The Spire

(Leaf 10) – Looking Back

St. Mary's Church, Harrow-on-the-Hill.

 

This poem is about a memory I have of walking to school on my own one cold winter’s morning. Crossing a bridge, I remember looking over the brick wall and seeing a view of Harrow-on-the-Hill at the end of the railway tracks. Framed by the leafless trees on either side of the railway embankments, the island-like Hill was a familiar sight. But that day, the distinctive silhouette of the tall, pointed spire of St. Mary’s Church* rose up in a clear white sky. Behind it was the perfect circle of a pale red sun, glowing weakly in the milky stillness. It was a serene moment of perfect silence. I’d not yet read Byron’s poem, ‘A Distant View of Harrow’, but in that moment I think I felt something akin to how he did when he saw something similar. The Hill was a central part of my life growing up. A place synonymous with home, burnished by the memories of friendships which forged us when we were young, when the horizons of our world were much smaller, though at the time – they seemed so vast.

 

 

A

pale

round

red sun

serenely rising

in a perfect, milk-white sky

– seen afar, high on St. Anselm’s Hill,

the tall, slender black spire stands: silhouetted.

 

 

*

*St. Mary’s Church, Harrow-on-the-Hill in Middlesex was consecrated in 1094 by St. Anselm, Archbishop of Canterbury from 1093 to 1109.

Woodland Pool

(Leaf 9) – Reflection

 

The Water of Leith (2005)

Inland bodies of water and rivers were sacred places in ancient Britain. Archaeologists often find so-called ‘votive offerings’ at such locations. These objects can be anything from humble coins or small pieces of jewellery to swords, ceremonial shields, or pieces of armour. It’s thought that the mirror like surface of water might have been seen as a kind of portal. A barrier perhaps between the here and now (the realm of mortality) and somewhere beyond (the realm of immortality). A barrier which can only be transcended by death, as suggested by Seamus Heaney’s poem, ‘The Tollund Man’. Perhaps, by casting such objects (or even, dead bodies) into water they might become transmuted and make that leap between worlds for us. Given as an offering to the ancestral Gods, who might receive them and somehow send their favour back through that earthly barrier. It’s a kind of animistic belief which is common to many cultures around the world going back to the earliest of times, centred on ways of life which were closer to the natural rhythms of the earth, the elements, and the changing seasons. I’ve always felt a tingle of something otherworldly in such places, and occasionally I succumb to that age-old urge. A personal rite, performed variously of simple respect, of thanks, or, of asking for a secret wish to be fulfilled. I’m not sure when I wrote the following poem, or if it relates to any specific place in particular – but it is a reflection upon those old ritualistic instincts which continue to abide within some people, particularly those of us with an eye to our ancient past and the countless generations who have lived and passed through such places before us.

 

River Pinn (2021)

 

Casting a coin

into the woodland pool,

minted the year of my birth.

 

Grantchester (2008)

All photographs by Tim Chamberlain.

Sparrow Chatter

(Leaf 8) – Reflection

 

Shizuo Ashikaga - Sparrows and Cotton Rose (20thC)

There is a tall hedge along one side of the narrow lane behind where we live. It is always full of chirping sparrows, although usually they cannot be seen. Sparrows always seem to me to be the happiest of little creatures, living in constantly chattering, communal flocks. Consequently, there is something strangely comical when passing by this hedge because quite often they all fall silent at the same moment. One suddenly feels the burden of their wary suspicion, knowing you are being watched by a host of unseen eyes. I always say out loud, “Sorry sparrows.” I didn’t mean to disturb their day and spoil their gossipy chatter – I’m simply heading to the shops, the library, or the train station! … But happily, their chirruping soon starts up again once I’ve politely passed beyond their tall, leafy apartment block.

 

 

Passing by the hedge,

chattering sparrows

– suddenly fall silent.

 

 

Alan Reed - Sparrow, Shinobazu no ike (2019)

Lotus Blooms

(Leaf 7) – Looking Back

Shinobazu no ike, Benten-dō (December 2003)

 

The Benten-dō is a small temple/shrine, often found in Japan sited on islands surrounded by water. The Goddess Benten or Benzaiten (meaning ‘Goddess of Eloquence’) is a Japanese Shintō-Buddhist incarnation of the Hindu Goddess, Saraswati. A Dharmapala, or Dharma Protector, she is seen as a benevolent protector and patron of the arts – often associated with water, snakes and dragons, she is usually depicted holding or playing a musical instrument known as a ‘biwa’, a kind of lute. She is honoured as a water deity. Long ago she became syncretised with Ichikishima-hime-no-mikoto, one of the three daughters of Amaterasu, the Sun Goddess, and also with Ugajin, a snake ‘kami’, or spirit in Japanese Shintō. As such, she is associated with many locales in Japan, perhaps most notably the tidal island of Enoshima. There is also a Benten-dō situated on an island in the midst of Shinobazu no ike, in Tokyo’s Ueno district. The pond, which long ago was once thought to have been formed by an inlet from the sea that has long since been marooned and now languishes serenely as a landlocked urban haven for numerous species of waterfowl. Famous for its flowering lotus beds – the lotus being a representative symbol of Buddhism – it is also a special place for me, imbued with many memories, both happy and sad.

Shinobazu no ike, Lotus bed (June 2004).

 

 

Lotus blooms

flower and fade –

around the Benten-dō.

 

 

 

Shinobazu no ike, Lotus bloom (August 2004)

All photographs by Tim Chamberlain.

Grey Seals

(Leaf 6) – Looking Back

 

In October 2020, during the short respite between the Corona lockdowns in the UK, I managed to visit Cornwall on a short holiday with my parents. The weather was autumnal, but warm. And one day, sitting on a cliff overlooking the sea while eating fresh-caught crab sandwiches and drinking from a flask of hot tea, we saw two grey seals. A male and a female, clearly having fun in the bubbling surge and swell of the surf.

  

Seen and unseen,

white foaming waves

– a grey seal’s face.

*

Photographs and short films by Tim Chamberlain, 2020.

Westminster Bridge

(Leaf 5) – Looking Back

Claude Monet - The Thames below Westminster (1871) National Gallery

This poem reflects upon a visit to the Sōseki Natsume Museum in London on the final day before the museum closed in 2017. Sōseki (1867-1916) is perhaps Japan’s foremost novelist, the author of novels such as ‘Kokoro’ (1914), ‘Botchan’ (1906), and ‘Kusamakura’ (1906). He was also my constant companion when I first visited Japan in 2003, because his face used to adorn the ¥1000 note. Sōseki was also a haiku poet, and a scholar of English literature. From 1900 to 1902, he came to study in London, living at various addresses – one of which was 81 The Chase, in Clapham, which he wrote about in an essay, titled ‘Fog’ (1909). In this essay, he describes riding an omnibus over Westminster Bridge during one of London’s famously smog-filled days, and seeing a seagull loom out of the languid and dirt smudged sky. The house opposite where Sōseki used to live in Clapham contained a flat which for many years was a small museum devoted to the Japanese writer. I wrote an illustrated essay about this visit to the museum on its final day, which can be read here.

 

 

WESTMINSTER BRIDGE

 

Riding the top deck of the bus

on a sunny Saturday

afternoon –

 

A seagull emerges from the fog,

catching a glimpse of Sōseki

atop an omnibus, heading in

the opposite direction.

Black Cats

(Leaf 4) – Looking Back

 

Utagawa Hiroshige - 'Asakusa tanbo Torinomachi mode',
or 'Asakusa Ricefields & Torinomachi Festival' (1857)

These are a series of watercolours which I painted as a present for a very dear friend of mine when she retired from the place where we worked together for ten years in 2001. She was very fond of cats, as am I. They were intended to be three lucky black cats. The back of each painting in this ‘haiga’ triptych was inscribed with the accompanying poem. We remained close and kept in touch, writing letters and occasionally meeting up for lunch over the years thereafter, but sadly my friend passed away in 2016. She is very much missed.

 

 

BLACK CATS

 

 

a patch of sunlight

– purring.

 

 

 

a pink tongue –

passing over milky whiskers.

 

 

 

jumping a soft paw

– the cricket is gone.

 

 

Two of the poems above were first published in dew-on-line: one & two (2002) 

Definitive Definitions

(Leaf 3) – Looking Back

Katsushika Hokusai - Boy Viewing Mount Fuji (1839)

 

This is another essay I wrote early on, while I was in my twenties, having first begun publishing haiku and short verse in a small magazine titled, ‘still’ (UK, 1997-2001). I remember at this time it seemed like there was plenty of navel-gazing and self-reflection going on in the English language haiku ‘movement.’ There were a lot of questions batting back and forth about ‘how valid’ was this endeavour? – People didn’t really use phrases such as ‘cultural appropriation’ back then, but this was a large part of that process of questioning and self-doubt. I remember my own doubts and tribulations were actually centred upon the language aspect more than the ethos or the appropriation aspect. The newest trend in those days among English language haiku poets was a fairly united consensus in a collective assertion that haiku should not be centred upon a five-seven-five syllable count, as was the traditional characteristic of haiku in Japanese. The justification was that five-seven-five in English was overly wordy compared to the same structure in Japanese. Instead, English language haiku should aim itself more at brevity in order to achieve authenticity and so thereby adhere closer to the spirit of the original tradition in Japan. I always felt that there was something more to this, something intangible or rather a deficiency which I was incapable of grasping or mastering without any knowledge of the Japanese language. Since then, I have taken formal classes studying Japanese – I have even attempted to write some haiku in Japanese conforming to the five-seven-five structure – although I am still far from fluent in Japanese. Even now, I continue to wrestle with these thoughts and ideas in my own approach to writing haiku in English, but I do continue to adhere to that idea that haiku in English need not follow the five-seven-five structure, but rather should attempt to evoke the original spirit of haiku through brevity and the use of caesura. As with my ‘On Haiku’ (c.2003) essay (reproduced on this blog as ‘Leaf 1’), I am similarly reproducing this second essay (largely) unchanged purely as another self-reflective starting point. A means of looking back, in order to begin looking forwards. No doubt, I may well develop my current thoughts and opinions on this topic in future posts (or ‘Leaves’) here on Shinobazu Pond.

 

 

DEFINITIVE DEFINITIONS – REFLECTIONS ON MODERN HAIKU (c.2004)

 

Personally – reading English language haiku (i.e. – haiku written by contemporary poets from Western backgrounds), generally sparks one of two distinct reactions in me. Sometimes such poems will enliven and inspire me and it’s not long before I have a pencil in my hand in place of the haiku magazine which I had been reading. More often than not though, my reaction is one of acute ridiculousness which usually progresses into the dispirited feeling that finds me resolving to abandon my own pretensions in haiku. How can any non-Japanese really write true haiku? Can a single word, set isolated and alone upon a page, appended by the poet’s nominally-possessive assertion, amount to a legitimate expression? No. No – might constitute a suitably concise and apt response. Yes. But equally – yes –  (a most poetic opposite) could be supplied as the definitive answer, and, just as sensibly, find itself the final word on the matter.

 

What is the end though? What resolution can be drawn? The defining of a “haiku movement” in English? Necessarily, to find a serious sense of comprehension we need to refine a cogent terminology. Set up guidelines. Hem the skirts of this particular poetic parade. This would all be very well if the “movement” which we are trying to pin weren’t itself so intent on breaking its own conventions!

 

Perhaps the current climate of haiku in English is too changeable. No pithy epithets can possibly define it. It seems not to want to conform, yet oddly it simultaneously appears to break the strictures applied to it almost as though it were unaware of its own creative anarchy. This characteristic wilful versus unconscious inconsistency is its present dynamic. Like a river in its thundering torrent, it is moving the unseen boundary markers of the fields it has overwhelmed, engulfing its own natural landscape so that it can shape and then re-shape that landscape over and over. This constant process of transformation is what, for me at least, makes the current flow of English language haiku so captivating – it’s what inspires me both to creativity and to despair. I would urge all poets taken by this tide to jump off the rafts of rules and strictures being floated by anyone who wants to still the waters! The time for critical reflection will come once the waters have receded, once the deluge has dried into the salt crystals of piquant memory – only then will it be possible to peel back the sediments which will be left and accurately describe the formation of this landscape that is currently being created in its first era of flux, an epoch already several decades old and still showing no signs of slowing. We might well have to leave off defining this Diluvian for quite some time yet, realistically it might not even be up to ourselves at all.

 

 

 

Plein Air Poems

(Leaf 2) – Looking Back

 

Tim Chamberlain - Merlyn Rock (2001)

When I was young my family would holiday every summer in Cornwall. We even spent a wonderfully warm and cosy Christmas there one year. In many respects I grew up there as much as I did in my hometown on the edge of London. But the first time I went and stayed there on my own was in the summer of 2000, when I was in my early twenties. It was strange to be there on my own. I was only there a couple of days and nights, having travelled down by train from London – a journey of something like five hours. I stayed at a bed & breakfast in one of those grand old Victorian villas not far from the seafront in Penzance. On my first night there I had a couple too many pints at the local pub my family always used to go to in Newlyn. Getting back to the B&B well after closing time, I found the front door closed and thought I’d been locked out, so I rang the doorbell and got the landlord out of bed. He opened the door in his dressing gown and told me the door was only on the latch; all I’d had to do was push it! – The next morning at breakfast I was profusely apologetic.

The main objective of my stay there was to walk the coast path from Penzance to a place where several generations of my family’s ashes are scattered, quite a long way further down the coast. The next day was bright and sunny. I spent most of it trekking up and down the rugged coastal path, zig-zagging in and out of hidden coves, fuelled by bottled water and Fairings biscuits. Taking photos as I went with a 35mm film SLR camera, pausing from time-to-time to jot down haiku and short poems as they came to me. Stopping in the late afternoon to cool my aching feet in the narrow, fast-running streams cascading down from the valleys into steep-sided coves which echoed with the sound of waves rolling in from the Atlantic. It was a wonderful walk, but when I reached my destination – having rewarded myself with an ice-cream topped with clotted cream at the Post Office/General Store in the nearby village, as had always been our family’s tradition – I found being there was oddly forlorn. Not the sort of homecoming I’d expected. Although sunny and warm, the place was furiously wind-blasted. I made my way back overland by road. My feet were really sore by the time I crashed into bed that night.

The following day I walked in the opposite direction, mostly walking barefoot to ease my blisters in the shallow salty seawater of the beach between Penzance and Marazion. I sat dozing on the rocks with a wonderful view of Saint Michael’s Mount, enjoying the sunshine and the sound of seagulls. In the evening, eating fish n chips on the promenade at Penzance. Visiting Newlyn Art Gallery the next day, where I first discovered the work of one of my favourite artists, Kurt Jackson. Sitting on a bench, sketching Mount’s Bay. Then reading Mervyn Peake’s ‘Gormenghast’ on the long train ride home. It was one of the first times I’d travelled on my own. The first time I’d properly tasted both the liberation and freedom of solo-travel, and its more melancholy aspects too.

These were some of the poems which I wrote at that time. They make very evocative reading for me now; memories etched more clearly than photographs perhaps.

Tim Chamberlain - View of Penzance & St Michael's Mount (2000)

 

 

PLEIN AIR POEMS

 

A collection of haiku and short verse written while walking the coastal path near Land’s End, Cornwall (c.2000).

 

kemyel path

 

long pine needles

turned bronze

on the cool earth.

 

 

* * *

 

narrow path

descending to the cove

beneath low boughs of fuchsia.

 

 

* * *

 

low clouds

moving over

the calm sea

 

 

* * *

 

water lapping

over pink rock,

green weed

and anemone

– the sound of barnacles

crackling all around.

 

 

* * *

 

merlyn rock

 

a deep pool of lapis blue,

fringed with salty fronds;

far below the calm rise and fall,

round boulders, stones and sand;

through a crevice in the pink rock

the lapis blue rising and retreating,

groaning like a walrus stirring

in the warm sun.

 

 

* * *

 

sailing boats

on the horizon

 

white triangles

weaving.

 

 

* * *

 

deep boom and

hollow echo –

clear water surging

through the chasm.

 

 

* * *

 

landfall

 

in the silent wake

of the storm –

the mariners’ maids

stand looking out

from the quay.

 

After a painting from the Newlyn School, seen at Newlyn Art Gallery in 1999.

 

* * *

 

driftwood

 

bleached white

and brittle as bone

beneath the bright sun.

 

 

* * *

 

white ghostly mops of hair

bobbing to the surface,

receding to the memories

of the coastline.

 

 

* * *

 

alacrity

 

inside the sea cave

–  wedged,

heavy sheet iron;

lifting brown flakes

to the salty wind

and white foam.

 

 

 

On Haiku

(Leaf 1) – Looking back.

Tsuchiya Koitsu - Ueno Shinobazu no ike (1930)

  

This was a short essay, titled ‘On Haiku’, which I originally wrote circa 2003. At the time I had been a regular contributor to ‘still’ – a very beautiful and professionally produced little magazine which described itself as “a journal of short verse.” Published in the UK, it was edited by ai li chia and ran from 1997 to 2001. I was (and continue to be) very proud of it and my small contributions to its pages. I was very young at the time, and reading some of my poems from that period, I can see I was still somewhat naively venturesome in my early efforts at haiku and short verse, but ai li was a wonderfully thoughtful and encouraging editor. I remain very grateful to her for that. It was always a real joy receiving ‘still’ through the post. Accompanied by elegant notes from ai li, always handwritten on thin tissue paper in black ink, with red hanko stamps. A lot of time, effort and love went into the creation of that little ‘zine’, as the small press poetry magazines were called in those days. I still have the full run of ‘still’ sitting proudly on my bookshelf, twenty volumes plus one anthology – cherished tomes standing alongside my books on and by Matsuo Bashō, R.H. Blyth, et al. They have followed me on many a house move in the UK, ultimately ending up here in Tokyo, next to a window with a wonderful view of Mount Fuji – something remarkable which, if anyone had foretold me back in those days, I’d never have believed might come to pass. If I were writing this essay now, I would no doubt write it very differently. But I think it’s best to leave it as it is, and simply post it here as a starting point, some three decades on, now in 2025. Looking back, in order to begin looking forwards. It’s been many years since I last shared any of my short verses in public. I am doing so now purely for the sake of my own amusement, but if it should happen to be of passing interest to others of like-mind and outlook, then I hope that’s a good thing.

 

 

 

 ON HAIKU (c.2003)

 

after rain -

shining green leaves,

the sound of birdsong.

 

 

You want to learn haiku? --------- Don’t. --------- You already know how.

The art of haiku is clear – it is innate, something which everyone possesses. Haiku is. You see haiku. You feel haiku. Because haiku is. And because haiku is – haiku isn’t so simple.

Although haiku looks short, it isn’t short. Haiku is concise. Although haiku looks quick, it isn’t quick. Haiku is mindful. As a form of verse haiku is centred upon brevity. Its virtue is to be pure and untrammelled. Haiku speaks. It says more by appealing to the innate virtue which resides in the heart of all living things. Haiku speaks of truth. Haiku works through honesty and clarity. Haiku is open.

There is a lot of discussion at the moment about haiku and its place in modern literature. Many people are reading haiku and many people are writing haiku. Today haiku is definitely an art form which is rapidly disseminating from its point of origin in Japanese literature. This is because the essence of haiku is universal. Haiku is nature. Haiku is mind. Haiku is a double reflection. The world as it is. The world as we feel it. Instance and response. Image and feeling. Haiku appeals because of its benevolence. To slam haiku (and certainly modern haiku does have its detractors) is to close one’s mind.

Haiku is freedom. --------- Or at least, that is how I feel it.

 

 

through mist and

ripples of cloud

- evening sun.