Laying plans

Long in bed, and then rose and went along with Sir W. Pen on foot to Stepny to Mrs. Chappell’s (who has the pretty boy to her son), and there met my wife and Sir W. Pen’s children all, and Mrs. Poole and her boy, and there dined and were very merry, and home again by coach and so to the office. In the afternoon and at night to Sir W. Pen’s, there supped and played at cards with them and were merry, the children being to go all away to school again to-morrow. Thence home and to bed.

a rose on ice
the children go away
to school tomorrow


Erasure haiku derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Tuesday 7 January 1661/62.

Long walk on the beach

(Twelfth day). This morning I sent my lute to the Paynter’s, and there I staid with him all the morning to see him paint the neck of my lute in my picture, which I was not pleased with after it was done. Thence to dinner to Sir W. Pen’s, it being a solemn feast day with him, his wedding day, and we had, besides a good chine of beef and other good cheer, eighteen mince pies in a dish, the number of the years that he hath been married, where Sir W. Batten and his Lady, and daughter was, and Colonel Treswell and Major Holmes, who I perceive would fain get to be free and friends with my wife, but I shall prevent it, and she herself hath also a defyance against him. After dinner they set in to drinking, so that I would stay no longer, but went away home, and Captain Cock, who was quite drunk, comes after me, and there sat awhile and so away, and anon I went again after the company was gone, and sat and played at cards with Sir W. Pen and his children, and so after supper home, and there I hear that my man Gull was gone to bed, and upon enquiry I hear that he did vomit before he went to bed, and complained his head ached, and thereupon though he was asleep I sent for him out of his bed, and he rose and came up to me, and I appeared very angry and did tax him with being drunk, and he told me that he had been with Mr. Southerne and Homewood at the Dolphin, and drank a quart of sack, but that his head did ache before he went out. But I do believe he has drunk too much, and so I did threaten him to bid his uncle dispose of him some other way, and sent him down to bed and do resolve to continue to be angry with him. So to bed to my wife, and told her what had passed.

the day is as long
as the way home
I hear a gull vomit


Erasure haiku derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Monday 6 January 1661/62.

Out in the sticks

An invitation sent us before we were up from my Lady Sandwich’s, to come and dine with her: so at the office all the morning, and at noon thither to dinner, where there was a good and great dinner, and the company, Mr. William Montagu and his Lady (but she seemed so far from the beauty that I expected her from my Lady’s talk to be, that it put me into an ill humour all the day, to find my expectation so lost), Mr. Rumball and Townsend and their wives. After dinner, borne by water, and so to the office till night, and then I went forth, by appointment, to meet with Mr. Grant, who promised to meet me at the Coffee-house to bring me acquainted with Cooper the great limner in little, but they deceived me, and so I went home, and there sat at my lute and singing till almost twelve at night, and so to bed.
Sir Richd. Fanshaw is come suddenly from Portugall, but nobody knows what his business is.

so far from town
singing
till almost 12:00 at night


Erasure haiku derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Thursday 2 January 1661/62.

Gambler’s wife

Waking this morning out of my sleep on a sudden, I did with my elbow hit my wife a great blow over her face and nose, which waked her with pain, at which I was sorry, and to sleep again.
Up and went forth with Sir W. Pen by coach towards Westminster, and in my way seeing that the “Spanish Curate” was acted today, I light and let him go alone, and I home again and sent to young Mr. Pen and his sister to go anon with my wife and I to the Theatre.
That done, Mr. W. Pen came to me and he and I walked out, and to the Stacioner’s, and looked over some pictures and maps for my house, and so home again to dinner, and by and by came the two young Pens, and after we had eat a barrel of oysters we went by coach to the play, and there saw it well acted, and a good play it is, only Diego the Sexton did overdo his part too much.
From thence home, and they sat with us till late at night at cards very merry, but the jest was Mr. W. Pen had left his sword in the coach, and so my boy and he run out after the coach, and by very great chance did at the Exchange meet with the coach and got his sword again.
So to bed.

her nose in sleep
is young again
late-night cards


Erasure haiku derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Wednesday 1 January 1661/62.

Onward Christian soldiers

(Lord’s day). Long in bed with my wife, and though I had determined to go to dine with my wife at my Lady’s, (chiefly to put off dining with Sir W. Pen to-day because Holmes dined there), yet I could not get a coach time enough to go thither, and so I dined at home, and my brother Tom with me, and then a coach came and I carried my wife to Westminster, and she went to see Mrs. Hunt, and I to the Abbey, and there meeting with Mr. Hooper, he took me in among the quire, and there I sang with them their service, and so that being done, I walked up and down till night for that Mr. Coventry was not come to Whitehall since dinner again. At last I went thither and he was come, and I spoke with him about some business of the office, and so took leave of him, and sent for my wife and the coach, and so to the Wardrobe and supped, and staid very long talking with my Lady, who seems to doat every day more and more upon us. So home and to prayers, and to bed.

Lord’s day
and I mine with my pen
no time for war


Erasure haiku derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Sunday 29 December 1661.

On Facebook (haiku sequence)

dinner for two
sharing the appetizers
on Facebook

*

mackerel sky
glimpsed behind her head
on Facebook

*

a sneeze gathering to pounce
all those cats
on Facebook

*

a burst of static
the DJ says Like us
on Facebook

*

brocaded sleeve
wiping his prints from her iPad
on Facebook

*

the dead cousin’s face
he just had a birthday
on Facebook

*

the heft of it
this book I found out about
on Facebook

End of the month

At home all the morning; and in the afternoon all of us at the office, upon a letter from the Duke for the making up of a speedy estimate of all the debts of the Navy, which is put into good forwardness. I home and Sir W. Pen to my house, who with his children staid playing cards late, and so to bed.

making a speedy
estimate of debts—
his children play late


Erasure haiku derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Saturday 28 December 1661.

Magnificat

In the morning to my Bookseller’s to bespeak a Stephens’s Thesaurus, for which I offer 4l., to give to Paul’s School; and from thence to Paul’s Church; and there I heard Dr. Gunning preach a good sermon upon the day (being St. John’s day), and did hear him tell a story, which he did persuade us to believe to be true, that St. John and the Virgin Mary did appear to Gregory, a Bishopp, at his prayer to be confirmed in the faith, which I did wonder to hear from him. Here I met with Mr. Crumlum (and told him of my endeavour to get Stephens’s Thesaurus for the school), and so home, and after dinner comes Mr. Faulconberge to see me, and at his desire I sent over for his kinsman Mr. Knightly, the merchant, and so he came over and sat and drank with us, and at his request I went over with him, and there I sat till the evening, and till both Mr. Knightly and Mr. Faulconberge (for whom I sent my boy to get a coach to carry him to Westminster) were both drunk, and so home, but better wine I never drank in all my life. So home, and finding my wife gone to Sir W. Pen’s, I went thither, and there I sat and played at cards and supped, and so home and to bed.

I hear
the Virgin Mary appear
night chant


Erasure haiku derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Friday 27 December 1661.

Videohaiku, erasure haiku, and Samuel Pepys

This is one of my favorite gifts of the season: a new poetry film by the one and only Marc Neys, A.K.A. Swoon, that uses five of my erasure haiku derived from the online Diary of Samuel Pepys. (Be sure to hit HD and expand it to full screen.) Marc blogged some process notes:

The visual idea came from a prompt Jutta Pryor left at the ‘Pool’ FB group:

Is anyone interested in a 5-7-5 challenge? Based on the format of a HAIKU, but keeping it fun and experimental, let’s be all-inclusive.
5-7-5 syllable Word sequence or 5-7-5 second Sound sequence or 5-7-5 second Video sequence.

These short poems or haiku Dave created were the perfect match for 5-7-5 second video sequences.
I decided to create 5 short film compositions with the text on screen, applying that 5-7-5 rule.

First I picked out and re-edited a soundscape I made earlier.
After that I started searching for, filming and selecting suitable visuals to combine with the soundtrack and the poems.
Then came the fun part. Combining each line from the poems with suitable footage using that 5-7-5 rule.
Creating a relationship between image, sound, and text. Blending all ingredients in one cut.

I had fun with this one and am very pleased with how these 5 short visual haiku work.

(Read the rest.)

It’s interesting that Marc picked these poems to work with, since they do not follow a 5-7-5 syllable pattern (for reasons I’ll get into below). The idea of video haiku as films that in some way imitate or evoke the three-line pattern of most English-language haiku has roots in the mid-20th century experimental poetry films of Maya Deren and others, where the idea was for the film to become a poem, or at least be poem-like — to take lyrical poetry rather narrative fiction or nonfiction as its model. I first became aware of the text-free, 5-second/7-second/5-second sort of video haiku in 2011, when it was the focus of one of Vimeo’s weekend challenges. (They’ve had at least two more since.) And the French videopoets Katia Viscogliosi and Francis M., A.K.A. the Derviches Associés, whom I follow on Vimeo, have recently been making a number of wordless video haiku:

Seeking for poetry with eyes, these are haïkaï written with a camera, made of 3 shots : their length is always a multiple of 5, 7, 5. All you need is a loving eye…

Videohaiku merits a special mention in Tom Konyves’ Videopoetry: A Manifesto, where he defines it as follows:

The videohaiku (approx. 30 seconds) uses a few words of text attached to the shortest duration of images.

In the acknowledgements, Konyves credits Eric Cassar for its invention.

Jutta Pryor’s challenge to the POOL group, which galvanized Marc, leaves it open to the maker which materials to use—words, sound, or video. As she admited in a comment,

I’m not very knowledgeable about this form at all. I know there are strict parameters with HAIKU. Let’s keep it malleable so that we can explore and have fun.

Which is precisely the right approach to making any kind of art, I think, and sometimes the less one “knows,” the better. I failed to respond to Pryor’s invitation to comment because I am not terribly interested in perpetuating the idea that English haiku should follow a 5-7-5 syllable pattern. For one thing, 17 syllables are a bit too many most of the time; experts say it should be closer to 11. For another, syllable counting in English does not have the power of counting sounds (not quite what we think of as syllables) in Japanese, which is pitch accented. See Imaoka Keiko’s essay “Forms in English Haiku” and the National Haiku Writing Month post “Why ‘No 5-7-5’?” (which also has some links for further reading).

As Imaoka says, though,

5-7-5 English haiku as a derivative of Japanese haiku has its place in the world of poetry, just as 5-7-5 Chinese haiku is another such derivative, seemingly containing about three times as much information as a Japanese haiku.

It’s not what I’m personally interested in writing, but a hell of a lot of great things have been written in this form, even if it is ultimately based on folklore.

I do feel that the custom of arranging English-language haiku into three lines is pretty key to their effect on the reader. An equally important element, all too often neglected by beginners, is the division into two semantic elements of unequal length, usually corresponding to two different images or ideas, which for maximum effect should have some relationship but not too immediately obvious a one. That relationship may rise almost to the level of metaphor, but otherwise metaphor and simile should not be employed in haiku, I think. Traditional seasonal words (kigo) are not important to my practice, nor do I care if there’s any explicit mention of non-human nature; I do not see modern haiku as a wholly contained subset of nature poetry.

The interplay between the semantic division and the arrangement into three lines can have quite a powerful aesthetic effect — and has a lot to do with why I think Marc’s videopoeming of my erasure haiku works so well. The visual rewards of the haiku texts are mirrored and amplified by the tripartite footage, the stillness of the text counterpoised with the motion in each shot. In his essay, Imaoka calls special attention to the two-part division in written haiku:

A close observation of “free-form” English haiku reveals that they are composed of two major segments. The majority of them are divided after the first or the second line and the rest near the middle, and thus they are in accord with the underlying structures of the classic Japanese haiku.

In writing short English haiku, the decision as to where the division falls is based mainly on the dictates of English grammar and the poetic merits of given expressions. To limit short haiku to those that can be fitted into a rigid three-part structure is to severely limit the type of ideas that can be expressed in this style.

And in accordance with this last point, it’s worth noting another approach to videohaiku that I’ve favored in the past: one long shot, stationary or slowly moving, followed by the whole text. The idea with this style of presentation is to try to represent something of the stereotypical process of haiku composition, in which they arise full-blown from a kind of Zen-like, direct seeing. I’m not sure how often it actually happens this way, at least for writers in English, who have so many more grammatical constraints than Japanese haiku poets. But that’s the ideal.

Or one ideal, at any rate. As I’ve discovered with my Pepys erasure project, which has yielded more than 30 haiku so far, that “ah-ha moment” can arise just as easily from the contemplation of a text as from any other sort of meditative seeing. In fact, I find the additional constraints of this project actually help me compose what I’ve always thought of as a very difficult form to get right. (My constraints include such self-imposed rules as: the words of the erasure must be in the same order as in the source text, and words can’t combine letters from different words except in the case of a few, simple compound words such as into.) I am trying to get something poem-like from every single entry in the diary, which includes a number of one-sentence entries. This has really pushed me out of my comfort zone, to use a somewhat well-worn cliche, and has definitely helped me avoid the cardinal sins of beginner haiku: too much wordiness and overly obvious connections between the two parts.

The strange or unexpected word choices that often of necessity crop up in erasure poetry help greatly with defamiliarization, a fundamental attribute of poetic language in haiku as anywhere else. And the connections that happen between thoughts when we stop trying to impose our conscious designs are sometimes quite wonderful. Often in retrospect they seem like the most obvious choices, but it can take me hours to get there.

One of the basic challenges (and rewards) of erasure poetry is deriving something lyrical from something non-lyrical. The “ice” in Mr. Pepys’ office, for example, glitters in many of my erasure poems. For erasure haiku, in particular, it’s fun to work with a text and author so completely urban and way pre-Romantic, from a time when Japan had sealed itself off from the expanding European powers and was thus almost a complete unknown. Yet it was precisely this “world within walls,” as Donald Keene called it, that gave rise to haikai no renga and what we now call haiku. It was lighter in tone than the courtly renga and tanka verse that preceded it, and its primary audience and practitioners came from the newly burgeoning, urban merchant class.

The first haikujin were thus direct, if unknown, contemporaries of Samuel Pepys, came from a similar milieu, and enjoyed fairly equivalent levels of intellectual and aesthetic engagement. It’s easy to imagine Pepys hitting it off with someone like Ihara Saikaku. Instead of tea shops and geisha houses, Pepys hung out in coffee shops and pubs, but as the diary reveals, he was an assiduous student of the music of his day, playing a variety of instruments and singing art songs with friends. He obsessed over the theater, wrote critically of the different sermons he heard at church, and attended the first meetings of the Royal Society. I suppose it’s little more than a coincidence, but this parallel between the lifestyles and interests of Pepys and his Tokugawa contemporaries is something I enjoy thinking about. It makes the discovery/invention of haiku from the vivid language of his diary entries feel almost like a contribution to an alternate history: Pepys as a successor to Marco Polo, wandering the streets of 17th-century Edo.

UPDATE (28 December): Revisiting Cordite‘s “Haikunaut” issue from a few years back, I was struck by this passage in editor David Lanoue’s introduction:

Haiku is a posture, a way of seeing and being, a philosophy of life in which one dedicates one’s self to noticing, not ignoring; to being open, not closed; to discovering, not defining; to inviting meaning onto a page, never imposing it.

This sounds very similar to the posture of an erasure poet.

Takeout

In the morning to church, where at the door of our pew I was fain to stay, because that the sexton had not opened the door. A good sermon of Mr. Mills. Dined at home all alone, and taking occasion from some fault in the meat to complain of my maid’s sluttery, my wife and I fell out, and I up to my chamber in a discontent. After dinner my wife comes up to me and all friends again, and she and I to walk upon the leads, and there Sir W. Pen called us, and we went to his house and supped with him, but before supper Captain Cock came to us half drunk, and began to talk, but Sir W. Pen knowing his humour and that there was no end of his talking, drinks four great glasses of wine to him, one after another, healths to the king, and by that means made him drunk, and so he went away, and so we sat down to supper, and were merry, and so after supper home and to bed.

a door in the door
taking occasion to complain
of the supper


Erasure haiku derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Wednesday 25 December 1661. Another possibility I considered:


morning sex
my wife and I content
with no glasses on