fallen on

Field paths and mountain paths,

Burying them all

And I can’t tell here from there:

My journey in the midst of sky.

—

Here I huddle, alone,

In the mountain’s shadow, needing

Some companion somehow:

The cold, biting rains pass off

And give me the winter moon.

–

(I love this one especially: Saigyo makes the vow to be unattached to seasons, to expectations, but fails and embraces his very human limitations)

–

It was bound to be!

My vow to be unattached

To seasons and such….

I, who by a frozen bamboo pipe

Now watch and wait for spring.

—

(Love like cut reeds:)

–

Not so confused

As to lean only one way:

My love-life!

A sheaf of field reeds also bends

Before each wind which moves it.

—

(And Love like fallen leaves….)

—

Each morning the wind

Dies down and the rustling leaves

Go silent: Was this

The passion of all-night lovers

Now talked out and parting?

—

There were tons of poetry written by many poets, officials, etc. about the moon, nature, flowers, etc.  But Saigyo’s poetry had an ‘edge’, a difference:  his view of blossoms, moon, nature, was not just the usual symbol of evanescence and youthful beauty:  his view of blossoms, nature, were more a path into the inner depth of this relationship between humanity and nature.   He spent 50 years walking the mountains, road, forests, fields all over Japan and his poetry (waka) reflected his deep understanding of the physicality of nature:  all seasons were felt and experienced not from the safety and comfort of a court, surrounded by other silk-clad courtier/poets,  but out there in the trenches of nature.  His poetry is fomented in the cold and penetrating fall and spring rains, the slippery paths upon mountain trails, the ‘grass pillows’ and a thin cloak, the deep chill of winter snows upon a mountain, the rising  mists that befuddle orientation,  and especially, the loneliness of traveling without companionship.

Jane Kohut-Bartels

Copyrighted, 2017

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Saigyo, Poet Priest

This is a photo of a long dead Peach tree in my backyard.  I used it for an illustration to an older post and it turned up on the google search for Saigyo.

 

One of my favorite poets, if not my favorite, is the 12 century poet, Saigyo.  He was part of a military guard when he was young, and at 23 left this life to become a priest. He worried that his past, violent life would affect his religious duties, and this concern followed him.

Saigyo went on the road, travelled all over Japan for many years.  This isn’t unusual, this was the way priests supported their temples and themselves.  Some priests were spies for the court, for various daimyos, and wore a large woven basket over their heads.  There is some significance with this this but I don’t remember more than what I write here.  Nuns also travelled but many were prostitutes.  Another way to support themselves. 

Saigyo’s poetry amazes me.  Though most of his poetry is in the tanka form, it is hard for English readers to understand the form through the translation. Regardless, what is so unusual with Saigyo’s poetry is the humanism:  much of poetry were praises for the various emperors, and other nobles, etc.  Saigyo’s is observations, praise, etc. for nature, for common people.  My favorite is his about the flock of monkeys.

Now there are a number of collections of Saigyo published. People have found the beauty and the human characteristics of Saigyo.  When I stumbled upon Saigyo, there was only one book published in English, back in 1990.  Now, finding more of Saigyo’s  poetry is easier.

When I do the short presentation on Tanka for the new Metropolitan Library on April 18th, I am going to use his poetry (among others)  because I find it the most appealing to people who have never read Japanese poetry.

Lady Nyo

–

 

Not a hint of shadow

On the moon’s face….but now

A silhouette passes–

Not the cloud I take it for,

But a flock of flying geese.

–

Thought I was free

Of passions, so  this melancholy

Comes as surprise:

A woodcock shoots up from marsh

Where autumn’s twilight falls.

–

Someone who has learned

How to manage life in loneliness:

Would there were one more!

He could winter here on this mountain

With his hut right next to mine.

–

Winter has withered

Everything in this mountain place:

Dignity is in

Its desolation now, and beauty

In the cold clarity of its moon.

–

When the fallen snow

Buried the twigs bent by me

To mark a return trail,

Unplanned, in strange mountains

I was holed up all winter.

—

Snow has fallen on

Field paths and mountain paths,

Burying them all

And I can’t tell here from there:

My journey in the midst of sky.

—

Here I huddle, alone,

In the mountain’s shadow, needing

Some companion somehow:

The cold, biting rains pass off

And give me the winter moon.

–

(I love this one especially: Saigyo makes the vow to be unattached to seasons, to expectations, but fails and embraces his very human limitations)

–

It was bound to be!

My vow to be unattached

To seasons and such….

I, who by a frozen bamboo pipe

Now watch and wait for spring.

—

(Love like cut reeds:)

–

Not so confused

As to lean only one way:

My love-life!

A sheaf of field reeds also bends

Before each wind which moves it.

—

(And Love like fallen leaves….)

—

Each morning the wind

Dies down and the rustling leaves

Go silent: Was this

The passion of all-night lovers

Now talked out and parting?

—

From “Mirror For the Moon”, A Selection of Poems by Saigyo (1118-1190)

Saigyo, Warrior Priest and Poet, some of his poetry and a little of mine.

was to be the cover painting for “Pitcher of Moon” but didn’t work out. Jane Kohut-Bartels, small watercolor.

–

–

This is a very  little of Saigyo, the Heian-era priest and poet.  Reading Saigyo is like falling into the rim of the Universe: you have no idea where you will land nor what you will learn.  But the trip will  profoundly change you.

In “Mirror For the Moon”, a collection of translations by William LaFleur of Saigyo, one gets the idea that Saigyo transcended the usual route, the accepted and comfortable route of poet/priests of that era.

There were tons of poetry written by many poets, officials, etc. about the moon, nature, flowers, etc.  But Saigyo’s poetry had an ‘edge’, a difference:  his view of blossoms, moon, nature, was not just the usual symbol of evanescence and youthful beauty:  his view of blossoms, nature, were more a path into the inner depth of this relationship between humanity and nature.   He spent 50 years walking the mountains, road, forests, fields all over Japan and his poetry (waka) reflected his deep understanding of the physicality of nature:  all seasons were felt and experienced not from the safety and comfort of a court, surrounded by other silk-clad courtier/poets,  but out there in the trenches of nature.  His poetry is fomented in the cold and penetrating fall and spring rains, the slippery paths upon mountain trails, the ‘grass pillows’ and a thin cloak, the deep chill of winter snows upon a mountain, the rising  mists that befuddle orientation,  and especially, the loneliness of traveling without companionship.

Saigyo became a poet/priest, but before that he was and came from a samurai family.  He was, at the age of 22, a warrior.  He always struggled with his past in his long years of travel, wondering how this  former life impacted on his religious vows.  His poetry reflects this issue.

I have begun to re-acquaint myself with Saigyo and his poetry, having first come across his poems in 1990. There is something so profound, different, that calls down the centuries to the heart.  His poetry awakens my awe and wonder of not only nature-in-the-flesh, but in the commonality of the human experience.

Lady Nyo

—

Not a hint of shadow

On the moon’s face….but now

A silhouette passes–

Not the cloud I take it for,

But a flock of flying geese.

–

Thought I was free

Of passions, so  this melancholy

Comes as surprise:

A woodcock shoots up from marsh

Where autumn’s twilight falls.

–

Someone who has learned

How to manage life in loneliness:

Would there were one more!

He could winter here on this mountain

With his hut right  next  to mine.

–

Winter has withered

Everything in this mountain place:

Dignity is in

Its desolation now, and  beauty

In the cold clarity of its moon.

–

When the fallen snow

Buried the twigs bent by me

To mark a return trail,

Unplanned, in strange mountains

I was holed up all winter.

—

Snow has fallen on

Field paths and mountain paths,

Burying them all

And I can’t tell here from there:

My journey in the midst of sky.

—

Here I huddle, alone,

In the mountain’s shadow, needing

Some companion somehow:

The cold, biting rains pass off

And give me the winter moon.

–

(I love this one especially: Saigyo makes the vow to be unattached to seasons, to expectations, but fails and embraces his very human limitations)

–

It was bound to be!

My vow to be unattached

To seasons and such….

I, who by a frozen bamboo pipe

Now watch and wait for spring.

—

(Love like cut reeds….)

–

Not so confused

As to lean only one way:

My love-life!

A sheaf of field reeds also bends

Before each wind which moves it.

—

(And Love like fallen leaves….)

—

Each morning the wind

Dies down and the rustling leaves

Go silent: Was this

The passion of all-night lovers

Now talked out and parting?

—

From “Mirror For the Moon”, A Selection of Poems by Saigyo (1118-1190)

–

Three of my own “Moon” poems….in the form of Tanka.

–

The moon floats on wisps

Of cloud that extend outward

Tendrils of white fire

Burn up in the universe–

Gauzy ghosts of nothingness.

——–

Shooting star crosses

Upended bowl of blue night

Imagination

Fires up with excited gaze!

A moment– and all is gone.

_______

(and one more….)

——

The full moon above

floats on blackened velvet seas,

poet’s perfection!

But who does not yearn for a

crescent in lavender sky?

———-

Jane Kohut-Bartels

Copyrighted, 2015……these last three poems were from “White Cranes of Heaven”, Lulu.com, 2011, Jane Kohut-Bartels

–

 

‘Banji wa yume’….Saigyo, Samurai Poet-Priest

This is a very little of Saigyo, the Heian-era priest and poet. Reading, studying Saigyo is like falling into the rim of the Universe: you have no idea where you will land nor what you will learn. But the trip will profoundly change you.

In “Mirror For the Moon”, a collection of translations by William LaFleur of Saigyo, one gets the idea that Saigyo transcended the usual route, the accepted and comfortable route of poet/priests of that era. This is continued on in “Awesome Nightfall” by Lafleur.

Saigyo’s poetry had an ‘edge’, a difference: his view of blossoms, moon, nature, was not just the usual symbol of evanescence and youthful beauty: his view of blossoms, nature, were more a path into the inner depth of this relationship between humanity and nature. He spent 50 years walking the mountains, road, forests, fields all over Japan and his poetry (waka) reflected his deep understanding of the physicality of nature: all seasons were felt and experienced not from the safety and comfort of a court, surrounded by other silk-clad courtier/poets, but out there in the trenches of nature. His poetry is fomented in the cold and penetrating fall and spring rains, the slippery paths upon mountain trails, the ‘grass pillows’ and a thin cloak, the deep chill of winter snows upon a mountain, the rising mists that befuddle orientation, and especially, the loneliness of traveling without companionship.

Saigyo became a poet/priest, but before that he was and came from a samurai family. He was, at the age of 22, a warrior. He was also a member of a personal guard for some high ranking Prince at court. These young men had to have a certain stature, and were eye candy. He struggled with his past in his long years of travel, wondering how this former life impacted on his religious vows. His poetry reflects this issue.

I have begun to re-acquaint myself with Saigyo and his poetry, having first come across his poems in 1990. There is something so profound, different, that calls down the centuries to the heart. His poetry awakens my awe and wonder of not only nature-in-the-flesh, but in the commonality of the human experience.

Lady Nyo

–
(These two poems below might be ones from Saigyo’s “Seeing the Pictures in a Hell-Screen”)

There’s no gap or break
in the ranks of those marching
under the hill:
an endless line of dying men,
coming on and on and on….

–
The river of death
is swollen with bodies
fallen into it;
in the end of the bridge
of horses cannot help.

—
Not a hint of shadow
On the moon’s face….but now
A silhouette passes–
Not the cloud I take it for,
But a flock of flying geese.
–
Thought I was free
Of passions, so this melancholy
Comes as surprise:
A woodcock shoots up from marsh
Where autumn’s twilight falls.
–
Someone who has learned
How to manage life in loneliness:
Would there were one more!
He could winter here on this mountain
With his hut right next to mine.
–
Winter has withered
Everything in this mountain place:
Dignity is in
Its desolation now, and beauty
In the cold clarity of its moon.
–
When the fallen snow
Buried the twigs bent by me
To mark a return trail,
Unplanned, in strange mountains
I was holed up all winter.
—
Snow has fallen on
Field paths and mountain paths,
Burying them all
And I can’t tell here from there:
My journey in the midst of sky.
—
Here I huddle, alone,
In the mountain’s shadow, needing
Some companion somehow:
The cold, biting rains pass off
And give me the winter moon.
–
(I love this one especially: Saigyo makes the vow to be unattached to seasons, to expectations, but fails and embraces his very human limitations)
–
It was bound to be!
My vow to be unattached
To seasons and such….
I, who by a frozen bamboo pipe
Now watch and wait for spring.
—
(Love like cut reeds:)
–
Not so confused
As to lean only one way:
My love-life!
A sheaf of field reeds also bends
Before each wind which moves it.
—
(And Love like fallen leaves….)
—
Each morning the wind
Dies down and the rustling leaves
Go silent: Was this
The passion of all-night lovers
Now talked out and parting?

–
Next of my own
it would be good to have
another’s shadow
cast here in the pool of moonlight
leaked into my hut of bamboo grass.

And because it’s Spring…..a few more poems (tanka) from Saigyo. These for Bren and Gay.

“The Plum Tree at My Mountain Hut”

Take note.
the plum by my rustic hedge
halted in his tracks
a total stranger
who happened by.

–
How the owner
must hate it
when the wind blows,
though over here, pure joy
in the fragrance of the plum

–
“Azaleas on a Mountain Trail”

Moving from rock to rock,
I clutch at azaleas,
but not to pick them–
on these steep slopes
I count on them far a handhold

From “Mirror For the Moon”, and “Awesome Nightfall” A Selection of Poems by Saigyo (1118-1190) and “Saigyo: Poems of a Mountain Home”, translated by Burton Watson

Jane Kohut-Bartels
Copyrighted, 2013

“Part II, A Short Introduction to Tanka”

A Courtesan’s fleeting life of beauty.

I promised some readers I would post this Part II on Tanka, so here it is. I haven’t rewritten it, but it is just an introduction to this wonderful poetry form. People can use it as a jumping off place for their own further study. It is not meant to be a complete presentation. I have grown a bit on tanka, but still find this useful.

Tanka is refreshing to the mind and heart and fixes that which breaks at times.

Lady Nyo

PART II, Short Introduction to Tanka

Like the lithe bowing
Of a red maple sapling
My heart turns to you,
Yearns for those nights long ago
When pale skin challenged the moon.

Lady Nyo

Structure

Today the standard form is generally noted to be (in syllables) 5-7-5-7-7. This is both in English and Japanese. (Translations of Japanese into English don’t necessarily fit this rule, but usually a reading of the tanka in the original Japanese will be of the 5-7-5, etc. format)
It is said that this format is the most natural length for a lyric poem expressing emotion for the Japanese.

Too, according to some theories, tanka is short (31 syllables) because the rhythm possesses magical power; the poems were spells. (Well, some of them could be…) Syllables in such meter would burst out of the throats of a miko or shaman in a state of divine trance, so that the rhythm is itself numinous. Certainly some poems have been used as spells, for bringing down a deity, for propitiating him, for calling forth to a lover, and to this day are still to be found embedded in the tougher soil of Tantric Buddhist rites. Or so writes Arthur Waley in “Japanese Poetry, The ‘Uta’. Believe what you want.

But this I think is true: The thirty-one syllables are but an inner core surrounded by unspoken yet powerful circles of images. These circles, rings radiate outward and pull so much more into the presence of the poem.

However, earlier tanka, (and tanka as a name didn’t come into being until the 19th century in the poetry reform movement) was called waka, and the earliest examples could be 3,4,6, in ‘syllable’ progression from the first line. But syllable in English doesn’t necessarily mean the same thing in Japanese poetry. Onji is more a ‘mora” like a sound than a syllable. (This part can be disputed)

More to the point, tanka is actually not one poem, but two. It’s a combination of two poems, or thoughts, etc. The first three lines are called Kami-no-ku (upper poem). The lower poem…the last two lines of 7-7 is called Shim-no-ku. They are joined together by that middle 5 syllable pivot line, called kakekotoba.

The kakekotoba is an interesting invention. It is a pivot or bridge between the two main poems. It should be part of the upper verse AND the lower verse in thought or poetry. The pivot line is both the last image and end of the upper verse as well as the first image and beginning of the lower verse. Both poems, read divided…the top from the bottom, should be able to stand on its own.

In my example on the top, the first three lines could be a poem in its own right:

Like the lithe bowing
Of a red maple sapling
My heart turns to you.

Taking the bottom lines and topping them with the pivot line:

My heart turns to you,
Yearns for those nights long ago
When pale skin challenged the moon.

This is not the finest example but it’s about as best as I can do right now. Oh! Tanka usually has no punctuation. However, English-speaking poets feel more expressive in their poetry with punctuation. I find that true for myself, even writing tanka and haiku.

This last unit of 7-7 is used as a repetition or summary of the top poem. I think of this shim-no-ku more as a re-enforcement or continuation of the sentiment of the whole poem. Perhaps like a repeated refrain?

To further complicate the form of tanka, it usually contains a Kigo which is a word that reveals the season without making it plain. Or not. In the example above, perhaps the ‘red maple’ gives a hint of the season, but I wasn’t carrying that ‘rule’ in my head when I wrote this tanka.

After a while, we pick up on seasonal (what I call) ‘markers’. Plum trees (ume) are the first blossoming trees of early spring. (though with Global Warming my red maple is budded out with these clusters of red blossom in January!) Dragonflies and mosquitoes represent hot summer; green tips of wheat in a field, early spring; a cardinal, winter; frogs, summer; golden leaves, autumn; the list is endless, but here, they are all from nature.

I don’t want to set up stumbling blocks to the thrill of composing tanka for modern, English speaking poets. These are the forms that many learn in the beginning, and perhaps later discard. But it’s good to learn them and to try to formulate your tanka in the classical sense. Too often poets attempting haiku and tanka never attend to the ancient rules and in not learning they miss the important DNA of these specialized forms. What they write (and I have long made this mistake) is nothing but freeverse. Study classical examples; get a feel for them in the head and mouth, and then go further afield. But see the beauty and reason for these rules first.

Rhythm

As to rhythm in tanka, there are two distinct rhythmic parts (top and bottom) separated by a major stop at the 12th onji. Then the rhythm starts out again to the end of the poem.

Basically, in reading a tanka out loud it is done in 2 breathes: the first three lines complete the first breath and the last two, the second breath. However, this is more applying to Japanese than English poets. (In haiku, it is one breath.)

Rhyme

There isn’t any in Japanese poetry. It would be too simple as most Japanese words end in one of the five open vowels. But that shouldn’t dismiss the poems of other poets who do use a rhyming scheme in their works. But is rare and is not favorable to most tanka poets.

Subjects

Things changed with the passage of centuries but nature, (especially the moon), seasons and their lifecycles, the rustle of leaves, the sighing of the wind, the crickets, frogs, reflections of the moon in the frog-pond.

Expressions of love and devotion, yearning, mourning and love loss, plum blossoms, cherry trees, death poems, praise of Emperors, poems upon aging, illness, things of a personal interest, were some of the topics of ancient tanka. They still stand for tanka of today. Saigyo came along and added the ‘common element’ by his writing of fishermen, prostitutes, nuns (sometimes the same thing…) laborers, beside the moon and nature, and certainly we read his very personal expressions of longing, loneliness, and self-doubt.

Tanka has that pointed ability to embrace every topic, but to compress, to distill or refine our words and work.

Later in the 19th century jiga-no-shu, poems about the ego, were beginning to be written. There was a poetry reform movement around 1900 in Japan where many new developments in tanka and haiku were read. A nascent women’s movement developed from the writings of one woman poet, Akiko, who wrote ‘uninhibited compositions of sexual passion and love, and this came from the core of her poems, called jikkan, which means writing from the emotions that the writer is actually experiencing. Since this was confusing to me when I read this early in my study of tanka, I think I have come to an understanding. Then, in 1900, the forms were more ‘polite’….though you will read a lot of bitching in classical tanka!….and to write about direct emotional experience would possibly be new? But in a way this denies the beautiful poems of Komachi, Shikibu, etc. Well, maybe I don’t have a clue here.

To some eyes, tanka seems too simple, sometimes falling into platitude. Japanese poetry depends on the subtlety of its effects. It is a poetry of sensibility. And according to Kenneth Rexroth, (One Hundred Poems From the Japanese) If these effects are extended and diluted, the sensibility easily degenerates into sentimentality.

A poetry of sensibility no longer seems as strange as it did. If you think of a poet like Emily Dickinson, Whitman, you see this ‘immediate experience’.

And further from Rexroth: “Classical Japanese poetry is read in a slow drone, usually a low falsetto; this is the voice is kept lower and more resonant than its normal pitch, with equal time and stress on each syllable. And this is quite unlike spoken Japanese.

Somewhere I read the way to compose tanka was to grab a lover, a friend, break off a plum branch and contemplate, grab even your wife! and dig deeply into your soul.

Tanka can be a deep, contemplative statement of observation, declaration, etc. In other words, today tanka can incorporate any theme.

Finally, tanka means “short (or brief) song”. To me, it’s a colorful burst, a declaration, like a songbird trilling in the dead of winter. It can startle us, shock us, it can be memorable, like that sudden burst of birdsong.
But the real essence is the myriad possibilities of creativity with tanka. Don’t get too hung up in form, or trying to understand all the ins and outs of classical tanka. I believe even the greatest poets learn and abandon some of them to fly beyond a cultural standard. (But! They learn them.)

I want to end with some poems, some tanka from “Love Songs from the Man’yoshu” one of the most influential books I have come across, and one of the most erotic in poetry. I will also offer my own tanka.

Have fun with tanka. It will enrich the soul.

Lady Nyo

From the Man’yoshu, 8th century anthology. (Man’yoshu means “The Collection of a Thousand Leaves”)

“Tonight too
Does my woman’s pitch-black hair
Trail upon the floor
Where she sleeps without me?”
–Anonymous

“As I stay here yearning,
While I wait for you, my lord,
The autumn wind blows,
Swaying the bamboo blinds
Of my lodging.
—Princess Nukata (8th century)

“Thick and fast stream my thoughts of you,
Like the layers
Of endlessly falling snow
Upon the cedars.
Come to me at night, my man.”
—The Maiden Osata Hirotsu
—
“Your hair has turned white
While your heart stayed
Knotted against me.
I shall never
Loosen it now.”
—Hitomaro

“Oh for a heavenly fire!
I would reel in
The distant road you travel,
Fold it up,
And burn it to ashes.”
—The Daughter of Sano Otogami

“I dreamed I held
A sword against my flesh.
What does it mean?
It means I shall see you soon.”
—Lady Kasa

“The flowers whirl away
In the wind like snow.
The thing that falls away
Is myself.”
—Kintsune

“Brave man like the catalpa bow
That, once drawn,
Does not slacken—
Can it be that he is unable to bear
The vicissitudes of love?”
—Anonymous

“I shall not take a brush
To this hair that lies
Disheveled in the morning,
For it retains the touch
Of my dear lord’s arms that pillowed me.”
—Anonymous

—–

The poems to the end are Lady Nyo’s poems, some to be published in “White Cranes of Heaven” by Lulu.co, Spring, 2011.
—
Shooting star crosses
Upended bowl of blue night
Imagination-
Fires up with excited gaze!
A moment– and all is gone.
—
This is the problem!
Do not give over your soul,
it returns tattered.
What tailor can mend the rips?
The fabric too frayed by life.

—

“Shall an old gray wolf
subdue a woman like me?
“I shall be born soon.
The wolf head I will cut off
and nail the pelt to the cross.”
(Lady Nyo’s Death Tanka, but not dead yet.)
—
This grim November,
The month of my father’s death
Always bittersweet.
My memories float, weak ghosts-
Haunting in the fog of life.
—
So lonely am I
My soul like a floating weed
Severed at the roots
Drifting upon cold waters
No pillow for further dreams.
—
A late Summer moon
Floats above the conifers.
Autumn is coming.
Do pines know the season turns?
Their leaves don’t fall; do they care?
–

—Lady Nyo, various tanka and extended haiku.

Jane Kohut-Bartels,
Copyrighted 2011-2013

” A Short Presentation on Tanka”

National Haiku Month still:

The young plum has died
white blossoms never opened
Mockingbirds homeless

–
A daffodil moon
sails across a charcoal sky
Dawn-it comes too close!

Lady Nyo

A little more than a year ago, I was asked by a poetry group, “OneShotPoetry” to do a presentation on tanka. I have been studying this early Japanese form of poetry for the past five or more years. I love this form to distraction, and my own poetry has gone through many changes as I learned. I always feel that the study of tanka is a life long endeavour. It took me years to finally come to grips with the ‘hidden’ concepts, which aren’t really very hidden. The structure of tanka is rooted in the earliest poetry in Japan, before the 6th century, but blossoming into its fullest beauty before the 12 century. In my opinion, this has many reasons, in part because of the contributions of women poets in Japan. This is well before the advent of Confucianism, where the freedoms of women were corralled and their creativity also demeaned.

Lady Nyo

–
TANKA PRESENTATION FOR ONESHOT

The morning wren sings
I stand in the moonlit dawn
Kimono wrapped close
Last night I made my peace
Now free from all attachments

Lady Nyo

To understand tanka one should go back into the Japanese literary history of the 8th and 9th century. Poets of this time, male poets, were writing in a Chinese poetic technique. They were still not able to use the language skillfully enough to present their own emotions. This would take another century but by the 10th century, women were using a new written language to write their poetry. For the next two centuries, excelled in it.

Tanka, earlier name waka, was described in this way: “ Japanese verse is something which takes root in the soil of the heart and blossoms forth in a forest of words.”

Tanka, if nothing else, was the medium for lovers: written on special paper, a fan, wrapped around a small branch of a flowering plum or cherry, it was communication between a man and a woman.

Married couples in a certain class didn’t live together. Perhaps a wife had her own quarters in a compound, or in another town. A tanka was composed, a personal messenger delivered the poem, waited, was given a drink, flirted with the kitchen maids, and an answering poem was brought back.

People were judged as to how “good” their poetry was.

During the Heian court of the 12th century, tanka became one of the greatest literary influences. Large and prestigious competitions were developed by nobles and priests alike, striving for the most ‘refined’ tanka. This led to restricted poems because of limited themes thought ‘proper’. Praise of nature, the Emperor, and loyalty were much the court poems.

However, it was still the written form of communication between lovers. Poetry from that time, outside the court issue, still exalted the passions—made connection between hearts — fertilized the soil of humanity.

Ono no Komachi, Izumi Shikiba and Saigyo are a few of the great tanka poets of the early Heian period (8-12th centuries).

The first two court women, great poets, and the third was a Buddhist priest. Saigyo is perhaps the most influential poet to come out of Japan. Even the famous haikuist Basho (17th century) said he studied Saigyo .

Saigyo came from the Heian Court in the 12 century. He was of a samurai/warrior family and at the age of 23 became a priest. He was always worried his warrior background (he did serve as samurai) would ‘taint’ his Buddhist convictions. He left the court when the Japanese world was turning upside down with politics and civil war.
For those who want a deeper history of Saigyo, read William LaFleur’s “Awesome Nightfall” about the life and times of Saigyo.

Saigyo’s wandering all over Japan was not so unusual. Saigyo travelled with other priests and welcomed their company on the lonely treks through mountains and remote terrain. Some were spies for the Court. Many priests wore a large woven basket over their heads, extending down past their shoulders. Some were Shakhauchi flute players who would play their wooden flutes under the basket as they walked.

Generally Saigyo adheres to the 5-7-5-7-7 structure of tanka . I will give the original in Japanese of one poem, because the translation into English doesn’t necessarily follow the 5-7-5 etc. structure when translated.

1.
Tazunekite
Kototou hito no
Naki yado ni
Ko no ma no tsuki no
Kage zo sashikuru

“This place of mine
Never is entered by humans
Come for conversation.
Only by the mute moon’s light shafts
Which slip in between the trees.

2.
(Remembering a lover)
The moon, like you,
Is far away from me, but it’s
Our sole memento:
If you look and recall our past
Through it, we can be one mind.

4.
Here I’ve a place
So remote, so mountain-closed,
None comes to call.
But those voices! A whole clan
Of monkeys on the way here!

This is only a teaser of Saigyo’s superb verse, but shows the brilliance, power and inventiveness of the short burst of tanka.

Ono no Komachi (8th century) and Izumi Shikibu (974?-1034?) wrote during the times of the court culture’s greatest flowering. As with Saigyo, Ono no Komachi mostly writes in the 5-7-5-7-7 form of tanka.

1.
No way to see him
On this moonless night—
I lie awake longing, burning,
Breasts racing fire,
Heart in flames.

No way to see her lover without the light of the moon, perhaps she dare not strike a light. But the repeated imagery of light: flames, fire, burning clearly relays her desire. “Heart in flames” is common, but “Breasts racing fire” pushing this poem up a notch.

2.
Since this body
Was forgotten
By the one who promised to come,
My only thought is wondering
Whether it even exists.

Do we exist independently of the one we deeply love? Would we exist without them?

3.
I thought to pick
The flower of forgetting
For myself,
But I found it
Already growing in his heart.

Izumi Shikibu is a poet that can make one uncomfortable in the reading. Her poems are so personal, so erotic.

1.
Lying alone,
My black hair tangled,
Uncombed,
I long for the one
Who touched it first.

2.
In this world
Love has no color—
Yet how deeply
My body
Is stained by yours.

3.
If only his horse
Had been tamed
By my hand—I’d have taught it
Not to follow anyone else!

This last poem quoted is hard to read. Shikibu’s daughter Naishi has died, snow fell and melted. The reference to ‘vanish into the empty sky’, is the smoke of cremation.

4.
Why did you vanish
Into empty sky?
Even the fragile snow,
When it falls,
Falls into this world.

The next section will be about the formation of tanka, with classical examples and a few of my own.

Lady Nyo ( who is also Jane Kohut-Bartels)

Copyrighted, 2012-2013

“Spring Moon”

(courtesy of panoramio.com)

The supermoon of a few days ago was delightful, but this poem was written a few days before Luna showed her full face.  I leaned on my rake and was so taken by her appearance, this little poem formed fast.  It is a slight poem, but like  Saigyo, and his love of the moon, it was an immediate response to what was before my eyes.

Lady Nyo

–

Spring Moon

 

The moon this spring afternoon

Floated high above the saddle of distant trees, hills,

As she pillowed on her part of the universe

Her face no more colored than a passing cloud.

She looked sleepy, tired—

Of course!  All this waxing and waning.

She looked down at me as she cuddled the pale sky

Just one eye awake,

A part of her mouth exposed

The rest of her face burrowed in sky,

No gleam, no intent of prowling the heavens.

Just waking up—I expected her to yawn!

 

Jane Kohut-Bartels

Copyrighted, 2012

Winter to Spring, and the House Guest from Hell….

Well, I’ve been coasting this winter, mostly doing research, reading whatever I can grab that either fulfills the self-imposed requirements of ‘research’ or whatever comforts, satisfies.  This last varies, but I keep coming back to the soothing nature of Japanese classical literature.  Tanka, waka, biographies with work attached of Ono no Komachi, Saigyo, Basho, and the works of Royall Tyler (“Japanese Tales”, which are ‘fairy tales’ of a folk, horror nature), another attempt to settle down and plow seriously into Ruth Benedict’s “The Chrysanthemum and the Sword” (a dated but weighty book on the Japanese written during WWII from her anthropological studies and interviews of interned Japanese in the US), Morris Berman’s “Coming to Our Senses” (and excellent and too far ranging book), and most recently,  Albert Hourani’s “A History Of The Arab Peoples”, which was started recently for more research for “Tin Hinan”, but is actually so well written it’s something I climb into bed for comfort at the end of the day.

This past week I’ve needed comfort, or perhaps a realization that some ‘friendships’ are not what you need in life: or perhaps I need some ‘smudging’, a clean broom or something to dispel negative energy left by a short-lived houseguest. Although we had little winter, I am ready for spring and all the changes to come.

When she was finally gone, (after changing plans repeatedly) it was a great relief.  But the negative energy she left behind was ‘real’.  I felt the house needed to be purged.  It was that bad.  So I opened windows, vacuumed, moved furniture around (the ‘go to’ when I need a change in environment or am bored….) and then on the suggestion of a dear friend, burned some candles and tried a little ritual of “bad be gone”.

It was a process that took all week, and I kept finding different and annoying remains of her around the house, like her cast off toothbrush left on the tub rim.  I kept throwing things out. In case I sound intolerant, yes I am. Guilty as charged.  It’s been a halting process, but it has rewards.  I should have developed this ‘aspect’ of my personality a while ago.  I think women in general tolerate too much in life: stupid, insulting, demeaning people because they are relatives or because we have assumed the position so long that we don’t realize the nature of things. We are numb to insults thrown out by hurtful people.  Either we can’t believe our ears or we don’t want to ‘rush to judgment’.  Hah! That kind of  behavior only emboldens these kind of people because they are insensitive to what they do…most times.  If they do it on purpose, they generally fall on the side of sadism and nobody really likes a sadist.

Perhaps we finally find our place in the sun.  I know  it took a long time for me to do so.  I am  considered accomplished enough,  but it took years  to ‘own’ those accomplishments.  Perhaps that has something to do with my intolerance now.  I refuse to have fools and ignorant people around me. I refuse to accomadate them, and if I lose ‘friends’ …well, so what.

I have a 99 year old Aunt  I call “Mother”, and she calls me “Daughter”.  It has taken many years for this to happen, but we both know that there isn’t much time left on the earth to acknowledge our deep love and respect for the other. She has told me many things that makes sense of my family life, and I have told her many things of great concern.  I love her deeply, and find that her love, instead of having to reach for it….reaches down to me. She is not only a cherished relative, but she is a friend.  I know that this can’t be forever, but I write to her every week, and call her, too, and she does the same.  I just wish, and I say this with tears, that I had done so earlier in my life.  She gives me love  I have never understood because it is constant and it is unconditional. 

 My aunt is a regal and elegant woman.  She  knows her place in the sun, but she does have regrets. I know she teaches me many things, and her age is no barrier in this. Perhaps tolerating people who ‘grate’ on the mind is one of them.  It’s not just good health that gets you to 99.  Perhaps it’s something else.  Perhaps it’s called grace.

Lady Nyo

(I love it when a reader, in this case, a fine poet, Yousei Hime, suggests an illustration to go with a poem.  I went to Google one, and my own painting was in the Google Image pile…LOL!  And it was under the caption: “Pitcher of Moon”.  Now, it’s not really a moon picture, but it is late dusk, and the sky is reflected in the pond…but what are the chances that this painting would pop up under that caption?  Thank you, Yousei Hime, for suggesting an illustration.  Good thing I had something to post that I didn’t have to steal!)

Pitcher of Moon

  

I dip into the pond

And gather a pitcher of moon.

Above it glimmers,

Smiles at my efforts

This late-winter moon.

 

It is just a bowl of cool water

I am holding

But the magic of the cosmos settles

In this plain clay vessel.

 

Janekohutbartels,

Copyrighted, 2012