This blog is dedicated to the Haiku poetry of Arthur Viljoen. It is mainly in Afrikaans, but I have translated some sections into English. Please feel free to submit your own Haiku via the comments field, and I will gladly post them.

26 April 2005

About Haiku

By Arthur Viljoen
Translated by Ig Viljoen
Every one of us is a haiku person. Haiku deals with the perception of the moment, experience and insight. To understand with the mind means that we have to know in heart and soul. Our lives are limited to a finite number of moments in those moments the essence of haiku is encapsulated.

It is not my intension to investigate the technical intricacies of haiku, nor to present a history of the development of haiku from the 6th centaury A.D., but rather to develop an enthusiasm with readers of poetry and especially students, to practice this form of poetry.

There are however a few technical elements that could serve as guidelines for aspiring poets – a clear track.

The haiku developed over time from ancient court poems, the renga and the tanka. These poems had 31 syllables with 5.7.5.7.7 per line. By leaving away the last two lines, the haiku with its 17 syllables 5.7.5 = 17 were born.

In time, haiku grew out of its rigorous constraints and haiku with more or fewer than 17 syllables were written.

Basho, (1644 – 1694), one of the greatest haiku poets of all times wrote haiku with between 6 and 22 syllables. The three lines rule however, stayed intact.

The following is an original haiku from Basho that consists of 4.9.5 syllables:


Kareeda ni
Karasu no tomarikeri
Aki no kure
4
9
5
18


Lucien Stryk – master translator of Japanese haiku translated it as follows:

On the dead limb
Squats a crow–
Autumn night
4
3
3
10

Another translator of the same poem, translated it in the strict 17 syllable format and in the process may have lost one of the essential characteristics of haiku, namely the intensity of conveying the most by using as few word as possible:

On a leafless branch
A lonely crow is perching
On an autumn eve
5
7
5
17

An Afrikaans translation may read as follows:

Op 'n droë tak
Plak 'n kraai-
Voorwinternag
5
3
4
12

The experience of the moment brings about the creative moment in which a haiku is created.
Dr. R.H. Blyth explains the creation of a haiku as follows: “It alone can give meaning to life and justify the ways of God to man.”
Life and creation itself are contained in the truth of a small haiku. Haiku deals in essence with the symbioses between nature and man – it can both charge and discharge the tension created by our experiences.
Thought this interaction of emotions, perception and insight develops. Nature and seasonal words such as moon, full moon, night, winter’s night, stars, blossoms and October becomes functional words to the haiku poet.In the first two lines we will find the theme of the haiku. That is followed by the “insight line” often designated by a hyphen.

Kind-oë, diep
Poele van geheimenis -
Waterhondjieskrif

Basho declared that the clearer people experience emotion, the fewer words are required to express it. An example is the following haiku that he wrote:

Spring moon –
Flower face
In mist
(Translation - Lucien Stryk)

In the gloaming -
Sadly
A cricket chirps.
(A.H.V)

1 Comments:

Blogger Eben van Renen said...

McGuyver - 1993 tot 2005

Man met sandale
Gooi wit skulpe vir my hond
Wye Hemel strand

(ek weet nie of:
dit die regte plek is om my haikoe te tik nie.
of dit werklik 'n haikoe eers is nie!)

9:19 pm

 

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