[Stephen Collington]

Originally posted by Lee Gurga:

I can see who is going to teach the master class next time!

Lee

Yikes! No way! Not after I've seen what we put you through!

*

Hello all.

Lee, thanks so much for your kind comments. I'm delighted that you liked some of my pieces--it means a lot coming from you. And yes, you're absolutely right about the translation.

neko no koi / hito no koi, mata / ore no koi*

Cats in love. For people new to haiku: it's one of the great historical season words. A personal favourite:

nete okite / oo-akubi shite / neko no koi

sleeping, getting up
yawning a big big yawn
cats in love

That's Issa, my friends. If you've never read his stuff, you don't know what you're missing! Here's a poet who doesn't so much inspire love as devotion. Check out David Lanoue's amazing "haikuguy" web site, where you'll find 9000 of Issa's poems translated and carefully annotated. You could spend days there:

Haiku of Kobayashi Issa at haikuguy.com

(The site is set up for searching, not browsing, so you'll have to use your imagination and try plugging in various search terms--you could start with "cats," for example--but I think you'll find that the results will repay the extra little bit of effort.)

Anyway, enough stumping for my man Issa!

Chiago, thank you for your detailed reading and your kind words. It's always a pleasure to get thoughtful feedback on one's poems. Your comments pick up on many of the things I was hoping to achieve in my haiku, and it's a great encouragement to see not only that they are working for a sensitive reader, but also to see how. I really appreciate your taking the time.

Cally, yes indeed, the king of infinite space! And if you've ever seen a gall wasp, you know just how tiny they actually are. Anyway, I was afraid it might be a bit obscure, but I'm glad to see that people are clicking with it. And while we're still bounded in our nutshell . . . here's a classic poem--a real chestnut, as it were--that you might enjoy:

yoru hisokani / mushi wa gekka no / kuri o ugatsu

in the moonlight a worm . . .
silently
drills through a chestnut

Matuso Basho. Not my translation--it's from yet another wonderful site that I hope to put up on the Haiku Resources page:

In the moonlight a worm . . .

Great site for teachers looking for classroom material!

Seree, I'm glad you like the haiga stuff. It's a grand tradition, and it's really neat to see how people are picking up on it now outside of Japan.

*

And a last note, to everyone who's wondered.

"Bob, who is not a lawyer, / lives next to the dentist" is part of a clue from a logic puzzle . . . you know, the sort of thing that starts, "Alan, Bob, Catherine, David and Eileen are neighbours, living at 2, 4, 6, 8 and 10 Mulberry Lane . . . " So, really there's no connection at all between "frost on the windows" and lawyers and dentists and whatnot. Just a kind of personal association for me: as the weather gets colder, and there's less to do outside, I like to curl up with a puzzle sometimes. Completely obscure, I confess! But it's been fun watching folks scratch their heads.

Steve C.

p.s. Joan, the emperor's seal is the size of a dinner plate. Two cents from the ol' girlie in Kalgoorlie. Two cents. Do I hear three?

p.p.s. Lots of other interesting poems and questions pending here. Hope to be back later to take part in the discussion.

Oh yes, and a footnote:

* For anyone who's wondering, "koi" means "love" here, not "carp." But the words are indeed homonyms. Love in Japanese is an oversized goldfish!