Last October, I decided to dedicate a year (at least ) to the study of haiku and I’m just over half way through my year and I’ve learnt so much. If you would like to hear a synopsis, just go back to episode 26. This time I’m thinking about juxtaposition.
What am I going to be talking about this week?
Last week I said that the more I learn the more difficult it is to actually write anything, because I am much more picky about the quality of the work and my confidence has been affected.
How do I improve my confidence in the work I was doing? I came up with the idea of looking at techniques, which is what I will do over the next episodes. This week I will start with juxtaposition.
After that, I’ll give you the best of my weeks work and then we’ll travel to Canada to be with my guest poet this week, Devin Harrison.
But first…
Thank you so much for your really kind feedback from last week. It was very much appreciated and gave me a real boost.
And
It gives me great pleasure to offer congratulations to my previous guests; Goran from Episode 11 and Kate from Episode 15, who were both published in the first issue of the Journal “Bonsai”. (1) Well done!
What is juxtaposition in haiku?
If you look at Wikipedia, it says it is a “division into two asymmetrical sections, usually with a cut at the end of the first or second section, creating a juxtaposition of two subjects (e.g. something large and something small, something natural and something human-made, two unexpectedly similar things)”
Jane Reichhold calls the juxtaposition the phrase and fragment pieces of the haiku. Saying that a haiku should be divided into two segments with a “syntactical break separating the verse into two distinct divisions” (2)
These two sections are two different images.
Taking it a little further Robert Spiess says “Juxtaposition of entities in haiku cannot be simply the throwing together of just anything” the two images should “have a resonance with each other that will evoke a revelation when they are juxtaposed in accordance with the time-tested canons and aesthetics of haiku.” (3)
Many people in the last half year have told me that Juxtaposition is a technique, what I want to say to you today is that it is not. It is not a technique Juxtaposition is a characteristic of haiku.
A technique is the method by which we can create any of the characteristics of the haiku.
What other characteristics or technical elements are there? Well, according to Lee Gurga (4)
brevity
observations of nature
insight
humour
Next time I want to kick off with some of the techniques by which we can create structural and meaningful haiku.
How did my week go?
My week started in a traffic jam. Not a terrible one, but I was stuck for a few minutes in a traffic queue in the city which gave me time to safely do a bit of people watching.
The first effort I am almost embarrassed to read to you, but here goes:
people watching
through the car window—
silent movies
A bit too cliched and I’m sure that others will have written on a similar theme.
This one I feel has more merit, but I am struggling with the first line:
framed by the window—
a young couple
half in love
I hope you get it. I think there is just about a juxtaposition. Feedback more than welcome.
Lastly, let’s end the podcast with another visit to Devin Harrison, who we first met in Episode 8.
He lives on Vancouver Island in Canada, which I believe is a very beautiful place. Devin has been published in numerous journals, as what he calls “a regular poet”, but in the last 5 years, he has got into haiku. If you would like to read more of his haiku you can find his book, published in 2017: Meeting Myself at the Gate on Amazon.
So here is Devin’s haiku or should we really call it senryu? That discussion is for another day:
in passing
my father’s breath
on the mirror
The meaning is quite obvious on first reading.
It felt very personal to me. I saw myself passing a mirror in my parent’s hallway after my father had died. I could imagine exactly what Devin had written.
However, don’t just take it at face value. I urge you to go back and listen or read it again because there are layers within these few words. I particularly enjoy the cleverness of the words “in passing” and what they give to the work.
Thank you Devin. A piece that will stay with me for some time .
A timely haiku too, as it allows me to remind you that next week is a special podcast featuring a number of poets writing haiku or senryu about memories. I’m really looking forward to reading them to you.
- https://the13alphabet.files.wordpress.com/2018/05/bonsai-journal-issue-01.pdf
- Jane Reichhold: Writing and enjoying haiku – A hands on Guide
- Robert Spiess: A Year’s Speculations on Haiku
- https://poetrysociety.org.nz/affiliates/haiku-nz/haiku-poems-articles/archived-articles/toward-an-aesthetic-for-english-language-haiku-by-lee-gurga/
