Book Review

WHR June 2016

Book Review

What Light There Is – Haiku, Senryu, and Tanka

By Sylvia Forges-Ryan

Every now and again, and very rarely at that I might hasten to add, one encounters a book of haiku and related poems which is so good that any attempt at writing a review about it would seem redundant. When that happens it is a sheer bliss for a book reviewer, at least for this one.

Sylvia Forges-Ryan’s new book is indeed a case in point. So, what shall I do? I think I just share with the reader some of the very many nice things of this book and together indulge in them, and leave it at that.

The first thing I noticed in the book is the fact that haiku, senryu and tanka are presented not in the usual pigeon holes designated to each of these different genres respectively but placed in the order and at the slot which the author feels most natural and appropriate. The result is a mixture of free-flowing sensibility which manifests itself sometimes as haiku, other times as senryu or tanka. One can taste the cocktail as a whole as well as the flavour of each component. Those who are tormented by the illusory mirage question of the differences and the sameness between these genres had better try Sylvia’s way and gain new knowledge and experience, and above all delight so far denied of them.

This method frees the author and the anthology (and ultimately the reader) and lets them enjoy the poems themselves, the author’s personality and the anthology as a whole rather than the rules or grammar of them.

I am currently reading a big biography of Tolstoy by Rosamund Bartlett and have enjoyed the pages about how War and Peace was created and published. Sylvia’s book is about 100 pages only as compared with 1345 pages of the epic novel (see Note). Her book gives me the impression that all these poems divided into six chapters would have the impact of a book of over 1000 pages as they deal with big issues of life, death, love and parting, focusing on light (and its opposite, darkness) as a symbolic as well as a concrete image. All this is done not in the abstract but using specific things and actions of daily occurrences, big and small. For example, death is a serious business but Sylvia talks about it with a flower she loves:

Let me die

The night after

The first daylily blooms

This is a penultimate poem of this anthology (Note that it is the ‘night’ after, not the ‘day’ after) with the last poem most appropriate for the author:

After I’m gone

where will you find me

if not in my poems

There are sad songs in all parts of the world as there are sad things in each part. I have found two songs so far which for me are the saddest: One is a French chanson Bonjour Tristesse sung by Juliette Gréco (G. Auric/A. Laurents, 1958) and the other is a Japanese enka called Inori(prayer) sung by Hibari Misora (Yasunori Kawauchi, Toru Ono). Silvia’s poems may not be songs to sing but I can almost hear them sung. And in my ears an aria from Handel’s opera Rinaldo reverberates, calling “Lascia ch’io pianga” (Let me lament) over my cruel fate, and let me sigh for my liberty.

From Sylvia’s poems one can detect a form of resignation which gives them a particular sense of beauty and poignancy. Resignation, not defeat, is a mountain peak few can reach if it is genuine. False resignation is for the vanquished who would lie dead in the valley. However, there is more to it than that. It seems Sylvia has reached the stratosphere beyond victory or defeat.

It is a question of freedom. Not political freedom or social, but spiritual. This is an area of high mental maturity. Having experienced more than one’s fair share of joy and sorrow, one can sometimes rise above all human sufferings and many an emotional roller coaster, love and hate, rapture and depression, anger and kindness, pride and shame, knowledge and ignorance, gain and loss, avarice and modesty, obsession and disinterest, etc. It is a spiritually high place but not for looking down upon others. It is a quiet and peaceful place but not a lonely one. If one can reach there without the aid of religion or some kind of spiritualism, so much the better.

Worldly desires have a bad name but the fact of the matter is that we humans cannot live without them. To put it the other way round, to deny worldly desires is to deny our existence, i.e. we would have to die, or cease to be human (a zombie?). Which means only one thing: the only meaningful question is how to ‘control’ or ‘manage’ desires as long as we live. In this sense Buddhism is asking us that which is impossible for us to achieve.

Let us take possessiveness, or materialism as an example of a typical worldly desire. If we take it away completely, there is no capitalism (or communism for that matter). One effective, though difficult, method is to learn how to “let it go”. Look at children and see how difficult for them to let go of their toys, even if it is only to “lend” them to their friend. One of the hardest thing for a person who has lost the loved one is to “let it go”. Listen to Sylvia:

Learning at last

how to let go

dandelion puffs

Death is a distant future for most people, not least because psychologically they push it away from their consciousness as it is painful or unpleasant for anyone to think about it. Even for those suffering from terminal illnesses the actual date or time of death is not known, which gives them some kind of a psychological respite, making it possible for them carry on.

Conversely, some of us choose to “talk to” death, or face up to it, which makes it possible for them to learn a lot about death (what is unavailable if you avoid the question of death) and think deeply about how to die well as well as how to live well. Some even manage to “make friends” with death, so much so that when it actually visits them they are more likely to have a peaceful, dignified and “good” death. It is to accept death (unbelievably as part of life!). In such a frame of mind lives a sense of peace, calmness and even satisfaction or fulfilment:

Twilight

opening the window to catch

the last scent of spring

What light there is ―

mornings the sparkle of dew

evenings the glow of fireflies

Even before dawn

such a joy in its repertoire ―

the mockingbird

Is Sylvia a heartless person? Far from it. Her love is immense:

So much in love

she hardly needs

to see him

Thinking what a fool

I’ve been for love

after a long sigh

I again pick up

Madame Bovary

How easy

to fall in love with

a perfect stranger

In love, there is bitterness waiting. That’s life! Sylvia puts it in a subtle way:

I never made it again

the chocolate soufflé I’d prepared

just for him

the night he told me

there was someone else

Walking in silence

not even our shadows

touch

Parting in autumn ―

the leaves rain down

even without rain

Not even death has erased it

the sound of your voice

saying my name

What was left unsaid

what was said thoughtlessly

late in the evening

I’m left to wonder

Which was more painful

Let’s face it

it’s better

to have been in love

than to be in love

and yet, and yet…

Then breast cancer strikes Sylvia. As if that is not enough she is burdened with her mother suffering from dementia. With almost brutal candour she describes her thoughts through stages of her own treatments to recovery and those of one of the closest human beings in this world who loses the function of the brain and life. Her poems are written by tears, pain and resigned helplessness. Every one of them I could not read without corresponding emotions:

Mastectomy

I try to focus

on Amazon women warriors

who cut off a breast

to take better aim

Under the pine

I toss bread

and clumps of my hair

Deep into winter

writing poems I can share

with no one

Sunlight on spring grasses

the hair on my head

also begins to sprout

Surprised by simple joy

feeling once more the wind

blowing through my hair

Breathing in the scent

of grass freshly mown

how I miss my dead mother

Autumn deepens

absorbed in thought

I stand at the sink peeling onions

unable to get to the heart

of my sadness

Her memory going

she gossips to me

about me

After the tsunami

seeing it in a new way

Hokusai’s Great Wave

Ten times ten thousand

terrible things in this world

and still I don’t want to leave it

What Light There Is, by Sylvia Forges-Ryan, Cover and original art by Ion Codrescu, Red Moon Press, USA, ISBN 978-1-936848-58-4

(Note) 1345 pages include two epilogues and taken from the translation by Louise and Aylmer Maude, London 1943, Macmillan & Co. LTD, Oxford University Press