Following Ken Ronkowitz's guest blog on “ronka” (July 12, 2014), I'm happy to introduce you to Penny Harter, a distinguished poet whose work in haiku-related forms is internationally known. Penny has been widely published in journals and anthologies throughout the U.S. and abroad, and she has been awarded three poetry fellowships from the New Jersey State Council on the Arts, as well as awards from the Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation, the Mary Carolyn Davies Memorial Award from the Poetry Society of America, the first William O. Douglas Nature Writing Award, and a fellowship from VCCA for a residency in 2011. She visits schools for the New Jersey Writers Project of the New Jersey State Council on the Arts. This week, Penny leads us through a detailed understanding of the Japanese poetry form called haibun. I hope you'll enjoy writing some haibun of your own, and I hope you'll visit Penny online: Penny's Website, Penny's Blog, Penny's Books at Amazon.com.
From Penny:
Although I write free-verse poems, prose poems, short stories and mini-stories, reviews, essays and educational articles, in recent months I have increasingly fallen under the spell of haibun. Haibun, with its mix of prose and poetry fascinates me. Originally conceived by Basho in his Narrow Road to the Deep North as a travel journal—and still sometimes written as one—haibun in the west can also capture an interior, spiritual and /or emotional journey.
The Haiku Society of America defines haibun as follows: “A haibun is a terse, relatively short prose poem in the haikai [all haiku-related literature] style, usually including both lightly humorous and more serious elements. A haibun usually ends with a haiku.
“Notes: Most haibun range from well under 100 words to 200 or 300. Some longer haibun may contain a few haiku interspersed between sections of prose. In haibun the connections between the prose and any included haiku may not be immediately obvious, or the haiku may deepen the tone, or take the work in a new direction, recasting the meaning of the foregoing prose, much as a stanza in a linked-verse poem revises the meaning of the previous verse . . . .” (HSA Definitions).
In our book, The Haiku Handbook, my late husband, William J. (Bill) Higginson, reflects on haibun written in the West: “Like haiku, haibun begins in the everyday events of the author’s life. These events occur as minute particulars of object, person, place, action. The author recognizes that these events connect with others in the fabric of time and literature, and weaves a pattern demonstrating this connection. And if this writing is to be truly haibun, the author does this with a striking economy of language, without any unnecessary grammar, so that each word carries rich layers of meaning.” (221) Bill goes on to say: Bringing the spareness of haiku poetry to prose gives us the best of autobiography and familiar essay—the actions, events, people, places, and recollections of life lived—without weighing them down with sentimentality, perhaps the greatest enemy of art and life.” (221)
What haiku contribute to haibun prose feels akin to the process of linking in the communal poetry called renku. I've always enjoyed writing renku—a process that requires one to come up with verses that turn a corner—”move away”—with respect to each preceding verse, but still connect in mood, tone, image, or theme. In renku-writing, this is often referred to as “link and shift.” If the haiku in a haibun work well, they both anchor the piece and let it go. Or, they simultaneously frame it and break the frame.
I deliberately decided to experiment with writing haibun in three ways: writing original haibun, shifting longer narrative poems into haibun, and turning prose poems into haibun. Hopefully, sharing my process with you will encourage you to experiment in similar ways.
I. Writing Original Haibun
I wrote the following two poems as haibun. My husband, died in October of 2008. While writing my way through grief into healing, I often found myself using haibun. Here’s a piece from December of 2008, only a few months after Bill’s death. It’s now published in Recycling Starlight, my chapbook of poems processing grief. I was seeking light and had heard that there was going to be a huge moon that December:
Moon-Seeking Soup
Last night when the December moon was closer to the Earth than it had been in years, huge on the horizon, blazing hills and craters, I saw it too late, too high in the sky. Still, I could almost count the peaks that held the sun.
Tonight, after slicing red potatoes, yams, carrots, onions, and garlic into a base of chicken broth; after shaking a delicate rain of basil and tarragon onto the surface and stirring those sweet spices in—while the soup simmered, I threw on a jacket over my nightclothes and ran out to look for the moon. My slippered feet were cold as I searched the sky, wanting to raise my face into white light.
But there was no moon, no glow over the apartment roofs to say it was rising, so I came back in and stirred my soup, raising the ladle to my lips to taste again and again the dark fruits of the Earth.
moon-seeking soup—
my own face reflected
in the broth
I wanted to see that light after two months of deep mourning, wanted to be lifted up and out of myself into that sky. But I was also deeply involved with the “fruits of the Earth” as I stirred my soup—and that’s why I listed all its ingredients. The final haiku came as I bent over the cauldron of soup—although I didn’t actually see my face. Instead, I realized that I was still bound to the Earth, and that rather than escape into the sky, I needed to stay in the place I was, grieving and healing. This haiku is more closely related to the main narrative than those in many haibun, though it does jump to “my own face.”
Interestingly, a year later, having moved and begun a new life, I found myself again writing a December haibun, this time reflecting the kindness of a neighbor who brought me light:
Winter Stars
My neighbor fills her winter garden with oaktag cut-outs of red and yellow stars—hangs them from her bird feeder or glues them atop the planting sticks she's left in the dirt between withered blooms. Yesterday, she knocked on my door, and I opened it to find her hands overflowing with stars—each hole-punched and threaded with yarn—a new constellation for these days of early dark.
“These are for you to hang places,” she said simply, knowing of my need for joy this Christmas season. As we smiled and hugged one another, I received them in my cupped hands. Now stars dangle from my doorknobs and brighten shadowed corners—an unexpected gift of light.
moon splinters
on the river—the glint
of ice floes
Here, the haiku is also both literal and metaphorical, and it does shift farther from the narrative than the haiku in the preceding example. I live near a river, and there had been ice floes floating in it. The river’s current that winter seemed akin to my process of healing—my encountering more and more glints of light—as in my neighbor’s kindness. The haiku does not focus on her and the gift she brought, yet it connects in mood and theme.
II. Shifting a Narrative Poem Into a Haibun
When one takes a narrative poem and transforms it into a haibun, something quite different happens to the original poem. A good poem may already reverberate in several directions, ripple with associations. But recasting that poem into poetic prose and adding haiku opens it up even further—precisely because the haiku shift the focus enough that it becomes a different work. They expand upon the original perception. In the following two examples, you can see how my original narrative poems changed when I translated them into haibun. The following poem felt unfinished, lacking enough “punch” to capture the experience”
Estell Manor State Park
That gray day, wind soughed in the pines,
and oaks arced full over trails that faded
into green or snaked into a density
of swamp and lichened trunks.
We walked a narrow road around
the wooded heart, wondering which trail
would claim us first until the wind
caught a dead limb and tossed it
down before us—the loud crack
fusing with its swift descent.
We said the usual things: what if
we’d been a few yards further along,
or a car had been there—then cautiously
pressed on, although we stopped
to drag the heavy branch aside
before we left the loop road for a trail
that led us deeper in.
The haibun version, for me, has more power because of the haiku framing it:
Estell Manor State Park
Estell Manor State Park
turkey buzzard—
red beak into its own
black wing
That gray day, wind soughed in the pines, and oaks arced full over trails that faded into green or snaked into a density of swamp and lichened trunks.
We walked a narrow road around the wooded heart, wondering which trail would claim us first until the wind caught a dead limb and tossed that full weight down before us—the loud crack fused with its swift descent.
We said the usual things: what if we’d been a few yards further along . . . or if a car . . . then cautiously pressed on, although we stopped to drag the heavy branch aside before we left the loop road for a trail.
night thoughts—
my heartbeat quickens
in this dark
In first draft, this haibun included only the last haiku. However, a friend suggested it needed something more at the beginning. I added the opening haiku because I did see that turkey buzzard in the park, and the irony of the fact that it usually sinks its red beak into carrion struck me at the time. Thinking about how close my friend and I had come to being seriously injured, or even killed, it seemed a fitting intro to the mood and content of the haibun. The closing haiku, though amplifying the earlier fear, can also be a universal experience. We all know about those thoughts that can visit us in the pre-dawn hours.
III. Turning a Prose-poem into a Haibun
The same reverberating circles of meaning can happen when haiku are added to open up a prose-poem. Since I felt the original needed more punch, I shifted the following prose-poem into a haibun. In the process, I even changed the title:
No Other Place
Two hawks circle far above, afternoon sunlight gilding their wings as their shadows swiftly cross the road before me. In red canyons of the West, ravens ride the thermals, their harsh calls dark as the storm clouds that shadow the ridges.
There is no other place but here where the gas burner spurts blue, steam hisses from the kettle, and a clock on the wall keeps time above a granite counter-top chilled by mountain winds.
Here where hawks prey on the living, ravens descend on the dead. Between my palm a cup of black tea deepens.
And now, the haibun version:
Keeping Time
Two hawks circle far above, afternoon sunlight gilding their wings as their shadows swiftly cross the road before me.
In red canyons of the West, ravens ride the thermals, their harsh calls dark as the storm clouds that shadow the ridges.
again that dream
of refuge in a cave
above the river
There is no other place but here where the gas burner spurts blue, steam hisses from the kettle, and a clock on the wall keeps time above a granite counter-top chilled by mountain winds.
Hawks prey on the living, ravens descend on the dead. Between my palm a cup of black tea deepens.
squatting beneath
the hammock, a child
digs a hole to China
The title change happened because I felt the entire piece was, as is much of my work, about the mystery of time passing vs. the eternal present—perhaps feeling both are one. The first haibun emerged from memories of caves seen in the walls of several red-rock canyons of the West, and the desire for safety from any kind of storm. And the second haiku, from a childhood memory of me doing just that—as well as an association between the tea “deepening” and the deepening hole I, the child, believed I could dig in the dirt.
For me, the basis of all poetry writing begins in synthesis—like Indra’s web. One can pluck the web of one’s experience at any node, and the whole thing vibrates. A good poem connects the thing perceived with the perceiver, as does a good haiku. Basho is reputed to have said, “To write of the pine, go to the pine.” But in a good haibun, we go to the pine—and then through the haiku we follow the pine’s roots, or needles and cones as they fall—spiraling farther and farther afield while still orbiting the pine—still linked to the original image.
I encourage you to try writing haibun in any of the ways I’ve shared. You may also fall under haibun’s spell. It can be an exciting and rewarding process.
IV. Tips for Writing Haibun
1. A haibun is not a short story. A haibun relates a journey, whether the travel is a physical exploration of the world or an internal journey of spiritual and/or emotional discovery. It should take the reader somewhere—from here to there.
2. Both the prose and haiku should be image-centered. Trim the language in the prose section to its essence. The prose portion can be written in sentence fragments or complete sentences.
3. The haibun prose should be more akin to a prose-poem. And rather than in paragraph format, the prose is usually presented in blocks. Some contemporary haibun are even in verse form with haiku indented before and between stanzas, or at the poem’s end.
4. There is no set length to a haibun. It can be one paragraph with one haiku, or several pages with haiku interspersed throughout.
5. Many haibun are simply narratives of special moments in a person’s life. Like haiku, haibun often begin in everyday events—minute particulars of object, person, place, and/or action. Haibun are usually autobiographical and personal, and most often written in present tense.
6. However, some haibun published in contemporary journals also recount actual travels, memories, dreams, and fantasies.
7. The haibun’s haiku do connect to the prose, but in the best haibun, the haiku do not directly continue the narrative. Instead, they relate in theme, mood, or tone. Inserting the haiku into the haibun is like throwing a stone into a pond—causing ripples of association.
8. If you google “journals that publish haibun” you will find plenty of examples on-line.
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Thank you, Penny!
Works Cited
The Haiku Handbook. Tokyo, Japan: Kodansha International: Penny Harter co-author with William J. Higginson. 25th anniversary edition 2010, non-fiction. Kodansha USA, 2013.
Recycling Starlight.
Eugene, Oregon: Mountains and Rivers Press, 2010, poems.
One Bowl. Ormskirk, United Kingdom: Snapshot Press, 2012, poems (prizewinning e-book of haibun).
The Resonance Around Us. Eugene, Oregon: Mountains and Rivers Press, 2013, poems and haibun.
Special Thanks and Acknowledgment
Thanks to Wiggerman, Scott and David Meischen for permission to quote portions of my essay “Circling the Pine: Haibun and the Spiral Web” from Wingbeats: Exercises and Practice in Poetry. Austin Texas, Dos Gatos Press, 2011.
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Thank you, Penny!
