Need to know why editor passed on these haiku
These haiku belong to a batch of 20 I recently submitted with temerity to what I call a ‘cutting-edge’ haiku journal. None was accepted, of course, although two interested the editor. Why? I can’t figure out on my own. Could you help me think this through? I reworked on three of them (1, 2 & 5) and did not include what got the editor’s eye.
1.
seagulls scanning tide marks
as if tasked
2.
competing with shadows
the winter wind
3.
salmon–
on winter clouds
a hue
4.
stepping into a fog
knowing
white also fades
5.
origami–
in her hands a crane
a smile
Origami crane folded from one uncut square of paper by Andreas Bauer courtesy of wikicommons
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About
autumn wind
wondering about lilies
in a mountain pond
Tell me a writer who really gets a satisfying jornal, in Spanish a daily wage or its equivalent, and I’ll bare a spirit in constant bouts of doubtfulness. Does a writer earn more because of what he writes and how he does it? Or is a writer paid more or less because of who he is? Is it money or honor he expects to receive?
Ahhh … but money as wage, and praise or honor as reward would be too predictable, too common as Job lamented in the Book of Job. It is in these lines that read: “Is not man’s life on earth nothing more than pressed service, his times no better than hired drudgery? Like the slave, sighing for the shade, or the workman with no thought but his wages, months of delusion I have assigned to me, nothing for my own but nights of grief. Lying in bed I wonder, ‘When will it be day?’ Risen I think, ‘How slowly evening comes!’
Restlessly I fret till twilight falls. Swifter than a weaver’s shuttle my days have passed, and vanished, leaving no hope behind. Remember that my life is but a breath, and that my eyes will never again see joy.”
Not money but joy is the ultimate wage as the passage implies. And joy is not hard to earn for it is in everyday life if we have eyes to see, a nose to smell, fingers to touch, ears to hear–a heart beating. This to me, is how a writer earns a daily wage. His wages then take the guise of treasures his heart can transfigure into a universe of thought that taps into other hearts, that causes a swirl in the depth of other souls, or that makes wings to sprout on leaden heels.
Sometimes not joy but rueful, poignant moments are my pick. Take what I earned once: On my walk home in my neighborhood, I caught two clumps of snowdrops–such tiny blossoms smaller than fingertips that do not look up but shyly droop close to black patches on the ground winter has frozen. That afternoon in the frosty wind, they trembled as if ready to turn away and run but how could they? For that poignant moment on seeing the wintry rain beat on the fragile snowdrop–as if pushing it to go home now, go to sleep–I earned my jornal, my daily wage.
Once on summer walk, the crackle of dried leaves just hit me both like the laughter of children and sobs long suppressed. Neither one of them would resolve the dryness, but I recalled how each does bring tears: laughter for joy, sobs for healing that comes with the release of a dammed-up pain. My jornal that day came as two haiku.
Fall has since shortened the day and the heart begins to crave for lost space that it doesn’t even recall which or where. I feel that most treasures have turned into mush so much so I wouldn’t be able to sift them off the ground. Yet I caught the dying day yesterday–so glorious in the gold of autumn it opened a flip side of serene heaven. Blades of grass coated in diadems of rain that carpet the lawns render royal walks poor by imitation. A burst of red maple against an inky blue sky humbled me, a soul bragging about her skill to recreate beauty in words.
I suppose I’m taking Job’s reflections to heart. I’d rather not gloss over each day and look beyond what’s there, right before me, or else fragile as is my breath one day “my eyes may never again see joy” to write. With what then will I compare the eternal joy, the ultimate wage I await?
Yet for now, as other eyes hanker to make the invisible visible, I put a tag on some moments of joy. Like on seeing the snowdrops, I paid myself $200 as my jornal.
What could have been yours?
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I love these, Alegria. I’m not an editor, but I can offer my opinions–or at least ask questions–about a few. #3: what kind of hue? “hue” seems abstract to me, although I know you’re referring back to salmon. #4: why “a fog” and not just “fog”? #5. I love where this has come from the original version. Perhaps another word added to line 2–“folded”–which gives the idea of patience/peace also associated with the origami crane, so that the poem reads: origami–/in her folded hands a crane/a smile
Mil gracias, Margaret!
I know, I’ve been rethinking about “salmon”; it glosses over the fish and skids into the “hue”, an abstract word indeed, derived from the color of its flesh. Maybe I should think back to those salmon runs and abandon my idea of fusing the fish with the clouds!
#4 stepping into a fog
I don’t know why I always write this noun with an article as if it were an object. Another habit of my ESL brain? And perhaps in this haiku, I also meant it as a state of mind, as in confused. Coupled or in contrast to white, which is a color of clarity, I must have wanted a closure that’s still foggy–still confused and abstract in the end because I turn it around with the idea that white also “fades”, can turn murky. Maybe I should rethink this ku and stay within the bounds of reality. But my rewrite as per your suggestion:
stepping into fog knowing
white also fades
#5
I love your suggestion! Amazing how adding a single word can do. Now the closure, “a smile”, has been strengthened with yes, the “folded hands” of calmness. I love it, mi hermana!
origami
in her folded hands a crane
a smile
By the way, congratulations for your points on your wonderful haiku in the Sketchbook kukai!!! Your haiku do have this silken quality of peace that you so express any which way you write. I feel much blessed for having you in a hand-clasp.
Thank you, Alegria. I’m glad you like the suggestions. As to “fog” vs. “a fog,” the first still carries the idea of the abstraction while maintaining the concrete. But, regardless (or, perhaps because) of ESL, you have so much poetry in your soul. You’re amazing.
handshake–
two friends exchange
life’s lines
through the shared
pulse of poetry
And you, too, Margaret! What a telling wonderful tanka you’ve gifted me with. With our life lines exchanged and fused, no wonder our “pulses” beat in sync. Otra vez, mi hermana, mil gracias!
Hi Alregria. It looks like you’ve got lots of readers now! I’m so happy for you. 🙂 I’m going to post a haiku this evening – can you believe it? It’s been a while…
//1.
seagulls scanning tide marks
as if tasked//
It depends on how conservative the editors were, but if they *are* a conservative bunch, then they probably didn’t care for the simile “as if tasked”. This is a particularly western way of writing poetry, almost entirely foreign to the way a classical haiku was written. The classical Japanese poets generally did not presume to know (or even guess) at what an animal was thinking. For instance, here’s Basho:
A bush warbler
Leaves its droppings on the rice cake
At the edge of the veranda.
Basho doesn’t tell us why the warbler pooped on the cake, he merely observes. We are left to read it as comedy or tragedy.
Here’s Issa:
Look at that warbler –
He’s wiping his muddy feet
All over plum blossom
Again, Issa doesn’t impute motive or reason behind the warbler’s foot wiping. Issa only observes that the warbler has done so. When you wrote that the seagalls scanned “as if tasked”, you interjected your own identity into the identity of the seagull. Even by saying “as if”, you made a guess at the seagull’s reasons for behaving a certain way.
Here’s another haiku by Issa:
The fish
not knowing they’re in a bucket
cool by the gate
This is probably as close to your effort as you will get. Issa, as you know, was famous for his compassionate take on animals.
The second issue is that “as if tasked” is not an image. There is no contrasting moment of recognition. If you had written:
Seagulls scanning
tide marks – child drawing
in the sand
Then probably would have been more in the spirit of classical haiku.
2.
competing with shadows
the winter wind
Again, you introduce yourself into this second image in a way that a classical Japanese poet never would have. You insert yourself my giving motive to the winter wind. You anthropomoprhize the winter wind. A classical Japanese poet would have found an image to express a similar idea to “competing with shadows” perhaps.
3.
salmon–
on winter clouds
a hue
This is closer to haiku spirit. A ‘hue’, however, is an idea rather than a concrete image. The old Japanse poets liked to juxtapose ‘things’ rather than abstractions. You are also creating a simile. In other words: The hue of the winter clouds “is like” salmons. Simile’s were exceedingly rare in classical haiku but exceedingly common in western poetry. So, you are writing haiku like a western poet.
4.
stepping into a fog
knowing
white also fades
This sentiment is beautiful. However, the word “knowing’ is already implied. You could have written, for example:
stepping
into a fog – white
also fades
This omits ‘you’ from the haiku and lets the reader draw their own conclusion. Classical Japanese poets almost *never* introduced themselves into the haiku. It would have been considered contrary to the spirit of zen – the idea of oneness. The concept of the self creates, by definition, a division (observer and world).
5.
origami–
in her hands a crane
a smile
This lacks subtelty (in terms of the classical ethos). Your reference to “A smile” is an emotional queue instructing the reader as to how to interpret the poem. THe poem also risks being mundane because there is nothing unexpected or “enlightening”. See what you think of this:
origami
in her hands
a crane – no one to answer
the phone
But all this is based on the thought that the editors were more conservative in their view of haiku. Your haiku easily fall within the modern western conception of haiku.
The calm,
Cool face of the river
Asked me for a kiss.
– Langston Hughes (1902-1967)
I doubt that any classical Japanese poet would have considered Hughes’ haiku to be a “true” haiku.
Patrick!!! What joy to hear from you again! Everything you’ve written here is a huge lesson for me. I know, I have been sliding back into a habit that’s anathema to haiku. It’s like committing the same sins I’ve had when I started out writing haiku. “Author-driven”, that’s what Michael Dylan Welch, I believe, described this weakness among failing haiku writers in some notes of his I’ve read somewhere. I don’t want to rationalize it, yet, it could be my having been immersed again in writing lyric poems. But I’m determined to crawl out of this. Thank you for beaming the light, to startle and blind me! Thank you for being you again, Patrick!
None of these have active verbs in them…only -ing verbs…editors tend not to like that…
Thank you for taking the time to respond to my cry for help and write this comment! I’ll strive to keep this in mind and take care I don’t slip into my faults in my next haiku.