haikaiTALKS: a saturday gathering! 4th January 2025

haikaiTALKS: Integrating Our Skills | a saturday gathering under the banyan tree

host: Lev Hart

4th January 2025

haikaiTALKS: a saturday gathering under the banyan tree

Your host for haikaiTALKS: Lev Hart

Integrating Our Skills: Part 3 (of 3)

Integrating Our Skills --- Conclusion

In the haiku below, toriawase, yūgen and synesthesia merge to express the unity of all things:

       first shrine visit

       the morning breeze passing

       through my prayer

       (Keiko Izawa, haikuKATHA, Issue 34, August 2024.)

 The image, “first shrine visit,” is a New Year’s Day kigo. As such, it links with a spectrum of traditional themes related to the season. Some of those themes, according to R.H. Blyth, include temporality, continuity, rebirth and unity:

       The rejuvenation of nature coincided with a fresh trust in humanity. . . . the blue sky

       and green grass, the sound of running water and the wind in the pine-trees, all these

       familiar things had on this day a new significance. All things are the same, yet all is

       new. The sameness and the difference; in the unity of these two lies an unnameable,

       ineffable meaning.

In Keiko’s verse, through toriawase, similar themes infuse the haiku seeds: “the morning breeze passing/through my prayer.” The images express synesthesia. The poet seems to be seeing her tactile impressions pass through her auditory impressions, viz., the breeze through the prayer. The sense impressions are one, yet the breeze remains what it is, and the prayer is still the prayer. The reader experiences what Blyth means by the unity of sameness and difference,  and discovers for herself its unnameable, ineffable meaning --- which we could also call yūgen, ‘mysterious beauty’. We see the elegant beauty of yūgen in all of the haiku’s imagery.

I am indebted to Keiko’s verse for helping me to see synesthesia as an expression of the unity of all things, and as an expression of yūgen. I remain astonished by the way in which her toriawase seems to express a whole worldview, without telling it. For these reasons, I nominated Keiko’s verse for a Touchstone Award. Deep bow to you, Keiko. I hope you win.

This week’s goal is to compose two verses with toriawase, blending wabi, sabi, karumi, mono no aware, and/or yugen. Tell us which aesthetic concepts you mean to express in a line below the verse. (Two lines is too many.)  Strive for originality. Avoid stock phrases and shopworn images. Remember the kigo. This commentary is my last for haikaiTALKS. Thank you, everyone, for teaching me. Deep bow to you, Kala, for your encouragement.

“A Dictionary of Haiku Classified by Season Words with Traditional and Modern Methods,” by Jane Reichhold:

https://thehaikufoundation.org/omeka/files/original/7fb6654a1dfd1afef97369da920530f8.pdf

indian subcontinent SAIJIKI:

https://www.trivenihaikai.in/indian-saijiki

The Five Hundred Essential Japanese Season Words:

http://www.2hweb.net/haikai/renku/500ESWd.html

The World Kigo Database:

https://wkdkigodatabase03.blogspot.com/

The Yuki Teikei Haiku Season Word List:

https://yths.org/season-word-list/

** Thank you for doing this for us, Lev

Members,

Please give your feedback on others' commentary and poems too. _()_

We are coming to the end of Lev's lessons in haikaiTALKS!

He will be stepping down from this post and embarking on an exciting journey.

I'll leave it here for him to share the news with you! Keep writing and commenting! _kala