Confessions of a Haiku Poet

Sachi is born

williamottelucas@gmail.com (hadashi) — Sun, 11 Oct 2009 22:54:00 +0000

placenta placed
beneath the cherry
. . . blosoms!

Hadashi no haiku

williamottelucas@gmail.com (hadashi) — Wed, 17 Dec 2008 20:45:00 +0000

In 2005, with my wife, Mami, I completed a walking and cycling trip the length of Japan. In 2008, I completed the book about it (here's an excerpt). Anyway, despite my fears I was able to compose about 100 haiku in the course of the journey, which I included in Hadashi no Tabi: Barefoot through Japan. A short selection . . .

floating

the idea of

a Zen garden

another element

cool wind

ripples rice

ripples water

I think nothing of

spitting out pips

but what of the peel?

citrus orchards

keeping within cooee

of Route 11

your country

maybe, but it’s

my world

Rather an occasion

williamottelucas@gmail.com (hadashi) — Thu, 29 May 2008 04:15:00 +0000

It's a rare day, these days, that I scribble down a haiku. But at least I know I'm not forcing it.

Walking by the hospital, I saw a patient braving the cold for a smoke. You're meant to be at least 10 metres from the building, but she was huddling from the weather in the doorway. A weird sight . . .

A & E
portable drip and a cig
shitty weather

The photo? I just like the look of it.

Jogging into work this morning

williamottelucas@gmail.com (hadashi) — Wed, 29 Nov 2006 19:51:00 +0000

It was rainy, but I wanted the exercise and so walked and jogged my way into work. Took a short-cut through the university campus avoiding the puddles. A twig blown from a tree got caught up before my feet, but was so flimsy that it didn't trip me up. I just kept a-striding, and the bit-of-a-sprig kept a-bouncing off my toes.

trips up and up
a twig
my dancing feet

Sky Land Sea

williamottelucas@gmail.com (hadashi) — Fri, 10 Nov 2006 23:26:00 +0000

The local newspaper treats its readers to a one-day-a-week poetry column. Send in your contribution, have it evaluated by the South Island's favourite son, Brian Turner, and you may get published.

Ha! Is it any wonder that most of what sneaks by appear to be clones.

Anyway, the selection criteria take up at least 50% of the available space:

Footnote: Contributions to this column are invited from writers south of the Waitaki River. They should not exceed 35 lines, and they should be typed or emailed in clear text; do not send as an attachment. They may be posted to: Opinion Page, Editorial Department, Otago Daily Times, P.O. Box 181, Dunedin; or emailed to: bryan.james@odt.co.nz. No new correspondence will be entered into, and contributions, which must include a residential address and contact telephone number, will not be returned to senders. Those whose works are selected will be paid a small fee. Monday's poem is published weekly.

. . . takes a deep breath! Talk about overkill. I had the thought of taking a pair of scissors to the footnote, and rearranging the bits to produce a masterpiece of reconstructed text, but there are better things to do. And I don't write haiku on demand or by a template.

I must, however, admit to having had a go (and hence the bitterness). Not considering myself a poet, and not expecting my haiku to be thought of as poems - why else are they largely categorized as juvenile literature? - I did some reconstruction, but using my own word strings.

Herewith my 'poem', being a selection of the haiku that were spawned in the course of a month-long trek that I made down the South Island in Jandals.

Sky Land Sea

Black
an anonymous gate
just the name
landscape
aquiver and curled
at the edge she sits
at the isthmus absorbed
in a book

Mount Patriarch
lets me know where
I am, who I am
looking at land the mountains
cloud over
continuous trill the bird
flutters higher and higher
approaching the pass the wind
rocks a bee on the road
over the top
a light rain

all-day gale the grass
hisses deeper from stocktrucks
long-dead
its scream pains my eye
side of the road
bottles a dozen . . .
and counting that
sharp sun
I stoop at the edge for
sunglasses darts
at my shadow a skink

thousand mile walk
the scene that they snap - Instamatic
cork, cage, foil,
I piece together some one's picnic
a stirring of air stirs
the pond stirs
the sky

the Southern Cross
is lost . . . so many stars!
coughs in the dark
just old men and sheep
departing
arriving
momentous

Well then. At 45 lines long it's too long I suppose. But I had collapsed it into 27 before asking Brian to cast his eye. Still, I like it better this way. Follow my own rules and preferences, what!?

And if it ain't to your liking, hang on, where's those scissors?

A published author!

williamottelucas@gmail.com (hadashi) — Wed, 08 Nov 2006 01:54:00 +0000

When writing the previous post, I recognized a haiku that I've had published. In this post, then, I've decided to include all of my haiku that have ever appeared in print (other than self-published).

In The second New Zealand Haiku Anthology (1998) ed. Cyril Childs I am one of the 35 featured authors. Page 48 is all mine!

William Lucas

----------------------------------------------------------------

Born 1957 in Wellington, a first generation New Zealander, William Lucas is an ESOL teacher and has lived and worked in India and Japan. He now lives in Dunedin.

----------------------------------------------------------------

A moth?
a leaf . . .
a Moth!

no footprint . . .
just earthworms, naked
over snow

between acts -
the World's Greatest Tumbler
hawks balloons

middle of the road -
midnight muzak
fills the mainstreet

I've pretty much copied the haiku as they were printed. Over the years I've cut down on the punctuation. I rarely use full stops or capitals anymore. I generally use a lesser number of syllables.

A tale of two cities

williamottelucas@gmail.com (hadashi) — Wed, 08 Nov 2006 01:40:00 +0000

After returning to Dunedin, New Zealand, my home city, it was inevitable that I would write haiku there also, and that I would then compare what I had written in the two environments.

Rice by the spoon was the result.

I selected 100 haiku written in NZ and a further 100 (not yet included in Eight seasons in Otaru) and alternated them, with an eye on linear progression.

I believe that no haiku actually stands alone. There is always a context - either the haiku that stand on the same page and in the same book, or in the reader's mind i.e. the haiku he or she had previously read.

Here are a couple of six-linked-haiku: two leaves out of my book:

jump
the dead rat
mid! jump

leaping up at me
tonight
just traffic plashing

soaring hawk
behind me honks
a taxi

the crow croaks
a new day of sunshine
slumbers

I might have known
while napping the
silverbeet wilted

blue and green
a sandwich
orange peel

***

duck the willow
wind stirs twice
the rain

nightfoot padding past
the stairwell inlit moon
the silence roars

no footprint
just earthworms naked
over snow

buddha in a
plastic mac and bonnet
sleeping ice

from time to time
I wipe my nose
it's only rain

March melts
but the mud
remains for rain

Eight Seasons in Otaru

williamottelucas@gmail.com (hadashi) — Mon, 06 Nov 2006 19:35:00 +0000

I spent a couple of years in Otaru, Japan, from 1994 until 1996. Apart from the first six months or so, when I gradually eased into writing haiku, these two years are when haiku took off for me.

Near the end of my stay I wrote a compilation of the 100 in my mind best that I had written. I sorted them into categories and wrote brief backgrounds and descriptions, then had it all translated into Japanese (not the actual haiku which remained in English).

I have a copy of that booklet - Eight seasons in Otaru - here at hand. Can't read it though. Must have the original draft around somewhere . . .

Okay then, I've previously posted haiku from the category 'school'. Herewith a haiku from each of the other sections that make up my first compilation:

First impressions

candy kept crisp
for the gods
to unwrap

Commuting

slush hour slaps
waves
across my wake

Insects

clouds brush
bugs hustle to
shut up shop

Trees

sweltering forest
a lizard's tip
writhes in my way

City centre

hatch a patch
of frozen sunshine
red blue red . . .

Cycling

weaving
in and out of line I
hug the half lane

Birds

castles of snow
lowering the camera
sparrows I hadn't seen

Night life

canal at night
train under the bridge
arrives my moment

Flowers

three-year-old eyes
who showed whom
the apple orchard?

Winter

within minutes
swift as snow this
perfect pine

Running

scooting
level footing
ice on ice

Reflections

ten below
and me shuffling a glove
hand to hand

Back to school

williamottelucas@gmail.com (hadashi) — Thu, 02 Nov 2006 01:37:00 +0000

I believe that the first time I ever entertained the notion of 'doing' anything with my haiku was during the two years - 1994 to 1996 - that I spent in Japan. During that period I spent about a month at each of Otaru's 17 junior high schools. Apart from having to introduce myself to about 200 classes (to stay sane I was obliged to dream up half a dozen ways!) I really enjoyed the experience, both at work and at leisure.

Herewith haiku written when I was an assistant English teacher at those schools (and limited to 17):

truant and teacher
exchange a look
ten thousand stale breaths

the snow runs up
the water down the mountain
Kitayama

at Seien
a puff of dust and sunlight
fuki and football

dog in the window
geen kip on the road
off to Zenibako

not green not brown
but winter's here for sure
the cable car jerks

fresh snow
fresh wind
red Oshoro pine

Asari air
fangs of ice let rip
an avalanche

treeline climbs
up up into mist
afternoon dew

boys in purple
crickets in green
and always puddles

tree roots
shoots fresh as salad
even the earth looks washed

slate and ochre
clay and granite
morning's three-point turns

coliseum shook up
in its crystal
christmas ball

principal and pupil
bow . . . break into
a tap dance!

The first six months

williamottelucas@gmail.com (hadashi) — Tue, 24 Oct 2006 01:35:00 +0000

I'm going to shoot ahead now. I've written posts about my first two haiku, but at that rate it will take me forever. What I'll do is to post the next 35 in one fell swoop. They make up a set in the sense that I wrote them during the six-month period leading up to my employment in Japan.

I wrote haiku slowly at the beginning (and at the end - but that's the topic of a future post) at a rate of about half a dozen per month. From September 1993 until March 1994, a period of seven months, I wrote just 37 haiku.

I observe that they arrived in twos and threes mainly, as far as their nature or structure is concerned. I don't know - perhaps this reflects the 'setting' that my brain was in at any particular time. Read the following, then, seeking the pattern . . .

shibui!
they all cry
shibui! shibui!

satori?
a single cherry blossom
counts for naught

***

running
against the wind
I dodge a bee

the clouds burst thrice
in the course of my circuit
I crack the hour though

***

in a meat suit
one fumbles
for buttons

such thumping about!
an elephant would
make less noise

***

caught off-guard
such images worthy of
genuflection

twenty years a beard
clean-shaven now
such lines! such skin!

***

overseas
the sun and sky
remain the same

magpies dream
of streams and
ten-speed touring

***

a cloud a hill a tree a pane
this ray explodes
these eyes

degrees
measured in tenths!
symptomatic surely

sunglasses?
shingles!
though you used
to port people
yourself
once

***

I might, might not . . .
make pretty poor company
after

forgive life
the way you do
your clumsy dad

***

a night spent
sitting, writing, walking
dreaming

every man feels
his voice is worth
singing

if the best
does not remain
was it ever?

***

humid evening
inhale a damp towel
instant tropics

despite the dirt
& chocolate smears
baby smells of sunshine

***

betrayed
by my own tongue I
mumble and splutter

each haiku
thwacks!
to halt my nodding

***

three
words
speak

some sort of bird
some sort of tree
does its name
concern either?

***

wrenching my guts
on another's behalf
how stupid!

a cold shower
or a decent crap
any comparison?

cramming one's headful
results in
just what?

***

exercise over
I strut
cushioned soles

on grass
the morning rain
I take a leak

***

we sense
the back beyond the blue
the stars?
give us a chance

give up!
you've almost
conquered

***

bird poop!
from a clear blue sky
release

in a word
this seasoning's not
for general consumption

the Bird lifts
up its wings and wheels
smiles and tears

On a roll

williamottelucas@gmail.com (hadashi) — Wed, 20 Sep 2006 04:59:00 +0000

Later that month . . .

Again it was an episode that concerned my children which induced me to pen or pencil down another haiku. It was another moment of revelation that was the key.

daughters
one shows the other
the garden

What I enjoy about haiku as opposed to 'poetry' is that it is the idea that is important, not the words. The more simply you are able to state something, generally, the better. There is no one-upmanship involved, no frippery or showing off.

For me, it strikes a chord (or gong, or chime).

p.s. my daughters were then six years and 16 months

Who or what is to blame?

williamottelucas@gmail.com (hadashi) — Thu, 19 Jan 2006 06:13:00 +0000

Let me start with a question, and then give you an answer (of sorts).
Who, what, when, where, why, how . . . (when did how become the odd man out - in terms of spelling - and why?)

For now, I'll tell you this: In 1993 I borrowed a book from the library - something by Lucien Stryk, I fancy, though I might be wrong - let me check and confirm. I'm pretty sure that the words zen and haiku were contained in the title.

I was working on my cultural knowledge of Japan. I'd applied for a job there, and had been successful. Consequently, I hunted up material to read, and enrolled for a very brief and basic course at nightschool. Ten lessons in all. And didn't that first handwritten page of the most common expressions take an age to commit to memory!

As I say, I read Lucien Stryk's wee tome, and some germ must have remained with me, because a couple of weeks later I found myself in a zen-moment type of situation, and without any conscious decision on my part instinctively and naturally sketched it with words.

drizzle
in my infant's hair
warm hand

We, my son(3) and I, were walking back from school where we'd brought his older sister(6). The weather wasn't all that hot, and when I looked down at the top of his head, I saw droplets of rain suspended in the hairs above his scalp. It was cold, but I was simultaneously aware of that little pocket of warmth we held trapped in our joined hands.

That's how - there's that odd man out again - I started writing haiku. Because I had to.