From: wlodek%wiltel@uunet.uu.net (Wlodzimierz Holsztynski)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.poems
Subject: Re: haiku -- an invitation ... // ambiguous or precise?
Summary: from wlod not tom
Keywords: from wlod not tom
Date: 21 Aug 92 07:24:49 GMT
Reply-To: wlodek%wiltel@uunet.uu.net
Organization: Canon Research Centre Europe Ltd

= 



I'll add some remarks to the rap Frank Poduska's contribution
presenting the field of haiku poetry:

> From: frank@IASTATE.EDU (Frank A Poduska)
> Newsgroups: rec.arts.poems
> Subject: Re: haiku -- an invitation to bookstores & libraries
> Date: 12 Aug 92 15:21:18 GMT

> Japanese haiku sometimes achieve brevity by the omission of what
> are in any other writing essential words - like English verbs.
> I don't think that means that the writers were/are deliberately
> trying to be ambiguous or obscure, but it does add those elements.

It is, at least for poets, a strength of the chinese and japanese
languages, and rather a drawback of many other languages which lack
this kind of PRECISION.  In Chinese we can say that an event happens
to a person or persons without giving any indication whether it
happens to me, to us, to others, to one person or to many. We don't
have to indicate the time (past, present, future). Thus we can
isolate the poetic elements in a pure way.  E.g. in English I'd say
something like "someone walked down the road" and I already make
a distinction that it's not me, and that it is one person. Also
I indicate time. And all this might be irrelevant to the effects and
the mood which I'd like to generate. Thus we introduce alien  
elements, i.e. we obscure.  In Chinese we would add such info
only when we would mean it, when it'd be essential.

On occasions I tried to "chinesy" some
of my poems but it's difficult. In one case I'd start a poem with
a long sentence and would delay specifying the person till nearly
the end of the sentence.  It was important to me since I didn't want
to alienate any reader, I wanted readers to be able to identify with
the character in the poem.  Of course in many English language poems
of many different authors there would be phrases in place of full
sentences -- they allow some (all?) of the chinese advantages; think
about a poem like this:

	going home
	slow train
	relax
	think
	slowly
	people in the dark open windows
	of houses passed by
	framed pictures?
	slow train
	enough time
	for a nap

Make it more specific and you will lose something.

> What do you make of:

		old pond frog-jump-in-sound

> Sure, it paints a picture of a frog jumping in water - so what?
> More precisely it paints a picture of someone hearing
> (if a tree fell in the woods ...) a young frog jump into an ancient
> pool.

Not precise enough :-)  The poem does not mention or indicate any
presence of a person -- that would be an intrusion into the purity
(simplicity and the self-contain quality) of what we are offered.

> But what does it mean? Perhaps it has something to do with "youth
> trying to make his mark in the world".

An interesting interpretation. The frog doesn't have to be young as
a frog but it is young compared to the pond. hence your
interpretation (frog == brush youth with a hint of disrespect) holds
water :-)

> The original is just precise enough to show a concrete picture,
> ambiguous enough to let you decide the meaning,

Nothing (!) can provide us with precise meaning, only with "precise"
lies, preaching and propaganda. I prefer the haiku way!


> and suggestive enough that you and I can
> have different interpretations.

Indeed. Here I go.  Like you I interpret the old pond as the world
but together with its time dimension (OLD pond).  I see two images.
The first one I *recall* from my experience (memory). That of the
frog jumping into a pool of water.  This is NOT the image painted
by Basho's haiku.  His haiku has no frog, just the SOUND. Hence the
other and more vivid image is of the pond with the ripples spreading
and disappearing.  No frog in the picture! Was there any at any time?
Does the frog exist? Do we?

This haiku reminds us about the minuteness of our life.
That we leave behind us nothing but short lived ripples which
survive only that much longer than we. Then the old pond is the
same again like we never existed.

This haiku does not tell us whether it's good or bad that we pass
without a trace. And I am grateful to Basho for that.

Yes, other interpretations are possible and other questions.
If we believe that the frog exists, under the water, we may get that
airy feeling about knowing so little about others, e.g. about our
family and best friends.  The short jump which we may even miss
and their underwater life about which we know nothing.

I said a mouthful. It's nice now to go back to the original, to
Basho's dense with its greenness snapshot of the old pond and of
the frog which is not even there.

> Frank Poduska                 frank@iastate.edu

Thank you Frank for responding to my previous article and for good
words.  I also saw someone's article damning haiku and haiku like
poetry. Why? Wouldn't it be enough to ignore it?

Thank you for ignoring :-)

	Wlod




(from wlod not tom)





-- 

Tom Wachtel (wachtel@canon.co.uk)