My Ten Haiku, October 2008

World Haiku Review, Volume 6, Issue 4, October 2008

My Ten Haiku

INTRODUCTION

The World Haiku Club has endeavoured to celebrate and demonstrate haiku poems of quality, newness and originality.

In this series we ask poets to select by themselves, say, 20 haiku from among the numerous haiku poems which they have written all through their haiku life and which, without false modesty or show-off, they feel confident, happy and genuinely proud in the sense that they represent what they want to say in haiku and reflect what they believe to be the essence of haiku. We will narrow these 20 to 10.

It is hoped that these stringently selected ten will represent something by which the authors can be judged critically and emulated.

Poets are selected not according to the length of their haiku life, 'position' or fame in the world haiku community or even the number of their publications, but purely and simply according to the quality and merits of their poems. They are presented in alphabetical order. In this issue, the featured poets are an'ya and Sasa Vazic.

My Ten Haiku by an'ya

june breeze

a hole in the cloud

mends itself

heavy with child

the dog-day cicadas

loudest at noon

bitter cold

a juniper berry parts

the jay's beak

moonset

a sudden vastness

between stars

home—

cricket sounds

in every nook

fierce wind

the falcon grasps

a new foothold

sunlit penny

the whole ocean becomes

my wishing well

elephant cloud

today it brings me

part of africa

ice moon

an elk touches its tongue

to the salt lick

night sky—

the flavour of its colour

my blueberry wine

[Editorial Note: Credit for each poem has been removed for editorial purposes. Guidelines in writing haiku and biography have not been provided by the author.

My Ten Haiku by Sasa Vazic

Down the stairs

frightened by my own shadow –

winter night.

This house

visited by no one any more –

long winter days.

Market morning –

the seller's frozen hands

choose fish.

War night.

All the lights turned off.

A starry sky.

Parliament on fire.

Shadows of fleeing birds

across the city roofs.

Darkening room.

Shadow of a peony spreading

up to my sick-bed.

Home at last…

not so much as the buzz

of a mosquito

greets me.

A long journey's end.

Drying my winter shoes

in the summer sun.

Guests gone.

Silence meets me

in every room.

I hide under the doorway

mistaking thunder for

a roaring rocket.

1) About the poet in focus:

Saťa VaŞić, Serbian, Serbia.

v.sasa@ptt.yu

Haiku Reality: http://www.geocities.com/anavazic/indexeng.htm

Haiku stvarnost: http://www.geocities.com/anavazic/

2) Personal background:

Saťa VaŞić is a freelance journalist, astrologer, translator, writer of prose and poetry, essays and book reviews. Author of over 1000 articles on various topics which appeared in newspapers and journals; member of the editorial board of Haiku Novine in Niť and of the World Haiku Club.

Her haiku have been included in a dozen national and international haiku anthologies and in a number of national and international haiku magazines and newspaper haiku columns (Ko, The Heron's Nest, Roadrunner, Simply Haiku, Modern Haiku, Wisteria...). They have been translated into English, Japanese, Chinese, Macedonian, Slovenian, Croatian, German, Czech, Bulgarian, Russian, Polish, Dutch and Norwegian. She is the recipient of a dozen awards and commendations in contests held in her country, in Japan (Water, Lake and Sea; Suruga Baika; Basho Festival; Ito en), Germany, Croatia and Bulgaria.

Largely, through her translation efforts she has brought English language haiku poetry, articles and books to Balkan readers and vice versa. VaŞić is the editor of the bilingual Haiku Reality ( http://www.geocities.com/ana_

vazic/indexeng.htm). She is the author of an e-book of haiku poetry entitled muddy shoes candy heart, edited by Anita Virgil and published by Peaks Press, USA (peakspress@lcscentral.net).

She also creates haiga, some of which have been published at the World Haiku Association's website and at Kuniharu Shimizu's website See Haiga Here, as well as in the Contemporary Haibun published by the Red Moon Press, USA.

Recently she has translated David G Lanoue's novel Haiku Guy into Serbian.

3) The poet's views about haiku:

I've been studying haiku for about ten years, and still I can't (and probably will never be able to) say my final words about it. What is it in essence? Can we in the West feel precisely what old Japanese found part of themselves and their daily routine? Must it change to adapt to new ways of life of contemporary man or should we stick to our "ancient soul" and try to draw it up from within?

Apparently, nature is all that is, and everywhere...up and down, "here" and "there"... So much so that however much I may try to read and write, it often appears to me that there is nothing more to be turned into these letters in a better way in which it bears a new meaning and a new revelation than haiku. Nature is a revelation in its own right. It "speaks" of itself. Ultimately it would be best if we can just keep our poetry silent.

4) Haiku poets to be admired or emulated:

There are many poems by various authors I find good or excellent. This applies both to old Japanese haiku masters and to contemporary ones. If I were to choose among those with whom I'd like to change my place, they would be Chiyo-ni, Kioran, Hisajo, Shuson, Basho, Buson, Issa, Shiki, Santoka and many, many others.

5) Haiku poems the poet in focus likes best by old masters and/or contemporary haijin (up to six):

Oh, Matcushima

Oh, Matcushima

Matcushima...

- Basho

full moon...

going out

going back in

- Issa

keeps re-echoing --

little mountain cuckoo likes

having its own way

- Sugita Hisajo

the fog's clearing -

so now we can see only

what our eyes can see

- Kato Shuson

the full harvest moon -

the only things not wet with dew

are the dews themselves

- Buson

cigarette went out -

throw away

the loneliness

- Hosai