what is said, not said
have to listen to not hear
what I did not say

What is a haiku?

Anyone who reads this blog will tell you that I am the last one to answer that question.

I just write them.

I recently wrote a series of haiku that I felt was one haiku with five stanzas.

Was this allowed I wondered.

I knew who to ask.

My brother Pete teaches a class on poetry, through no fault of his own, at Michigan State University [sic].

I asked him if my use of the word stanzas ‘worked’ when constructing haiku.

He responded much to the point and with words much better than I ever could have brought together.

Pete said:

…does this work? Hmmm…

Well, yes, it works if it accomplishes the purpose you intend for it.

But is it a “haiku in five stanzas”?

That is little like saying, “I have a car with wings that flies.” You can call it that if you want to, but if you brought it to 456 Auto Fix, Hendrick would tell you that is not a car – it’s a plane.

Historically, the most popular Japanese poem form was called a Tanka, consisting of 5 lines and 31 syllables. The first three lines were 5-7-5 syllables, and the last two lines were 7-7.

Among the common people, a kind of slam poetry was developed, where two poets would try to outdo each other. The first poet would offer the hokku – the first three lines, and the second poet would complete the final two lines. These tanka composed by two poets were called Renga. These Renga were of two types – serious and comic. The comic forms came to be known as haikai.

In the Imperial Court, these Renga could be extended by five more lines, with the poets reversing roles, but still connecting the themes of the previous stanza. This could go on and on, up to 100 lines or more, with the “competitions” becoming highly structured and rule-governed.

Haiku is Basō’s reaction to these long court poems that tended to drone on and on. Instead, he tried to say as much as possible with just three lines. He took the hai from haikai and the ku from hokku, and made ‘haiku’ – and called it complete; no poetic completion or response or extension was necessary. It depended on the listener to complete the poem – to connect the dots, so to speak – in his head.

So in a good Japanese haiku, what is unsaid is just as significant – and just as clear to the listener! – as what is spoken. This skill – hearing what is not said – is highly valued not only in Japanese poetry, but also in Japanese life. (It also helps a lot in conversation with your wife!!)

It is a bit like Elijah sensing the presence of God – not in the wind, or the fire, or the earthquake, but in the utter silence – something that sounds like sheer nonsense to the modern western scientific mind. But now I am talking about theology, not haiku.

So a “five stanza haiku” is as oxymoronic as a long shortcut or a tall midget.

Too many words…!

And that is pretty much everything I know about Haiku…

Thanks for sharing your words and thoughts, and for all the things you didn’t write…

From what my brother says, it seems that these haiku competitions were the rap battles of 8 Mile fame in Imperial Japan.

It struck me that I often leave a lot unsaid in my ‘haiku’, hoping that the reader will catch what is unsaid.

And it struck me that to hear what is unsaid one has to listen more closely to what is being said to hear what is being unsaid or not being said to avoid the 1984isms of unsay.

As Chief Dan George said in the movie, “Outlaw Josey Wales”, I will endeavor to persevere.

And thank you all for not listening … I think?

As I am so fond of quoting, like Frank Lloyd Wright liked to say, “There you are.”

PS: The use of [sic] with Michigan State University implies that the error is in the original or “Michigan State University as it is understood.”

Best thing about him?
Was very equanimous!
About her? Chose word.

Okak, okay, okay.

I admit it.

I look forward each Saturday to reading the Blind Date feature in the Guardian.

The Guardian Newspaper sets up a blind date at a London area restaurant and then the two participants answer a list of questions about the date.

I like the descriptions of the restaurants and one of the questions is, Table Manners?

Lots of good answers here like “Outstanding. Unlike me, he ate the pizza with a knife and fork, and didn’t spill anything on himself.”

Also they are back in real restaurants now and not ordering ‘take away’ and meeting on Zoom.

The final question is “Would you meet again?“

You get really great answers here.

Like, “Maybe if I was biking past him in the park, I would wave of course,” or, “For sure, we’re both in need of some pub exploration.”

I was struck by the column yesterday by the young lady’s response to the question, Best thing about him?

Her response was, “He was very equanimous.”

I have no idea when the questions about the date are asked.

I don’t know if they are talking on the phone with the reporter or if they are filling out an online questionnaire and have access to an online thesaurus.

Equanimous.

Equanimous?

Boy Howdy! How about that!

How would you like to be described by a word that you had to look up?

How would you like to be described by a word that you had to guess at its meaning.

My first guess was that it meant I was like a horse or had horse like qualities, what ever those might be.

Looking it up it means, possessing or displaying equanimity.

Which means possessing or displaying an evenness of mind especially under stress.

A calm dispositon.

I realized why I wasn’t familiar with the word.

No one has ever described me as possessing or displaying an evenness of mind especially under stress.

I had been described once as l lackadaisical.

When I looked a question at my teacher she looked me in the eye and said ‘goofy smart.’

We left it at that.

I remember once in a loud vocal Newsroom argument I made a strong defense of NOT doing something and someone pointed out that what I said could be considered ‘The Voice of Reason.’

To which someone else yelled, ‘When it comes down to Hoffman being the voice of reason, we know we are in trouble.’

But I digress.

Equanimous.

What a great word.

Maybe that was the best thing about him.

The best thing about her, for me, was that she chose the word.

PS for the record, HIS answer to the Best thing about her was, ‘Beautiful eyes and an easy smile’.

Here you can read it for yourself.

ineluctable
sonority, sound of sounds
between sounds of sounds

I may have made an amazing discovery about my favorite author.

I have long admired and enjoyed and written about the writing of Mr. Jim Harrison.

Perhaps Reed City, Michigan’s least recognized famous person.

I was aware of Mr. Harrison through my years of selling his books in a bookstore where I worked but in a ‘prophet has no honor is his home town’ mood, I never picked one up to read.

Somewhere along the line I came across a story about him.

I was attracted by the statement in the story that Mr. Harrison has once retyped a 500 page manuscript after he found he had used the same adjective twice.

While I doubted the truthfulness of the statement, it DID get my attention especially when it was pointed out that Mr. Harrison, like me, managed to operated a typewriter with just two fingers.

I picked up the book Sundog and the rest is history.

While my personal library has been slowly whittled away over the years, some 20 plus Jim Harrison books and poetry collections have followed me from Michigan to Georgia and now here in South Carolina.

I enjoy the quality of the writing often over the plot.

I enjoy the way Mr. Harrison says something for as much as what he says.

Last night I picked the Brown Dog stories off the shelf to flip through to start my weekend.

I came to the words, ineluctable sonority, in a sentence about fly fishing that stated, “His favorite fly, along with the muddler, Adams, and woolly worm, was the bitch creek nymph, a name of ineluctable sonority.“

Ineluctable sonority.

I was pretty sure it meant that Brown Dog liked the sound.

The sound of the words alone.

But why be pretty sure in the age of the google?

I fed sonority into the google and I got this:

“the perceptibility or distinctness of speech sounds when spoken in a context in which stress, pitch, and sound duration are constant vowels possessing greater sonority than consonants.”

That made my head hurt.

It also said, “a sonorous tone or speech,”

This I was much more comfortable with.

Then I fed ineluctable into the Google and got this:

“unable to be resisted or avoided; inescapable.”

Ineluctable sonority.

A tone or speech unable to be resisted.

You know.

Darth Vader.

Sorry but I cannot mention Darth Vader without saying that the Wicked Witch of the West would have had Vader (remember when Darth was his first name?) for breakfast. I can make my point but another time.

Darth Vader as I was saying, or at least his voice.

The voice being James Earl Jones.

Which is really weird when you realize Mr. Jones grew up in Brethren, Michigan, about one hour away from Reed City, Michigan.

I guess I should also point out that Mr. Harrison went to State, while Mr. Jones went to Michigan.

That was NOT my amazing discovery.

Remember how I mentioned that what first attracted me to Mr. Harrison was that story about re-typing a manuscript when he found he had used the same adjective twice.

I believe I also motioned I questioned that story.

Good story but would an author really care that much about using words, the right words?

Mark Twain famously said on his choice of words (when being paid by the word) “I never write metropolis for seven cents because I can get the same price for city. I never write policeman because I can get the same money for cop.”

Ernest Hemingway’s word choice was influenced by his years as a foreign correspondent and the newspapers had to pay PER WORD for Mr. Hemingway’s articles to be sent by cable producing Mr. Hemingway’s style of short sentences and short words.

“It was a hot day” from The Big Two Hearted River in the Nick Adams stories.

Still I was shocked and yet not shocked when I fed “ineluctable sonority” into the Google.

In less than one second, the Google came back with 250,000 results.

The top one and the ONLY ONE that used ‘ineluctable sonority’ together in a sentence was in the Brown Dog stories by Jim Harrison.

The very same sentence I read last night.

There isn’t an award or a place where I can submit this for proper recognition but BOY HOWDY let me tell you that Mr. Harrison accomplished something special.

But in the thousands of years of writing and recording the written language, a two finger typist from Reed City, Michigan, pulled off one of the amazing unknow feats of literary genius.

Mr. Harrison wrote out a thought in way no ever had before.

And Mr. Harrison wrote out a thought in way no ever has since.

I think he would be pleased.