Book Review: Classic Haiku - A master’s collection by Yuzuru Miura

How much you enjoy this work will depend I think on your individual path to Haiku, whose translations you may have read first and your own experience and perhaps practice of English language haiku.

I find that I have a preference for the translations that I am most familiar with and so Miura is at a disadvantage for a great number of the included classic master’s (Basho, Issa, Buson, Shiki) Haiku that I had experienced previously. 

That’s not to say that there weren’t a number that I thought (and could still change my mind on) were interesting additions.  Compare the following:

 

 

Calm and serene

The sound of a cicada

Penetrates the rock.

- Basho (trans. Miura)

 

Lonely silence,

a single cicada’s cry

sinking into stone

- Basho (trans. Hamill)

 

What was a welcome addition to my reading and knowledge was the inclusion of lesser known (in the West at least) but still historically significant later masters like Kyoshi, and Dakotsu:

 

A woman

Taking a bath in a tub

Is coveted by a crow.

- Kyoshi

The 100 or so haiku are set out in seasonal format, including a section on New Year’s.  Each poem is written in English, Romaji and Japanese script, one poem to a page with attendant calligraphy or sumi-e painting.  When a poet’s work is introduced a short biographical note is attached. 

Though by all means easy for a novice to read, I do wonder if this work might provided more interest for someone with a fair bit of Haiku reading under their belt.  A worthy addition to your Haiku collection, though perhaps not a must have.

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Book Review–First Light : a selection of poems by Philip Hodgins

It’s perhaps a sign of how divorced from the larger Australian culture poetry is, that I missed Philip Hodgins’ rise and impact on the scene. 

The accolades don’t seem to gel with my experience: - “one of the major poets of his generation”, “a leading poet in any terms”. 

I knew nothing of him until two years ago.  And in my work as a relief teacher I have not once come across him being studied in classrooms (a crying shame considering the content and variety of his form).

This is not a criticism of the poet nor of the scene.  It is, I think the times we live in and they way that poetry survives as an art form in this country.

While much of Hodgins works can be viewed for free at the Australian Poety Library, First Light gives the reader the chance to hold a curated collection in their hand.  Something that’s suprisingly hard to do (there’s only one copy of one collection in the entire South Australian Library system)

I had searched the country for second hand copies of his Selected Poems to no avail.  That First Light is produced by an American publisher is also curious for a poet that is held with such high regard.

I am, however, an unabashed fan and although I think we may have had some differences of opinion on some things, he is my favourite Australian male poet.  I have read a library copy of New Selected Poems and in comparison First Light does as good a job of showcasing Hodgins’ best work: the skill with which he uses form and free verse, his updating of the realities of farming life in the poetry cannon and his poems on the subject of his own death.

I’ll leave you with links to some select poems contained within this collection:

Shooting the Dogs

Bucolica

I think any serious Australian poet should know of Philip Hodgins, particularly any one writing of a rural experience. First Light is a good compact collection that I think would appeal to lovers of more traditional form, rhythm and rhyme as well as free verse. 

First Light is available at all good bookstores and online via Booktopia.

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Book Review–The Storyteller and his Three Daughters by Lian Hearn

 

Lian Hearn has been recommended to me on a number of occasions by a number or people who know my tastes and hobbies.  I can’t for the life of me figure out why I haven’t taken them up on the recommendation.  Perhaps it’s my reaction to hyped up books and authors (I still haven’t read Harry Potter).

Sometimes other people do know you best.

Hearn is most well known for her immensely successful Tales of the Otori series, a fantasy series inspired by pre-modern Japan.  The Storyteller and his Three Daughters, however is a historical fiction set in late 1880’s Tokyo.

This book is deceptive in the best possible way.  Unassuming, quiet, steadily paced it ingratiates itself with the reader and before you know it we have gone from a tale about an aging and unhappy storyteller, to a tale of brutality and political intrigue.

There’s a skilled hand at work here, a lightness of touch in the telling of the tale. It also paints an evocative and realistic (as far as I can tell) picture of Japan in the throws of cultural crises, the fall of the Shogunate and the effect of the European colonial powers plying their culture and interests.

Not afraid to experiment, Hearn presents the dialogue in the book as it would be rendered in early novels of the Meiji era i.e. like a play script. This may pose some issues it you are particularly attached to conventional dialogue presentation, but I didn’t notice it after awhile and  I think it adds a certain verisimilitude.

I loved it for the focus on storytelling on the ancient arts of Japan and for the tales within tales, drama intrigue and subtle horror - I think an expanded version of The Tale of the Nose would sit very well in a horror anthology.

A lovely book to read, a fine example of craft.  I will be reading more.

An Australian writer you should be able to find Lian’s work at your closest library or it can be ordered from Booktopia.

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This review is part of the Australian Women Writers Challenge 2015.  Please check out this pagefor more great writing from Australian women.

 

 

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