Category Archives: haibun

A Poem from Drifting Sands

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This is from Drifting Sands Issue 24. If you use the link you can view me in situ by scrolling down to Simon Wilson, or look on page 53. I’m fairly sure I haven’t posted this one before, though as we have noted, my memory is not all it used to be.

Young and old . . . and gone
Saturday afternoon. We are having a garage clear out. Two kid’s bicycles, sports kit and a
child-sized tent are piled on the ground. Garden tools, not used for years, are lined up against
the house—the leaf blower with the intermittent electrical fault, a long-handled wire brush for
weeding the gaps between paving slabs, a tool with three hooked tines . . .

Distant shouts drift from a cricket match, an Amazon driver delivers something across the
road, and magpies roam the gutters, searching for water. If they find any they scoop at it
eagerly and hold back their heads to drink. The sunshine brings out the iridescent blues and
greens in the black plumage, and lights up the falling water droplets. I decide that tea would
be a good idea. My wife sits on a camping stool and I balance on the chair with the loose leg as
we sip the hot brew. We find a box of cassette tapes. They seemed so modern at the time. She
picks out one by Ian Dury and asks if I remember that night in Sheffield. Looking at the
growing pile we wonder why we needed it, and why we kept it all this time.

the garden harvest
tomato juice runs down
my chin

 

The pictures come from May 2020 and were selected at random. I really should be more sensitive and use photos that match the poem.

Writing Poetry – the Nuts and Bolts

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Orange Parker Pen

I got into my car at16.00 precisely tonight. Traffic was light and I arrived home at 16.11. After allowing myself to dwell on the years 1600 – 1611, where the reign of Elizabeth I gave way to the reign of James I (or James VI if you prefer the Scottish version). Our recent change from Elizabeth II to Charles III has shown little change, but the earlier change was more dramatic. We had witch trials thanks to James, the Gunpowder Plot and attempts to unite England and Scotland. As usual, there is a lot of history, and not enough time to do it justice. In an ideal world I would have taken to my book-lined study and immersed myself in Jacobean history.

Instead, I had tea and banana bread and chatted to Julia, which was an excellent substitute.

We had chickpea and sweet potato curry for tea, as planned, and practiced being retired – sitting round the fire making dull conversation about our day and watching TV. I think we are getting the hang of it and will probably enjoy it.

In the next two weeks I have to write twenty seven tanka, 10 haiku and 13 Haibun/Tanka Prose. Fortunately I have fifteen Haibun/Tanka Prose that are almost finished. I’m trying to do bit on them each night. The tanka are not as far advanced, but I’m getting through them. I really need to get out and get some inspiration. That is planned for Monday. Under the new arrangements I have Mondays off. It’s just that every time I am ill, I seem to stop writing and it takes a while to get things moving again.

I think I’m back on the right track again, but it takes a surprising time to turn things round. I keep thinking of the effort of manoeuvring a large modern ship.

February will be quite a light month, so if I can get January out of the way it looks like all will be well. It’ quite  way from the inspiration/art/creativity model, but without this sort of planning nd framework I would find it har to do anything. Inspiration rarely strikes – it’s hard work that produces the goods.

My Orange Parker Pen

 

Tanka & Tanka Prose

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I’ve covered Haiku. I’ve covered Haibun. “Covered” may be over-stating the case – probably safer to say I’ve added a few random thoughts to the thousands of words of serious debate that goes into the subject. I’m now going to do Tanka and Tanka Prose in one go. They are simpler than the others, so I can do that.

A Tanka is a five line poem, originally with lines of 5-7-5-7-7 syllables. It is now, in English, a five line poem of variable syllable count. You are allowed to use poetic devices in writing it and you don’t have all the rules of a haiku. I avoided it for years, because I was having enough trouble with haiku and Haibun, then I realised it was a much more forgiving form.

Tanka means “little song”. It is complete in itself and a lot of them are love poems, because that’s what they were hundreds of years ago. They are still popular today and the royal family traditionally write them at New Year. Love, courtship, nature, impermanence, life, death, and marriage, sadness – that sort of thing.

I have to say that I took to it immediately. I’m now finding it a bit harder because I am, as usual, starting to worry about doing it well. It’s that internal editor again. There are some good articles here and here. Sorry to land you with lots of reading, but they explain it better than I can and, to be honest, Julia is cooking banana bread, which makes my brain close down. You will be getting very little thought from me for a while.

The tanka has the advantage of opening up the world of the Tanka Prose. The Tanka Prose is simply a Haibun that uses a tanka instead of a haiku – there is no Japanese name for it. This is  a shame as Tanka Prose is an inelegant name for an excellent poetic form. There is some discussion whether the prose piece should be written differently to the prose in a Haibun (because poets love complication), but I just write it and nothing bad seems to happen. Editors seem to think you can write in a variety of styles for Haibun, so I can’t see them tightening up on Tanka prose just yet. However, don’t bet on it, anything can happen . . .

However, for now, I love Tanka Prose because, quite simply, you can say what you want to say without the rules getting in the way. Sometimes you need rules, but sometimes you don’t.

Behind the waterfall at Newstead Abbey

I’ll just add a link and an example now, as I have covered most of what I need to say in the preceding two posts.

This is from Cattails October 2023.

There are lots of good poems in Cattails, I quote mine because I am the copyright holder, not because it is the best.

Crepuscular rays at Rufford Park

Crepuscular rays at Rufford Park

Paper Cities

Simon Wilson, UK

My wife’s mother watched American bombers glistening in the sky, saw the bombs fall
and, later helped clear the debris from the dropping of an atom bomb. She told me
stories of what happens when you drop incendiaries on a city of paper houses and
taught me how to fold a paper crane.

On the other side of the world my mother tried her gas mask on and practised hiding
under her school desk. In October 1940, a German bomber flew low across the school
and dropped two bombs. She picked up a piece of bomb casing in the school yard while
it was still warm.

We discuss this with the kids as we fold paper cranes for a school project. It means
more to them, when told in terms of grandmothers, than all the pictures on TV.

familiar folds
I have not made
the thousand yet . . .
one of the children asks
for blue and yellow paper

 

Haibun – One Step Beyond

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Moving on from haiku, we have the Haibun. When I started writing Haibun they were simply a mix of prose and one or more haiku. Simple. I have an example of one in a 15-year-old magazine which was approximately six sections of prose broken up by 5/7/5 haiku. It was horrible, yet it fell within the definition of Haibun at the time and the editor of a magazine (admittedly a general magazine) had thought it fit to publish.

Inevitably the Haibun has acquired a few more guidelines since then. They call them guidelines rather than rules, I forgot to mention that in the last post, they call them guidelines, but they are, if you want to be published, definitely rules.

So, prose and a haiku. It used to be so simple . . .

My Orange Parker Pen

You now need to give the title equal weight with the text and haiku. And you need to have a juxtaposition of text and haiku similar to the relationship between the two parts of the haiku. They often refer to “link and shift” at this point. It’s one of those fashionable things that I don’t fully understand. In theory, I grasp it. In practice, I’m not so good. If you don’t have it, you get told that you lack it. If you have too much of it, you get told it you aren’t making sense. Basically I just chuck some words down on a page, select an editor and send it off. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t. I let them sort it out. I just like writing.

Don’t think for one moment that I don’t have an opinion on all this, I just can’t be bothered to argue. The only way to win the argument is to become an editor and I’m far too lazy for that.

My approach is that I like writing the prose section so I write prose sections. I then add some haiku, because you need haiku to make a Haibun. There are arguments to suggest that you don’t actually need a haiku, but that’s a similar argument to the tomatoes argument – we all know tomatoes are a fruit but we all also know you don’t use them in fruit salad. Some things just aren’t worth the effort.

Orange Parker Pen

At this point it all comes down to my attitude to rejection. I have honed my skills to a point where most rejection merely bounces off the hardened shell I have developed over the years. There are lots of words, there are lots of editors. Acceptance is nicer than rejection, but rejection isn’t a bad thing – it’s part of the learning process and it’s only the opinion of one editor on a certain day.

There I am, with my prose and my haiku. I then add a title. It isn’t always a brilliant title, but it’s usually better than the working title I started with. I have a terrible habit of forgetting to change the working title, which is often quite blunt. Some years ago an editor suggested I went with “What the Moon Saw” instead of “Not another Dead Deer Poem”. I agreed , though I still think my working title had certain features that the more sensitive title lacks. Rereading it, I would probably write it slightly differently these days. The haiku, I now see, is lacking in a number of respects. However, every publication is an encouragement to do better, which is what is important.

There are other things to look at. The standard format these days, which seems to be a growing trend, is a couple of hundred words followed by a haiku. It’s also possible to start with a haiku, have one in the middle or have a “braided” haibun where you split the three lines of the haiku up within the prose. It’s not something I’m that keen on. I struggle with haiku as it is and I really don’t need the extra work.

Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com

If you write prose with a structure and a distinct ending (I admit mine sometimes actually have a punchline, which is probably bad) it’s often a good idea to have the haiku first, so the two don’t interfere with each other.

I like to write at least one in every submission that starts and ends with a haiku. That allows the editor to suggest I omit the first one as it doesn’t add to the poem. They are often right, but it is worth doing as it gives them something to do and distracts them from the other faults in the piece.

Two more things then I will finish.

Type of language. Two points of view. Some people think you should use pared down haiku-style language in the prose. Others think you should try to be different to avoid being boring. I’m sure they are both right depending on circumstances.

And for now, I forget the other . . .

Random photo

Sorry, I’m sure the other thing was important, but can’t recall it. It’s now 12 hours after I finished the first draft. This one is slightly more polished, believe it or not.

I forgot to mention, for instance that they seem to have started as travel journals and that the most famous one is by Basho. It has several different names in translation. In English you can get The Spring Journey to the Saxon Shore by David Cobb or Stallion’s Crag by Ken Jones.

That wasn’t, however, what I forgot. That’s still bothering me.

I seem to have veered off the subject of haibun and written about how i write them. Sorry if that leaves you feeling short changed but there are plenty of other articles about if you want all the technical stuff. I like to think, as a man of small education, who took over 60 years to get round to writing the word pedagogical, that it’s my role in life to demystify poetry.

Like TESCO I adopt the pile it high and sell it cheap model. And if you do decide to have a go, remember that the important thing really isn’t the title, the prose, the haiku or the relationship between the whole, it’s the persistence. Write one, send it off, get it rejected, send another. Go on, write a haibun for 2024 and send it to a magazine.

Haiku – an explanation

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Welcome to an explanation of Japanese poetry. I am writing it because I have been asked, not because I am filled with zeal to show off my knowledge, and by the end of the explanation I feel I can guarantee that nothing will be any clearer than when I started. This is the nature of Japanese poetry and the mist that surrounds it. In the UK we are still debating if poetry should rhyme, in America (the home of complexity) they are debating concepts which require at least two degrees before you can even start to understand the vocabulary they use. Look at most of the poet bios in an American haiku/Haibun magazine and you will see what I mean – degrees, stellar careers and huge numbers of publications are the norm.

However, I was asked, I have had a go and this is the result. This is just the haiku explanation. Haibun and tanka will be next.

A haiku is a poem of three lines with syllables arranged in a 5-7-5 pattern. Everybody knows that and it is there multiple times on the internet. Unfortunately, it isn’t true. It never was particularly accurate, and it hasn’t been representative of actual published haiku for years. Classic haiku writers didn’t always write in this format and the word syllable is wrong in this context.

The word which the Japanese use for a sound unit is “on” and it is much more, or less, than a syllable. The word “haibun”, to take information from Wiki, is four “on” rather than our two syllables and “on” is actually two “on” rather than one syllable. That is simple compared to the next fact – the word “kyo”, which is clearly two syllables in English, is one “on” in Japanese.

And that, when added to various opinions and translations, is why there is confusion.

The seventeen syllable model is alive and well in junior schools and various other places which need a quick fix for poetry writing classes. However, it is now generally accepted that if you are writing in English, 12 syllables are about right. It is considered desirable to write a poem that can be read in one breath, if you want a more aesthetic way of looking at things. I’m not sure about other languages, but I’m sure they all have definitions of varying subtlety.

That is the easy bit.

There are more rules than syllables, which is where I always get lost. In no particular order – haiku should be about nature, they should have a season word, they should be in two parts, they should be separated by a cutting word. There should be no repetition, rhyme, title or other poetic device. They should feature only concrete images. They shouldn’t be single sentences, shouldn’t be sarcastic and should involve “haiku aesthetics” – there are whole articles about aesthetics. It includes age, impermanence, being broken, being unknowable and other similar things.

If they don’t include this sort of thing they may be senryu, which are similar but without much of the baggage. They have extras in the form of human nature, sarcasm and even crudity.

Alternatively, it could just be a bad poem or a greeting card verse. And just to add another layer of mystery and complexity I will add some links in a moment. They are for reputable haiku magazines (you can tell they are reputable because they have been rejecting me for years) and here you will find poetry of exquisite quality which disobeys many of the rules I have just discussed.

Perhaps I’m not the best man to ask about this . . .

Heron’s Nest

Wales Haiku Journal (who used to accept some of my haiku but stopped when editors changed).

Cattails (who accept tanka, tanka prose and Haibun from me. I tried haiku but failed and gave up.)

Goose poem – Anderby Creek

Two Poems Published

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I finally found the energy to have a look round the net today. It’s been a while. My apologies to all the people I have been neglecting, I will get round to doing some meaningful reading and writing, I promise, but it’s going to take time.

I took a trip to CHO and found two poems by a sadly neglected Nottingham poet. He is currently being ignored by his wife who thinks he is now well enough to make his own hot drinks. After two weeks of fetching and carrying she has abandoned the nurturing model and is adopting the survival of the fittest model. This involves me using a kettle or dehydrating. A weak and quavery voice and a raspy breath is no longer, it seems, the way to get endless tea.

She will be sorry when I keep her awake tonight with the howling of random wheezes in my bronchial tubes.

Tomorrow I am having blood tests and, probably, another consultation with the doctor.

Tonight, however, I am going to provide links to my two poems that are in CHO. This is one that started off being about swans and ended up being about a cormorant.  No, I don’t know how I manged it either. Editing is a wonderful thing. And this is the other – it’s just another one about arthritic fingers so don’t get too excited. I really must try to write about larger themes this year.

I’m currently considering a poem on the importance of continued breathing. At the moment I’m still doing the research but if I continue my slow recovery it’s likely I could start writing it in a week or so. I’m also thinking of writing one about eating chocolate, not sure when I’ll write it but I’m off to try a bit of research now.

10p P is for Post Box

Ups and Downs, with a Distinct Lack of Ups

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I’m feeling slightly better because the infection seems to have gone. Unfortunately the other difficulties remain. This is what happens when a doctor doesn’t listen and only treats one of the two problems. As such, I am feeling well enough to make vegetable stew for tea, but would have practical difficulties if I went back to work. I will either have to get an appointment to talk to a doctor tomorrow, or pack a picnic hamper and  go down to A&E again.

With sandwiches, bottled water, books and a pillow I’m sure I can pass a perfectly acceptable day surrounded by impatience and misery. And, in my case, incontinence. Oh what a joy it is to be alive. Sometimes you only appreciate things as they slip away. Of course, if you put the drama to one side, I am 99% sure they will fix it and that I will go back to not appreciating things again. It’s human nature and I am very weak.

To add to the misery, I just had a rejection. It’s from  journal that has published me before, but it’s a guest editor this month. For a moment I did feel quite down, but that’s the infection rather than any sudden sensitivity.

I know how it goes. Guest editor, shiny new toy. When the publication comes out it will, despite the desire to be different, be much the same. Good writers will always get in. I will read the magazine, note the names, nod significantly as I see many of the same old names, then start reading. Some will be great, some good, some will be worse than my rejected submissions. It’s always the way . You can edit things, but you can’t make poets believe that they aren’t good enough to be published. If we were capable of believing that, there would be few poets.

Time, I think, to shrug it off, keep up my fluid intake, and plan tomorrow’s picnic. You know the old saying about lemons and lemonade? This is “When you have fifteen hours, pack a picnic and a good book.”

Robin at Clumber, Nottinghamshire

When in doubt, bung in a Robin.

A Haibun and Photographs from an Old Card

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Shakespeare’s Monkey

Another rejection. My words have, again, forked no lightning. This is driven home by the fact that I borrow the words of Dylan Thomas to describe my situation. However, I am convinced that if I write enough, I will eventually produce a sonnet of enduring excellence or a haibun that brings tears to the eyes of an editor. Tears of joy, that is. (It is best to be clear about such things).

new magazine
reading the poems layer
by layer

 

First published in Blithe Spirit November 2022

Sorry, I’m low on inspiration tonight so I thought I’d stick a haibun in and see if I could get away with it. The words of Dylan Thomas are here, if you need a reminder. Or you can hear it here. his was rejected by an editor who took another from the batch. I sent it out gain immediately and the next editor selected it from a batch of three. That’s the thing with acceptance and rejection – it’s not absolute.

Julia found my old Panasonic when she was going through some boxes upstairs. Unfortunately it seems to have been  stored without any leads so we can’t, at the moment, charge it. I’m hoping the charger at work will do the trick as the other shop camera is a Panasonic. The photos for this post are some from the old card. They aren’t particularly interesting, but they do give an idea of the last time I used the camera before I replaced it with an Olympus. This handy, as the pink camera I have to use at work isn’t really good enough.

The Devil drives ’til the hearse arrives . . .

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First post of Sunday. I’m planning several more today – let’s see if the result lives up to the planning. (I’ll give you a clue – it’s not working well at the moment).

So, poetry news. I had an email from Butcher’s Dog this morning  They have decided not to select my work for publication this time (as they put it), and have sent a very pleasant and upbeat email to tell me that. As you know, I have become slightly blase about rejection over the years, but even if you have become immune to it, it’s still nice to be rejected in a cheery manner, rather than the way some people do it.

It also makes commercial sense, as everyone needs to sell magazines, and one of your best markets is the people who want to write for you. I have twice stopped subscriptions to magazines on the basis of the quality of their rejections. There are always plenty of poetry magazines out there who need the money.There are no such worries for Butcher’s Dog,  they are doing a good job and I will be there in the queue next time they have a submission window open.

The other one wasn’t actually a rejection. It was worse than that, it tells me that they like the prose but they think I should rewrite or drop the first haiku and that the title needs work. Some magazines accept or reject without alteration, some ask for, or suggest, small changes. Others always seem to ask for more work. In this case, they ask for the work to be done and the only commitment they make is to look at it again. Most editors either accept and suggest edits or tell you that they would be happy to accept if you make the changes.

I’ve actually been thinking about this for a day or two. In these circumstances it’s sometimes easier just to thank the editor and withdraw the poem. With this one I’m going to give it a go. The opening haiku will be cut. I can’t guarantee writing a better one in the next few weeks so I may as well take the easy way out. The title had been developed after extensive thinking. It wasn’t great, but it was better than the original, and it had several features which were obviously too subtle. The new one is much more in your face and I’ve added a couple of lines to the prose to connect it to the title.

And now it’s time to throw it back and see what happens. If it is accepted it’s just a number, if it’s rejected, it’s no big deal. Regardless of the decision, next time it goes out, it will have the first haiku restored.

Now I just need to decide on whether I add a footnote about the title or not. I hate them, but sometimes you just need to drive the point home.

Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com

Haibun – The Duckpond

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I did say a while ago that I really ought to post some haibun. Unfortunately, I can’t remember which ones I’ve already posted so you may have to be bored with repeats at times. There’s also, I suppose, the chance that you will be bored even if I haven’t posted the poem before. The header picture is the actual pond I used to walk round and think about ducks. You don’t get that sort of service from Wordsworth do you? Did he bother to draw you a bunch of daffodils? It’s strange how bleak a duckpond can be in winter. There are few places to equal it, though Siberia and a tax man’s heart both come close.

This is the post I was originally going to do for my first of the day. It’s now the second because I treated you to a discourse on blood tests and rejection instead.

On the header picture you may be able to see something white standing up at the front of the island. It is the stump of a tree that had to be taken down, and it has, as you can see from one of the lower photographs, become a wood carving of  heron and duck.

The Duckpond

a mallard calls
and I recall last winter
dark water

The black water reflects passing clouds and the birds feed quietly. There is no courtship, no disputing of territory and no chiding of wandering offspring.

Low sun flashes off the green heads of the mallard drakes and a shopping trolley shimmers just below the surface, a reminder of more riotous times. Across the water, the lights of the café come on, drawing us in towards the scent of coffee.

north wind
rattling in the tree
the last brown leaf

 

This was one of my first published haibun, from four or five years ago. First published in Wales Haiku Journal.

Mandarin Duck – Arnot Hill Park

Heron and Duck – Arnold