Interviews

Interview with David Lanoue

Interview with John Carley

Interview with Johnette Downing

Translating Issa, An Interview with David Lanoue
By Johnette Downing

Who is Issa?

Issa is one of the best haiku poets of Japan. He picked the poetic name of Issa. It means "One Cup of Tea." His real name is Yataro.

When and where did he live?

He lived from 1763 to 1828 (some books say 1827). His home village was high in the mountains of central Japan; it was called Kashiwabara.

What did "haiku" mean to Issa?

Haiku for Issa was a poetic way to appreciate life and nature: he would stop, look and listen, then record what he saw, heard, smelled, felt, or touched in one breath.

What is the job of a translator?

A translator tries to make a poem come to life in a new language: recreating as closely as possible the meaning, feeling, and style of the original poem.

How long have you been a translator?

20 years, more or less.

Why did you select to translate the haiku of Issa and how many Issa poems have you translated?

I picked Issa because his poems are down to earth and sometimes funny. He wrote 20 thousand haiku. I've translated a little over 6,000 so far.

What are some of your favorite Issa poems?

moo, moo, moo
out of the mist come
the cows

scrawny frog
don't give up
Issa to the rescue!

watch out!
I'm rolling over…
cricket in my bed

Where can I learn more about Issa?

There's a great children's book, "Wind In My Hand." Also, you could look for good websites.

What are some of your favorite haiku that you have written?

you smell it
then see it
the camel

milkweed fluff in the air
the sleepy
lions

Is there anything else important I should know about haiku, Issa or you?

Issa and I both believe in writing haiku every day. I take a notepad with me always.

David Lanoue was born in Omaha, Nebraska and earned a B.A at Creighton University and a M.A. and Ph.D. in English at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. He teaches English at Xavier University in New Orleans, Louisiana. He discovered haiku in 1983 and studied Japanese and visited Japan in 1987 and 1988 while working on a book of translations of the poet Issa. His haiku have been published in Modern Haiku, Frogpond, bottle rockets, Jointure, Poesia, Literaturen Vestnik and the Haiku Society of America's Members Anthology. He is the cofounder of the New Orleans Haiku Society. His books include Issa: Cup-of-Tea Poems, Haiku Guy, Laughing Buddha, Pure Land Haiku: The Art of Priest Issa and Haiku Wars.

Renga Interview with John Carley
By Johnette Downing

What is renga?

Renga is a Japanese word. It describes a form of poetry that comes originally from Japan. The word renga has two parts, ren and ga. Ren means 'linked up', like a chain, and ga means 'song' or 'poem'. So renga describes a long poem that is made by putting lots of little poems together. It is like making a necklace of brightly coloured beads. The specially good thing about renga is that a group of people sit down and make the poem together. Each person adds a little poem to the one before. In English each little poem is normally called 'a verse'.

Can you give us an example of the structure/form of renga?

There are two sizes of verse that make up a renga: 'long' and 'short'. But really we could call these 'short' and 'very short' because they are such little verses! When we write renga in English the longer type of verse normally takes up three lines and has between 13 and 17 syllables. The shorter type of verse normally takes up two lines and has between 9 and 12 syllables.

A renga is made up by swapping a longer verse for a shorter verse, for a longer verse, for a shorter verse, and so on. In the old days people would often write chains of 100 verses. There were even chains of 1000 verses! Now the favourite sizes are 36, 20 or 12 verses. But you can write a renga with 6, or 8 or 10 verses if you like.

There are lots of ways of organizing a renga but there is only one 'rule': every new verse has to join up in some way to one it follows … but it has to be different from the one before that. For example, if we take some verses and call them A, B, C and D:

B will link up to A
C will link up to B
D will link up to C
But C must be different to A.
And D must be different to B.

What is the significance of renga in Japanese culture past and present?

Renga has been written in Japan for nearly a thousand years. A very long time ago most people could not read or write, and had to work long hours, so only the rich and powerful people used to write renga. About 300 years ago things began to change; more people were learning to read and write, and they also had some spare time so they could do enjoyable things, like write poetry. Soon renga became very popular. And famous renga poets were like superstars. The most famous one is still a superstar. His name was Matsuo Basho.

The special thing about renga for Japanese people is that it is written by a group of people. Japanese people like to work together instead of just being on their own. Also, because a renga is made up from lots of small parts and has lots of points of view it is not like a long story or a complicated argument. Instead a renga is like a collage – a picture made from lots of little pieces of different types of stuff.

What inspired you to specialize in renga?

When I was young I used to play drums, and I used to like dancing. These are both things that you do best when you are with other people. When I got older I started to really like writing poetry. But most poetry is something you do on your own. So when I discovered a type of poetry where you could work with other people to make a poem together I was really pleased.

How can teachers and students use renga in the classroom?

To write renga you need good individual ideas. But you also need to be able share – everything. Moods, feelings, ways of seeing things, good things, bad things. A renga is made by switching between points of view. It needs weird ideas, and simple ones. It requires big words, and small. A good writing team has a joker, and a romantic, a quick thinker, and a deep thinker.

So renga teaches us to look carefully and listen to the people around us. It teaches us to swap ideas and impressions. It teaches us how to value another person’s point of view, but also how to reply and share a point of view of our own. These are important lessons, we learn from one another, and with one another.

Please share your favorite renga.

Kasen: The Seahawk's Feathers translated by Eiko Yachimoto and John E Carley

This kasen is the first to appear in Sarumino-shu, published on 3rd July 1691. The poem was composed in a live session held in Kyoto in the early winter of 1690. The translation was begun on 24th April 2003 and completed on 4th June 2003.

first folio-recto

the seahawk's feathers preened just so,
the first of the cold drizzle	Kyorai

a gust of wind and then
the leaves are hushed	Basho

early morning traversing the river
my breeks wet through	Boncho

a dainty bamboo bow
to scare raccoons	Fumikuni

the slatted door… vines of ivy creeping
there the evening moon	Basho

not for the giving:
these pears of such repute	Kyorai

first folio-verso

as autumn fades his wild strokes yield
a unique sumi-e	Fumikuni

so wonderful…
the feel of knitted footwear	Boncho

peace presides in everything while
not a word is uttered	Kyorai

sighting a village
the noontide conch is blown	Basho

the plaited grass of last year's sleep mat
fraying at the edges	Boncho

one petal falls
then another: a lotus	Fumikuni

a bowl of broth wins the highest praise,
graced with suizenji!	Basho

the road ahead
above three miles or more	Kyorai

this spring also Rodo's man stands ready
in the same employ	Fumikuni

hazy-moon night,
a cutting taken root	Boncho

though bound in moss the old stone basin sits well
with the blossom	Basho

anger in the morning
finds its own resolve	Kyorai

Please share your favorite renga by children.

This was composed by a group of 10 and 11 year old English children in 2002.

The Cycle of a Day

the rooster crows
to wake the street
cock-a-doodle-doo

the crunching of the cornflakes
and the crumbling of the toast

slippiness and slidiness
the oily sun cream
sticks to your skin

our short shadows walk with us
on the newly cut grass

midges fly low
and the windows grow brighter
in the garden

the silence is broken
by the noise of your favourite soaps

badgers and foxes
under the full moon
hunt through the darkness

night thickens into dreams
a food fight started by fish

Renjyu: Leesa, Victoria, Hira, Megan, Jacob, Andrew, Adam, Charlotte, Neill, Jake, Daniel & Joss
Sabaki: John Carley
Summer Term 2002 - Haslingden County Primary School

Is there anything else you would like us to know about renga?

The best possible way to learn about renga is to write some. Remember to use all your senses: sight, sound, taste, smell and touch. Have some verses with people in, and some just describing places or things. Have some indoors and some outdoors. Use the city, and the countryside. The sky and the sea. Some verses are funny. Some will be sad. It is even traditional to have a rude verse sometimes!

The most important thing is to work together. Don’t be afraid to speak up. Often a tiny renga verse is actually written by two or three people – each one offering two or three words, or half an idea that another person completes.

Oh yes – and don’t be surprised if you keep seeing renga referred to as 'renku'. 'Renku' is just the modern name for renga written in the style of that superstar I talked about before: Matsuo Basho.

Where can I learn more about renga?

Renga is still a new type of poetry for people outside Japan so there aren't a lot of good English-language books yet. But the long renga written by adults is best read about in Simply Haiku magazine or on the Renku Home web site. There’s quite a lot of shorter renga written by children and young people on part of my own web site, Young Renga. I do hope you will read some and then write some yourselves. If you do I would very much like to read them. Perhaps your teacher or group leader could email them to me.

Bio: I am 50 years old. I am married with a teenage son and daughter. I now live in a poor part of the north of England. Before that I lived in France and Italy for a long time so I speak French and Italian as well as English. In the last couple of years I’ve been learning Japanese. I have done a lot of work writing renga with children and young people though at the moment most of my work is with adults. My ambition is to be a good father and a good poet.

The Sea Hawk's Feathers was published in Frogpond, the journal of the Haiku Society of America, in Spring 2004

Through the Shadow was published in Simply Haiku Vol 2 #1 Jan/Feb 2004

Links you might need are Simply Haiku - www.simplyhaiku.com
Renku Home - renku.home.att.net
Young Renga - www.villarana.freeserve.co.uk/youngrenga/index.htm

Haiku Interview with Johnette Downing
By Students of R. Frost Elementary School in Pasco, WA

Dear Kevin, Jonathan, David, Sammy, Geoffrey, and Adrian:

Thank you for your email and questions about one of my favorite subjects, haiku. I discovered haiku about five years ago when a friend bought me a haiku book to read during my summer vacation. I just fell in love with haiku and have been writing and enjoying haiku ever since. I am so excited that you have discovered haiku at a much earlier age than I and I am sure this poetic form will enrich your lives forever. Here are my answers to your question.

Why is this form called haiku?

The poetic form called haiku comes from Japan and "haiku" is a Japanese word. Here is a definition of haiku from the Haiku Society of America on their website www.hsa-haiku.org:

HAIKU

Definition: A haiku is a short poem that uses imagistic language to convey the essence of an experience of nature or the season intuitively linked to the human condition.

Notes: Most haiku in English consist of three unrhymed lines of seventeen or fewer syllables, with the middle line longest, though today's poets use a variety of line lengths and arrangements. In Japanese a typical haiku has seventeen "sounds" (on) arranged five, seven, and five. (Some translators of Japanese poetry have noted that about twelve syllables in English approximates the duration of seventeen Japanese on.) Traditional Japanese haiku include a "season word" (kigo), a word or phrase that helps identify the season of the experience recorded in the poem, and a "cutting word" (kireji), a sort of spoken punctuation that marks a pause or gives emphasis to one part of the poem. In English, season words are sometimes omitted, but the original focus on experience captured in clear images continues. The most common technique is juxtaposing two images or ideas (Japanese rensô). Punctuation, space, a line-break, or a grammatical break may substitute for a cutting word. Most haiku have no titles, and metaphors and similes are commonly avoided. (Haiku do sometimes have brief prefatory notes, usually specifying the setting or similar facts; metaphors and similes in the simple sense of these terms do sometimes occur, but not frequently. A discussion of what might be called "deep metaphor" or symbolism in haiku is beyond the range of a definition. Various kinds of "pseudohaiku" have also arisen in recent years; see the Notes to "senryu", below, for a brief discussion.)

What is important in haiku poems?

I think the important elements in haiku are:

Two images separated by a pause
A short, unrhymed "one breath" poem of fewer than 17 syllables
The connection between human nature and nature
The poems are spontaneous, live in the moment and have concrete images. In other, words, haiku are written about things we see, feel, smell, taste and observe while we are seeing, feeling, smelling, tasting and observing them, not necessarily about what we dream or wish to be real from the past or in the future. Haiku are about real things not imagined things.
Juxtaposition is another key element in haiku. It is the way things are opposed to one another, but are also connected in some unique way. Haiku are written with juxtaposition of human nature and nature in mind and allow the reader to figure out and enjoy the discovery of how the two images are connected.

How do you write haiku poems?

I always carry my haiku notebook with me because I never know when something will inspire me. Since haiku is of the moment, it is important to write the poem the moment you observe something that seems interesting to you. I write many poems while walking my dog. I do not write the traditional 5-7-5 form because modern Western haiku is more free flowing than traditional Japanese haiku. Usually seeing something in juxtaposition is what catches my eye, for instance, here is a poem I wrote:

on the clothesline
a butterfly
dries his wings

What is the juxtaposition in this poem? What are the two images separated by a pause? What represents human nature and nature? The juxtaposition is that usually clothes are dried on a clothes line, but in this case a young butterfly just out of the chrysalis uses the clothes line to dry his new wings. This poem also has human nature (the clothesline) linked with nature (the butterfly). The two images are separated by a pause after the word "clothesline."

What is the main idea of writing haiku poem?

The main idea of writing haiku is to see with the eyes of a child. This is easy for you all because you all are children! What "seeing with the eyes of a child" means is to be a keen observer and take time to notice all the living creatures around you. Sometimes adults are so busy, we forget to stop and enjoy the beauty that surrounds our everyday lives. The more we stop and observe the natural world around us, the more we see what children see. Seeing with the eyes of a child also means to be curious about things, to question things, and to figure out how nature and humans fit together in harmony and in juxtaposition.

What is your favorite haiku poem that you wrote?

ripples in the pond
my mother's face
in mine

See if you can figure out the human nature and nature link, the juxtaposition and the two images separated by a pause. This poem won a Japanese Haiku International Association Honorable Mention Award.

Was it hard to write haiku poem book? How does haiku poetry go with music?

No, it is not hard to write a haiku book because you can just make a collection of your favorite poems. You could make a haiku book in your class. Select one or two favorite poems from each student, organize them into a book form and create a book that you all can cherish and share with others.

Since I am a singer, songwriter and musician, everything seems to relate to music in my opinion! I like how haiku is simple yet complex, short yet powerful, connects yet opposes and is rhythmic. The 5-7-5 haiku form is more rhythmic than the form I use because it follows a rhythmic pattern of:

da-da-da-da-da
da-da-da-da-da-da-da
da-da-da-da-da

Music follows a rhythmic pattern as well and the lyrics or words in a song tell a story in a compact, powerful way. Many haiku poets like Jack Keroac have combined music and haiku. I live in New Orleans, the birthplace of jazz, and jazz is a perfect musical style for haiku because jazz is of the moment and uses juxtaposition of musical instruments each musician opposed yet connected to one another.

Do you have any advice for us to make our presentation really good one?

I think the best presentations are the ones that are simple and hands-on. Keep it simple by presenting three or four ideas that you want to convey, show examples of what you want to convey and let the audience be actively involved. Perhaps say something like, "Haiku consists of two images separated by a pause," and then show a haiku on a poster board and let the audience tell you what are the two images and where the pause is located. This way the audience is actively involved in learning. Learning is doing.

Here is another haiku of mine just for fun!

green pea soup
ducks
nibble, nibble

What are the two images? Where is the pause? How does it link nature and human nature? Where are the ducks? What is the juxtaposition? Have fun!

Johnette

Johnette Downing
Multi-Award Winning Music For Children With Louisiana Spice
P. O. Box 13367
New Orleans, LA 70185-3367 USA
Tel/Fax 504 861-2682
www.johnettedowning.com
johnette@johnettedowning.com

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