Leaf 122 – Essays on Haiku
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‘Poems of the Late T’ang,’ translated
by A.C. Graham (Penguin, 1988 [1965]), was almost certainly the first book of
East Asian poetry which I ever bought or read. And it remains one of my
absolute favourites. I recently re-read it once again after a neglectful pause
of more years than I care to count. It was a book, which when I first acquired
it during my early teens, I read and re-read over and over again. I even
managed to memorise some of the verses it contains and I still find fragments
of its lines echoing in my mind even today. Recently re-reading its
introduction, I found it far more insightful than I must have done when first
reading it more than three decades ago. Since that time, my subsequent study of
the Japanese language, I now found helps me to better understand some of the nuances of
translation (from Chinese) as Graham describes them. Likewise, my efforts at penning poems of
my own and studying the craft of writing short verse which aims at both versatility
and subtlety, in order to help me better understand poetic sensibilities and the virtues of diction, have
had an effect too.
In essence, I realise I’ve come to
see and appreciate this book in a new light. Certainly, with each renewed
re-reading, a favourite and familiar book (such as this one undoubtedly is for
me) seems to change, just as we change, with age. This morning, as I sat
reading once again through Poems of the Late T’ang, all these thoughts
and reflections began to coalesce. While I slowly leafed through the poems collected in this book, I
realised that (like many paperbacks do) its pages – which had been freshly
printed when I first bought it – were now distinctly yellowed with the passage
of time. Hence, I found myself pondering writing a poem upon these thoughts and
associated feelings. But, while some poems – particularly haiku – simply seem
to spring from a moment such as this and often require little or no tinkering, others
need a bit more labour.
And because these processes are usually
unfathomable (even to us ourselves as poets), they often remain unseen. Not
least because we almost immediately discard the mental drafts we make as we go. And, likewise, we tend to quickly dispose of whatever aborted versions we
scribble down while en route to the finished article. So, on this
occasion, I thought I would save mine and share them here. What follows, I hope,
might help to illustrate how a thought, a feeling, a sentiment, a reflection,
all come together and slowly begin to cohere and combine through a process of convolution. Constricting and stretching. Shifting shape and twisting dynamics, until they
seem to consolidate into a final form – or a series of semi-finished forms from
which we can perhaps choose the one (or ones) which seem to work best.
I am still as yet undecided as to which of the following haiku I feel is the most suited to the sentiments I was aiming to capture and express, but I think it is likely to be either one or other from the first or later drafts as presented here in chronological sequence of composition. Thinking and reflecting upon these drafts as I walk myself through them, hopefully, it might help to elucidate which of them might rise to the fore – solvitur ambulando! [– it is solved by walking!]
Let’s begin:
[#1]
Sunshine and silence,
with a pot of coffee
and an open book.
This first attempt basically sets
down the four solid elements that make up the subject and set the scene; simply:
sunshine, silence, coffee, book.
[#2]
Early morning sunshine,
silence – coffee and a
well-thumbed book.
The second draft attempts to begin crafting these words into ideas which are expressive or suggestive of a certain amount of (for want of a better term) ‘sense-feeling.’ That is “early morning sunshine,” coffee and quiet (relaxation) with a book which is “well-thumbed,” – i.e., a familiar favourite tome (one which has been read and returned to repeatedly over time).
[#3]
Early morning sunshine,
quiet, coffee – slowly
leafing pages left.
The third draft attempts to whittle
down some of the wordiness – but, perhaps paradoxically, also with an eye to
aiding further elaboration. This version is definitely not aiming at being a
finished article, but instead it aims at serving as a cognitive or
conceptual bridge, a stepping stone to the next version.
[#4]
Early morning sunshine,
quiet, coffee – leafing
pages slowly read.
The fourth draft simply presents
what looks like a very minor tweak, but that change is more than superficial. It
is the start of a bigger change that is now beginning to take shape in my mind.
[#5]
Morning sunshine stilled,
warm coffee scent – turning
pages browned by time.
The fifth draft makes a bolder
leap. It starts to flesh out that change of thought into something more
appealing to the senses – the smells and the textures of the moment, elements
which essentially give flavour to the ideas of stillness, contentment, and the
idea of an appreciation (both of, and for) time passing.
[#6]
Morning sunshine stilled,
warm coffee scent – leafing
pages browned by time.
Draft six simply plays upon the
direction of a single brushstroke: ‘turning’ becomes ‘leafing’ once again. Both
gerunds suggest a temporal shift, but the second intends to add an image allied
to seasons changing while still suggesting the action of turning an actual
page.
[#7]
Morning coffee-scented sunshine,
stillness settles – sifting again
pages warmed brown with time.
The seventh draft makes a last
strive to home in once again on the visceral element of the feelings evoked by
the ‘here and now’ (the present time and place) prompting reflections on past times
and places having shifted through the course of one’s lifetime, or an
acceptance of that process of shifting as a deeply personal reflection – the fact
that our ‘here and now’ evolves and changes with us (it ages as we age), and so
our life is both unchanging and changing in the same unending instant which we perpetually
perceive – both are one and the same.
This seventh and final draft seems
to have successfully condensed all of the elements I was originally aiming for,
but which I was only hazily aware of at the start of the process of penning
this particular poem. Yet it still seems a little too wordy (and perhaps worthy) for a haiku. There
is always an inclination to over-think a haiku, attempting to cram too many
ideas and/or images into it. But this is only natural. The simultaneity of
thought and feeling tend to encourage this. What we experience as but brief and
fleeting moments are in fact filled to the brim with thoughts, ideas, feelings
and sensations. Hence, we can’t help but succumb to the temptation to over-egg
the pudding and elaborate, when what we should be aiming for is the opposite.
We need to pare back. Haiku don’t necessarily need to be simple or spare, but
they do need to be short. In this regard, haiku should always aim for brevity
and concision. And so, walking back through the various iterations of the potential
poem above, the second draft may well be the best version in terms of its size,
its openness, and its likelihood of appealing to other readers as something
essentially universal, and hence something they could probably relate to easily.
The seventh draft certainly
captures the manifold elements of the scene as they applied to, and were felt
by me as the poet; but, by the very nature of that precision (in addition to it
being overly wordy), it is probably too ‘point specific’ to be a truly versatile
haiku. Put most simply, both versions are suitably reflective, but #2 suggests,
whereas #7 presents or records. As such, the former is perhaps
better ready to leave home and make its own way in the world; while the latter
should perhaps best remain content to stay at home with me and enjoy its long-laboured
for, and well-earned retirement, knowing it has successfully exorcised its aim.
But, just before laying down my
pen, I find myself pausing – still hesitating. I can’t help but hear the soulful
voice of Jack Kerouac’s shade, looking wisely over my shoulder, whispering his
old adage, that: “first thought, is best thought.” Hence, looking back one more
time at #2, I see a last (and most-likely final) adaptation smiling back at me.
It doesn’t say it all, but often that’s the very nub of the thing; and so – at
last – draft #8 is born, and the umbilical cord of a thoughtful moment reflecting
upon the re-reading of a favourite book is happily tied off. A very near return to my first thoughts:
[#8]
Warm morning sunshine
– coffee, quiet and a
well-thumbed book.
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