sunrise –
the sea wave pushes the moon
toward the shore
(Ion Cuzuioc)
The moon, reflected in the water, seems to go to sleep with the wave, toward the shore. A good sign for the sun, which can now take its place in the sky. The theme of reflection and the use of false causality give this poem its charm: water cannot push the moon, but the reflection can create that illusion…
(comment by Ramona Bădescu)
I’ll begin by noting a few things about three poems by Bashō:
on a withered branch / a crow has come to rest – / autumn dusk
with each breeze / the butterfly changes its place / on the willow
first snowflakes – / the leaves of yellow daffodils / bend downward
(my translations from Romanian into English - Ana Drobot)
Three translations into Romanian. I don’t know who translated them, and I suspect they were rendered via an intermediary language. As they stand, compared to more ambitious translations, they are actually quite decent. They sound good. Whoever translated them took care to speak in a flowing and poetic language. And to quote Bashō himself, the text flows like a thread of water over a bed of sand.
Aside from this lyrical intimacy, to me they don’t seem to bear the mark of poetry—at least not even an exotic kind. They are sensitive and austere notations of a moment in nature, captured with objectivity. The reader is confronted directly with the scene, placed within the atmosphere suggested by what’s said.
This careful presentation, in a single developed sentence, shows no intention of using a terse, fragmentary language. The text makes no allusions and reveals nothing hidden. The images are sufficient.
Reading such poems, it’s natural to believe that you too could write haiku. Easily. Because it resembles poetry you’ve already read in Romanian. Perhaps just a bit more austere.
It’s clear that the haiku has gained immensely through the kireji, and that Bashō never actually wrote haiku—he wrote hokku, three uninterrupted lines. Taking at face value the idea that one must imitate Bashō is a complete misunderstanding, and it’s good to be aware of that.
typhoon at sea –
Paganini practicing
the Caprices
(Marcela Ignatescu)
This kind of composition highlights the kireji, and the juxtaposition, to the fullest. The elements placed side by side are completely different. Yet, between them, a connection is born that overcomes the distance. They resemble each other in an utterly subtle way.
(comment by Corneliu Traian Atanasiu)
abandoned lighthouse –
here and there poppies
lighting up the shore
Cecilia Birca
This haiku poem was meant as an offering to the waves of the passage of time that make lighthouses collapse and put on the fires of poppies.
It suggests that it is summer and we are on a seashore — but far away from the bustle of the holiday season.
We find ourselves on the shore of life, where a true universal law is present: the conservation of energy, yet the continuous transformation of its forms.
The light of the lighthouse has been transfigured — into the fire of the poppies.
(Comment by Cecilia Birca)
How can we better understand what a haiku is, beyond its 17 syllables, if not through example?
I invite you to savor—perhaps with a cup of tea or coffee—a text from the volume “Survolând păpădiile” (“Flying Over the Dandelions”) by Corneliu Traian Atanasiu—an essential voice in the landscape of contemporary Romanian haiku.
(Introduction by Ramona Bădescu)
My Life Rearranged
this beach of pebbles
after the wave
my life rearranged
— Gregory Piko (Australia)
I believe the emphasis falls on this—this beach of pebbles. The one I contemplate and evoke now. The one that reveals something unexpected and fascinating. The one I offer you too, as a reason for admiration and reflection.
Colloquial language knows how to say, elliptically and succinctly, only what needs to be said. It doesn't overload the text with details or descriptive adjectives. This is enough and, at the same time, extremely expressive—it calls you in, to see, to feel, and to understand the situation.
The text continues just as laconically and, in the end, slides—more than suggestively—away from what the wave actually does (moves the pebbles and leaves them in a new, different order) to a completely implausible effect: it (re)orders the author's life (and the reader's, if they too consent to the revelation).
Through this simple substitution—replacing the image of the constant shifting of pebbles moved by waves with that of a human life—what we see becomes a parable, and the text takes on the aesthetic value of a haiku.
The revelation, in human terms, is actually an acceptance born under the influence of an image that becomes a vision. There is no disorder—any change under the ceaseless assault of life’s waves is simply another unexpected and unparalleled order.
This wave is just the moment someone understood and made peace with their fate. The pebbles had known this all along. And had been telling it to him, again and again, in vain.
The poem tells us without insisting—it simply gives us something to think about. It draws our attention to the fact that this has already happened to someone.
(Comment by Corneliu Traian Atanasiu)
wave after wave –
beneath the sunlit eyelid
days of long ago
one more heave –
the wave silences its foam
in the sands
end of season –
with no witnesses wave by wave
washing the earth
poems by Corneliu Traian Atanasiu
These three poems brought to mind Salvador Dalí’s famous surrealist work. What connects them is the ephemeral: memories, time passing inexorably, leaving behind only dust, and earth.
Perhaps nowhere do we become more acutely aware of the ambivalence of our being—as Pico della Mirandola declared, neither celestial nor earthly—than on a deserted beach. Beyond all trace of the carnival of vanities.
In the end, the only unseen witness that accompanies us throughout life is our conscience... The rest is just a story.
Comment by Ramona Bădescu
In order for it not to be just a bland poem depicting an atmosphere, a haiku should contain at least a hint — however vague — of the human presence. That way, it can aim toward transfiguration, allegory, or a parable.
maple leaf
not finishing its flight –
the whiteness of a Wall
(Eduard Țară)
Here, the human element doesn’t continue the reverie prompted by the autumn flight of the leaf. On the contrary, it bluntly blocks it — without any comment. Flat, expressionless.
The impression is that of a prison wall that forbids any emotional color. It immediately shuts it down. Locking it away.
What is the text about? Its speech isn’t univocal. A leaf and a wall are evoked. But the wording is allusive. It doesn't declaim rhetorically and it allows — in fact, it invites — the reader to explore other meanings. The leaf’s act and the statement about it become metaphorical. The flight is actually a lyrical gliding toward death. The wall points more to the whiteness, to the refusal of participation, to the incapacity to share any emotion. The two juxtaposed images express a relationship of opposition, of contrast.
Of course, if one were to stretch things, the whiteness of the wall could be seen as an invitation to carve into it the story of the leaf. But that would be bordering on nonsense.
It’s never a bad thing to return and feel just how true the collateral meanings of words can be.
At first, I thought of a prison, but now I feel that the implied Romanian interjection “zdup” (slang for jail) as a slam-down also halts any lyrical impulse of the leaf. It smashes the spell and the charm.
(Comment by Corneliu Traian Atanasiu)
