AHA the moment

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I guess many expect tooooo much of the

AHA moment.

For me, it is just the little things in daily life that catch my attention at any moment, on the daily walk to the letterbox all these flowers by the wayside, my cat sleeping happily in his box, a mosquito trying to pierce the window pane, the raindrops still rolling down of leaves after the rain has stopped ... the problem is to be attentive to these small things.

Once you are attentive in every moment, you see sooooo many things to add your AHA ! Sometimes I can,t stop to use the shutter of my mental camera to catch all these little bits and pieces ... just, they are not GRAND in any way, not spectacular, not sensational, but they ARE !

I have learned to be attentive during the practise of Kyudo, Japanese archery. It is the same awareness, now clad in words, not in arrows ... hahaha


a last drop
from the bent leaf ...
summer rain is over


GABI responding to some discussions about the moment.



New Year's morning -
I wipe some dirt
from my glasses

January 2011



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Tempted to go on by so many reactions ...

aaa, the "haiku no shunkan 俳句の瞬間、あああの瞬間" as it would be in Japanese, has never come　to my attention yet !

It seems the term was coined by the haiku translators, like Kenneth Yasuda and R.H. Blyth.
source : simplyhaiku.theartofhaiku.com


The other day a group of rakugo tellers would make senryu starting with

aa, arara

to express surprize at something


a-a arara
another forum
to spent my time

XYZ-Forum

No, I did not write WASTE ... hahaha

.....


My Japanese haiku sensei would say:

genba ni tatte ... write from the place where you are ...
from reality and experience, as opposed to composing solely from your desk.

That is maybe misinterpreded as
show, don't tell
in the ELH world.
I still have not found a Japanese equivalent for this kind of advise.


Childhood memory ...

I guess when something was so unforgettable that you still remember now, it must have been quite a strong impresison at its real time ... therefore, somehow, you are still back there in the moment ... sort of a time slip moment ... dont know how to put that into English.

I think there is a difference between something you really experienced (either now or in the past)
and something you just make up, as you would write a novel or fiction.

I love to read biographies of famous people, but novels about nonexistant personalities are usually kind of boring ...

For me, the real quality in haiku, maybe shasei is the better word for that, brings it to live and makes it so unique.


Should we use imagination when composing a haiku?

For me, Japanese haiku is a snapshot of a moment of real life, presented without judgement or imagined embellishing whatnots ... indeed, that is the most important part of haiku training for me. This is where I find haiku so much different from Western poetry. It teaches me to be attentive, without being judgemental, philosophical or hunting for special effects.
Maybe we should go back and examine the motives of WHY we write haiku
and not any other kind of short-form poetry.

More about this in my LINK about shasei, sketching from real life.

My Haiku Training, My Haiku Doo 　俳 句 道


There are of course other attempts when composing haiku,
shasei is not the only one.


Poetry is
the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings:
it takes its origin from emotion recollected in tranquility."
William Wordsworth


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Matsuo Basho to his student Hattori Doho :

If you get a flash of insight into an object,
record it before it fades away in your mind.

- Reference - Blyth on Basho


. Hattori Dohoo 服部土芳 .



Matsuo Basho also has two haiku by himself, where he uses the expression
. - shibaraku wa しばらくは for a while - . 　　


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a moment of experience

In Japanese, we sometimes call it TAIKEN　体験, experience with your whole body ... children are great at this!

Of course I KNOW that the charcoals are hot, but only when I touch them ... hopefully by accident ... can I experience this physically.
and then write my haiku about it ...

lunchtime -
a hot potato
on my plate

My husband does the cooking and I burn my fingers on the hot potatoes ... grin grin ... got this hot one before putting it into my mouth.

a "moment of real experience" is wonderful and alive and right here and now.
But stretching this to a moment of "temporary enlightenment" and then "Zen enlightenment" ... is something quite different.




Take your time to check this discussion

Susumu Takiguchi : Aha, Just A Moment, Please　



Not 'Here and Now' but
'Everywhere and Everywhen'
Haiku Time versus Newtonian Time
WHR Susumu Takiguchi


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Beyond the Haiku Moment
Haruo Shirane

If Basho and Buson were to look at North American haiku today, they would see the
horizontal axis, the focus on the present, on the contemporary world, but they would probably feel that the
vertical axis, the movement across time, was largely missing.

There is no problem with the English language haiku handbooks that stress personal experience. They should. This is a good way to practice, and it is an effective and simple way of getting many people involved in haiku.

I believe, as Basho did, that direct experience and direct observation is absolutely critical; it is the base from which we must work and which allows us to mature into interesting poets. However, as the examples of Basho and Buson suggest, it should not dictate either the direction or value of haiku. It is the beginning, not the end. Those haiku that are fictional or imaginary are just as valid as those that are based on personal experience. I would in fact urge the composition of what might be called historical haiku or science fiction haiku.


As I have shown in my book Traces of Dreams: Landscape, Cultural Memory, and the Poetry of Basho, Basho believed that the poet had to work along both axes. To work only in the present would result in poetry that was fleeting. To work just in the past, on the other hand, would be to fall out of touch with the fundamental nature of haikai, which was rooted in the everyday world. Haikai was, by definition, anti- traditional, anti-classical, anti-establishment, but that did not mean that it rejected the past. Rather, it depended upon the past and on earlier texts and associations for its richness.


Read more HERE
Beyond the Haiku Moment:
Basho, Buson and Modern Haiku myths
Haruo Shirane



More Reference


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quote
A Moment in the Sun: When Is a Haiku?
The “now” of haiku isn’t quite as simple as many haiku poets think. Is it the original moment of experience? Is it the moment of inspiration when you are moved to write about an experience, regardless of when that experience happened? Is it the “moment” that is captured within the poem, that may or may not have actually happened, but that readers believe happened, or could have? Or is it the moment when the reader “gets” the same experience upon reading the poem, upon realizing that he or she has had the same experience? It’s easy to say “all of the above.”
And perhaps that’s the fullest answer, but not every haiku poet believes that each of these possible “moments” has equal value. Some believe that haiku must be about direct personal experience, and that you must not alter any of the facts.

Michael Dylan Welch
source : graceguts/essays


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inazuma ya kinoo wa higashi kyoo wa nishi

Enomoto Kikaku 　


flashes of lightning -
yesterday in the east
today in the west

Tr. Gabi Greve

We might wonder if this is one moment or longer ...
I remember a terrible summer in our valley, with one thunderstorm chasing the other for about two weeks. Sometimes three separate thundres would show up in one evening and keep us awake and shaking, since the thunder really reverberates in the valley, in the house and in your own body after a while ...

I would have written a haiku like this one too, after two weeks of constant fear and shaking, and still within the limits of this one moment when the thunder would come back again ... aaaa, here we go ...


flashes of lightning -
yesterday to the right
today to the left


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Quote from the SHIKI archives

What is for YOU the 'aha moment' ?

Perhaps it's the moment when one recognizes what meets the eye as being more than what meets the eye. For me that can happen in the immediate moment, but also after the fact, upon reflection. It's also the awareness of a single moment in which one or more elements are encompassed, and which may be in striking (and sometimes ironic) contrast with one another.
- - -


Is it for you an important, an indispensable part of the haiku ?

Yes; without the 'aha' moment, it is just an interesting three-line poem.
The degree of the 'aha'-ness (!) might vary, but there is always something that makes you aware of more than just the description of the moment at hand. Here are two examples by Issa translated by Robert Hass. The first is more descriptive and pastoral, to my mind, than the second. which is more immediately striking; yet it makes me think on it longer:

snip snip

Can haiku be a neutral description of the world ?

Yes, it can be, but it is usually much more, because although a haiku poem is often a description of something (for instance) in nature, or of a single event, we bring our mind and our ability to make connections and recognize allusions and parallels elsewhere in our experience to our reading of the poem. And so the depth of it's 'description' increases. But I think Marjorie Buettner has put it much better than I.... :-)

susan bond
©　Read more in the SHIKI archives




railroad crossing
their goodnight kiss
one hundred boxcars long

Edward

Free Format Theme: Time
Shiki Monthly Kukai April 2010



. . . . . More LINKS about this subject !


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The Haiku Spirit

another topic often quoted in English language haiku theory.

俳句スピリツ　？？？

I wonder what this would be in Japanese?

quote
俳句随想―海外の俳人と共に俳句を考える　
烏山九齊

「芭蕉の言葉」

一、俳諧の誠（俳諧という言葉は俳句と置き換えてお考え下さい）
見るにあり、聞くにあり、作者感ずるや句となる所は、即ち俳諧の誠なり。
解説」自分が見聞きして、感動したことがそのまま句となるのが、俳諧の誠なのである。
俳諧の誠とは、俳諧の精神 ・価値 というほどの意味で、今の言葉で言えば、詩性とでも言うのでしょう。対象に直面したときのその場の生きた感覚に重きを置き、それが作品となるところに俳句の価値があるというのです。

1. Haikai no makoto (sincerity of haiku)

A haiku poet needs to feel inspiration from the varied emotions and impressions inspired by nature via looking and listening. It is the haiku true mind. Without sincerity, there is no haiku spirit. And without the spirit, a haiku is not a haiku.

俳諧の精神 ・価値 haikai no seishin to kachi

bilingual source : 烏山九齊



The Fishing Cat Press
Thanks to webmaster Gilles Fabre, the "Haiku Spirit" begun by Jim Norton and Sean O'Connor lives in a new form.
Haiku Spirit
in English and French ... www.haikuspirit.org/


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MacDonalds
MacZen
MacHaiku

further thoughts

Imagine a Catholic mass celebrated with green tea and rice crackers.
Or
a Zendoo with chairs and everybody drinking coffee.

It is the essence, not the form, you might say.
But sometimes I wonder, if the simpler item, the form, does not even fit, how can the essence be the same?
If you do not make the effort and communicate in Japanese, live in Japan, how do you really expect to UNDERSTAND the essence of Japanese Zen or Japanese Haiku ?

. My Musings about cross-cultural understanding .


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ZEN and HAIKU ... and the moments inbetween


MORE
about writing haiku ...
in the moment

Sketching from Nature , SHASEI 写生



Rakugo ... comic storytelling performances 落語


. . . . . BACK TO
My Haiku Theory Archives

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some comments from friends

Some tend to say that the moment is less of an "aha" than "ah."
I also think there is some confusion as to whether the moment is in the haiku or prior to it. The former view leads, I think, to greater emphasis on rules, the latter to greater formal flexibility.

.....

"show don't tell" is what they tell me often when workshopping. "show the moment".

Dear friend
this is a piece of advise I have not yet heared from my Japanese sensei. I guess it is a misunderstanding of the shasei concept of sketching from nature.
But there are many ways to write haiku, shasei is just one tool to use.
Gabi


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haiku moments -
in the temple garden
stones asleep

Shikoku, Summer 2005



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