CHAPTER ONE ANTHOLOGY of Those Women Writing Haiku
Tanka by Empress Iwa no Hime (?-347) She was empress consort of Emperor Nintoku. In 314 she was proclaimed empress.
autumn field
trailing over rice ears
morning mist
vanishing into nothing
so my love?
-Empress Iwa no Hime
JR
No! I won't live
on ragged mountain peaks
longing
for you
with rock and root my pillow
I will lie dead
-Empress Iwa no Hime
JR
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Tanka by Lady Ise (875?-939) One of Japan's Poetic Geniuses, Lady Ise lived most of her life at court, being the consort of two princes and bearing two children. In the 21 scrolls of the Kokinshu she had 173 of her poems included.
On a plum tree blooming by a stream:
a brook
through the years
mirrors the
blossoms
will it be clouded
by the dust of petals?
Lady IseJR
a ravaged sea
so seems this bed
if smoothed
with my sleeve it would float back
moist with foam
-Lady Ise
JR
my body
wasted by winter
if only I
like fields
burned over
had hope for spring
-Lady Ise JR
they're rebuilding
the Nagara bridge
in Tsu
soon there's nothing left which
to compare myself
-Lady Ise
JR
Upon selling her house:
the Asuka River
is not my home
my depths, it
seems
have become shallows
my house a trickle of
coins
-Lady Ise
JR
wanting to see him
I dare not even in dreams
day
after day
I am ashamed to find
love has changed my
looks
-Lady Ise
JR
compare this to:
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my longing for you
too strong for boundaries
no one
blames me
for going to you at night
down the road of
dream
Ono no Komachi
JR
Many more tanka by Ono no Komachi are available in The Ink Dark Moon:Love Poems by Ono no Komachi and Izumi Shikibu, translated by Jane Hirshfield with Mariko Aratani. Vintage Books.
============================================================
Kaga-no Chiyo was born in Matsuto, where she began
composing haikai when she was fifteen. Probably because she
was female, she never studied with a master and remained
self-taught. Later in her life she did visit some famous
poets, but her reputation was already established. She was
also a painter. At the end of her life she took holy orders,
becoming a nun.
translated by Lenore Mayhew and William McNaughton in Modern Haiku, XIV:2, 1983. It bears this Translators' Preface: This kasen renga was written by Kaga-no Chiyo-no (1703-1775), sometime in the last years of her life, and Sue Jo, an older woman who had been her friend and mentor since Chiyo's childhood.
Means it with liquid
voice unendingly
the cuckoo
Sue
Drops of water on the young leaves
heavy showers
until evening
Chiyo
In the basin of water
the slap, slap
of waves
Chiyo
The basin is probably the one outside a tea ceremony hut
Under figured silk
...what?
Sue
The figured silk is related visually to the water ripple. The what relates to the spiritual state of the person wearing the silk.
High
and like a bright silk ball
evening moon
Sue
On each side
of the march-flower hedge
Chiyo
Each one afraid
to look at his partner
young
birds headed south
Chiyo
Wind yes...
but really there is no risk
Sue
Setting out
the heart riding high
as the boat
Sue
Fried rice in the stomach
mujo, jinsoku
Chiyo
The satisfied stomach links to the happy heart, but these feeling are undercut by the Buddhist terms mujo, jinsoku. Mujo means the transience and unpredictability of life. -- Jinsoku is probably a pun on the term for defiling dust of the world -- but the character actually used means rapidity. -- So while commenting on the imperfectability of life with a pun on one level the poem refers to life's speed, and on another, harks back to the speed of the boat.
Shop sign-board
still in place
on moving day
Chiyo
Stuck with a toothache?
Find a dentist
Sue
This relates visually (dentists had sign-boards too) to the sign-board in verse above, but at a deeper level could be about the sameness that exists in change and yet the attention that some changes demand.
On the shining
daffodil
overblown flowers
Sue
For the ears of horse
the rules of love
Chiyo
Let's pray
answers for the asking
at Twelve
Lanterns:
Chiyo
Cyptomeria woods
...and a cryptomeria wicker gate
Sue
Now? Well, now it begins
where it ends:
moon and
flowers
Sue
The wild geese, too
regret their late morning start
Chiyo
Putting away
the brazier;
not quite time
Chiyo
Young girl obliged
to serve the old
Sue
Young women in the Orient serve the husband's family. This may be a flashback then to a bride chair, the bride invisible but some evidence of her sensibility showing in her hem
The passing chair
for an instant, one inch
of
embroidered hem
Sue
A mountain pass
or a sunny hill?
Chiyo
Rain-washed:
the cool rattle
of pine cicadas
Chiyo
In the porcelain bowl
casabas
Sue
A writing stand,
paper, the moon...
riches
Sue
Riches -- in Sue's mind because set up to write poems. -- Aha, but will you catch the fishes (words) or not? -- says Chiyo. This imagery of fishes standing for words, especially fishes (words) that will not be caught (found) occurs in Buddhist literature and in Chinese poetry.
Perch nets tangle
in the wind
Chiyo
This side of the mountain
the leaves less
enthusiastic
about turning red
Chiyo
Complication...
The skylight's round
Sue
The skylight's round, -- i.e., Yours is round, mine square, so we don't see things alike.
Be serious
about your sake
or all but
Chiyo
Indian summer sky
holding-on at sunset
Chiyo
By two,
by fours the crows in the snow
at
Koromogawa
Chiyo
A few at a time
returning home, magicians
Sue
Buckwheat noodles
with radish
sting the nose
Sue
In the warm room
a rug with clear colors
Chiyo
As if we were deaf...
the flowers arrange their faces
in the morning fog
Chiyo
Playing in the willows
the bird's hundreds of voices
Sue
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Written on a portrait of Basho:
To listen,
fine not to listen, fine too...
nightingale
-Chiyo-ni
LM
Translated by Lenore Mayhew.
Morning snow
where can I throw away
the tea
leaves?
-Chiyo-ni
LM
Rice paddies
wild fields again
in winter rain
-Chiyo-ni
LM
In spring rain
much better
looking
...everything
-Chiyo-ni
LM
It is reported that this haiku was written in response to a Zen Master of the Eiheiji Temple who asked her about the Buddhist teaching that ten thousand meanings can come from one thought.
One hundred gourds
attached
to a single stem
Chiyo-ni
LM
Mountain and moor
not one thing that moves
morning
snow
-Chiyo-ni
LM
Winter wind
from where to where?
Leafless
trees
-Chiyo-ni
LM
Again
the wild deer loses his way ...
winter rain
-Chiyo-ni
LM
White chrysanthemums
no one knows why, but somehow
...
best
-Chiyo-ni
LM
Each patch of wind
adding one leaf
spring bamboo
-Chiyo-ni
LM
Rain cloud
and under it, an inflated
frog
-Chiyo-ni
LM
The tiny nightingale
stutters
and starts again
-Chiyo-ni
LM
The small fire under the coals,
warms our hands...
plovers calling
-Chiyo-ni
LM
The willow
stands anywhere
and stays calm
-Chiyo-ni
LM
Two or three
sing all night
larks
-Chiyo-ni
LM
well butterfly
of what do you dream
spreading
your wings?
-Chiyo-ni
JR
branch of plum
it gives its scent to him
who
breaks it off
-Chiyo-ni
JR
Upon her engagement to the servant of a samurai:
will it be bitter or not --
the first time I pick
a
persimmon
-Chiyo-ni
JR
After the death of her only son:
dragonfly hunter
how far has he traveled
today I
wonder?
-Chiyo-ni
JR
After the death of her husband when she was 27:
sitting up I see
lying down I see
how wide the
mosquito net
-Chiyo-ni
JR
cuckoo! cuckoo!
meditating on that theme
day
dawned
-Chiyo-ni
JR
parents older than I
are now my children
the same
cicadas
-Chiyo-ni
JR
Chiyo-ni's poem at death when she was 74 in 1795::
having gazed at the moon
I depart from this life
with a blessing
-Chiyo-ni
JR
Made lightly that promise;
she is alone,
Winter
peony
-Chiyo-ni
LM
low-tide beach
everything one stoops to touch
moves in the fingers
-Chiyo-ni
JR
long winter
sharing nothing with each other
we
bump bearing blossoms
-Chiyo-ni
JR
no need to dress up
moon light will transfigure
much-loved clothes
-Chiyo-ni
JR
not yet spring
ice is still upon the rocks
yet
kisses are bitter
-Chiyo-ni
JR
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Each bush clover plant
Each pampas plant has its own
card
with a suitable poem
-Otokuni
KR&AI
=========================================================
Chigetsu-ni (1632-1708) wrote stanzas linked with her son, Otokuni, who was one of Basho's students. Thus, through her son and daughter-in-law, Chigetsu was able to meet Basho in 1689 and saw him often during the next couple of years. When he left for Tokyo in 1691, he gave he a copy of The Record of the Unreal Hermitage as a momento. After his death, Chigetsu performed memorial services for Basho. It is said that when she was young she served at court; after her husband, a freight agent, died she had became a nun and wrote under the name of Otsu.
the sparrows
huddle with fright
the shrike calls
just once
-Chigetsu
RHB
Translated by Robert H. Blyth
Until about noon
it felt no special eagerness
the
hototogisu
-Chigetsu
RHB
Azaleas on the cliff
look at the image on the lake
in evening sunshine.
-Chigetsu
RHB
Loving a Grandchild:
Let's use barley straw
to make it a proper house
the tree frog croaks of rain.
-Chigetsu
RHB
stopping
my work in the sink
voice of the
uguisu
-Chigetsu
RHB
grasshoppers
chirping in the sleeves
of a
scarecrow
-Chigetsu
RHB
Cats making love in the temple
But people would blame
a man and woman
for mating in such a place.
-Chigetsu
LM
In the pond
new tadpoles
in tepid water
-Chigetsu
LM
Rice flowers
these too, the gift
of Buddha
-Chigetsu
LM
On the anniversary of Basho's death:
I visited his grave in Kiso:
oh to open the door I'd
show the Buddha
blossoms in bloom
-Chigetsu
LM
Chigetsu is considered the best of the women poets who wrote in the Basho School.
Written soon after her husband's death in 1686:
I sleep alone
all night the male voice
of a
mosquito
-Chigetsu
RHB
I know
yet I know not what I am
sadness on an
autumn evening
-Chigetsu
RHB
morning
and a wren come closer
bit by bit
Chigetsu
RHB
this moon
if there was another
there'd be a fight
-Chigetsu
RHB
I grow old
yet the blossoms
in their prime
-Chigetsu
KR&AI
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Chine was the sister of Kyoai, one of Basho's closest disciples, which accounts for her being included in the collections (of which Kyoai was the compiler). She died when only 25. Basho, upon hearing the news (he was on his journey chronicled in The Traveler's Book Satchel) sent a message to Kyoai with the stanza:
She who is no more
must have left fine clothes
that now
need summer airing
Basho
The fireflies' light.
How easily it goes on
How
easily it goes out again.
-Chine-Jo
KR&AI
Translated by Kenneth Roxroth & Ikuko Atsumi in Women Poets of Japan.
Part three: Autumn When I made a pilgrimage to
Ise.
It is the month of leaves
with waves rising at Yabase
why wait for the ferry?
-Chine-Jo
RHB
Chine's death poem:
suddenly you light
then suddenly go dark...
sister firefly
-Chine-Jo
JR
===============================================================
Ogi-jo is considered to have been a prostitute with whom Basho had an acquaintance.
A letter with a sewn paper bag:
Sewn for presenting
this medicine sack for travel
the dew on bush clover
-Ogi-jo
RHB
===============================================================
Being weak in body and given to ill health, I thought how hard it was to tend to my hair and so changed the style this spring.
The fancy hairpins
along with combs are useless now
camellia flowers fall
-Uko
RHB
Uko (died between 1716-35), with the lay name Tome. Born in Kyoto, but lived in Osaka, she married Boncho, a doctor, who was also one of Basho's closest friends and student as she also became. It is known that she cared for Basho while he stayed at Kyorai's hermitage through a comment written by Basho in Saga Nikki. Equated by some to be not the writer her husband was, she is nonetheless, one of the finest poets in The Monkey's Straw Raincoat and rightfully appears in the Ume Wakana as well as in the hokku parts
chillblained
the mother blows on her child's hands
smarting from snow
-Uko
RHB
temple bell at dusk
ringing with its singing
the
hototogisu
-Uko
RHB
The embroidered dress
though not yet worn
already
soiled by summer rains
-Uko
RHB
The most obvious interpretation: dampness has produced some mold on her clothes. The reason she has not worn them is that from 1682 to 1689 sumptuary laws forbade people not of the aristocratic or warrior classes to wear certain kinds of dress. Perhaps a critical [political] tone here? -- Quoted by Robert H. Blyth.Haiku, Part Three: Autumn.
As I look on the moon
the women fulling cloth are
heard
at their busy work
-Uko
RHB
She implies that the women at their labor also see the moon. Fulling cloth involved beating the fabric with wooden blocks to impart a luster and to clean it. This was considered very humble labor and for many centuries had been taken by poets as a particularly sad activity known from its sounds. -- Quoted by Robert H. Blyth.,Haiku, Part Three: Autumn.
On seeing illustrations of The Tale of Genji:
On the balustrade
as the flowers fall in the night
he stands there radiant
-Uko
RHB
Ishiyama so near
but after all I could not go now
the autumn wind
-Uko
RHB
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When I went to worship at Mikumano Shrine:
The light of fireflies
they are terrifying here
at Yakio Gorge
-Tagami no Ama
RHB
Tagami no Ama (1644-1719) was, like Kyorai, born in Nagasaki. She was the wife of Kume Toshinobu, and like others, at his death became a nun. Even so, she managed the Chitosetei, an inn in Nagasaki which became popular with various haikai poets. Kyorai published an account of his visit there. Ushichi was her nephew and Bonen, as well as other relatives, were haikai poets.
================================================================
Shiba Sonome was a disciple of Basho's whom he admired. After the death of her husband, she earned her living as an eye doctor and as a judge of haikai. It should be noted that it is due to Basho and his ability to work with women that the amount of woman's haikai writings have been preserved which we have. One sees that most of these women gained access to the inner circle around Basho by being related either by marriage or blood to one of his disciples. It is possible that Shiba Sonome was one of the few to be accepted as a poet on her own.
The child I carry
on my back licks my hair --
it's
so hot!
-Shiba Sonome
RHB
Each time they roll in,
the beach waves break up
the plovers
-Shiba Sonome
EM&HO
Spilled from a tree-searing wind, a bull's midday voice
Shiba Sonome
HS&BW
discontented
violets have dyed
the hills also
-Shiba Sonome
EM&HO
EM&HO = translated by Earl Miner and Hiroko Odagiri.
I'm so busy
winter clouds can't stop
to rest
-Shiba Sonome
EM&HO
stumbling
on a rock
the warbler's call
-Shiba Sonome
EM&HO
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As I go along
Stretching out my hand and plucking
The grasses and leaves of spring.
-Sono Jo
RHB
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Enomoto Seifu-Jo (1731-1814) was a student of the haiku poet Shiro of the school of Issa.
The faces of the dolls!
Though I never intended to,
I have grown old.
-Seifu-jo
RHB
The baby,
Even when shown a flower,
Opens its
mouth.
-Seifu-jo
RHB
Everyone is asleep
There is nothing to come between
the moon and me.
-Seifu-jo
RHB
The narrow path ends in a field of leeks
-Seifu-jo
HS&BW
Translated by Hiroaki Sato. From the Country of Eight Islands by Hiroaki Sato and Burton Watson. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1981.
Page Copyright © Jane Reichhold,
1986.
Copyrights for translations are with the designated
writers.
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