The
third annual anthology of haiga and haibun from Red Moon
Press, Summer Dreams: American Haibun & Haiga,
builds on the promise of growing interest in these sister
artsprose and visual arts linked with haiku. Adding
Ken Jones of Wales to the editorial team of Jim Kacian and
Bruce Ross, this anthology becomes much more international
than American, reflecting the shrinking global village of
the contemporary haiku community. Perhaps the series title
needs to be changed since a majority of the works cannot
be characterized appropriately as American. I am pleased
with the sense of collaboration between artists, haiku writers,
and editors represented in this collection.
Summer
Dreams includes "small suites of work" from
individual authors, which give us more of an introduction
to their work than we would get from a single piece. The
range and quality of these authors varies a great deal,
which suggests that the editors are willing to take risks
with their selections in order to represent the diversity
of current approaches. Especially noteworthy are haibun
by Michael McClintock, Cor van den Heuvel, Jim Kacian, naia,
and David Cobball writing a fairly traditional haibun
with rich atmosphere-building prose followed by an indirectly
linked haiku. Michael Dylan Welch, too, has an effective
tanka prose sequence based on reactions to the September
11 terrorist attack, which establishes an interesting rhythm
between the prose and tanka. These experienced writers know
the difference between prose and poetry, and their work
demonstrates the fun of linking the two.
The
haibun by these authors work well because a gap is left
between the haiku and the prosean empty, incomplete
expression that invites the reader to enter into that space
and join in the creation of the aesthetic moment. Other
haibun tell us too much, leave no details out, or explain
the unspoken elements of the haiku. The prose serves only
to prepare us for the haiku, or the haiku simply demonstrates
or merely gives an example of what the prose asserted. A
bad haiku cannot be saved by being placed in the middle
of compelling prose, just as faulty commentary cannot be
rescued by a zippy haiku. Bad haiku will torpedo a haibun
even if the prose is exemplary, and the haiku must pass
the test of quality even when the surrounding prose is bad.
When
haibun works well, the prose breathes life into the place,
the things, or the person being written about, then we leap
off that context into another level of consciousness or
awareness. That leap, made without being certain of the
landing spot in the readers mind, is what makes the
best haibun worthy of reading again and again and repeated
imaginative completion by multitudes of readers. This kind
of leaping beyond the tone of the prose is what I seek in
haibun, so most of those haibun that place a haiku between
every other paragraph do not work for me. I like the travel
journal approach to haibun, and I understand the model of
Bashôs Narrow Road to the Deep North.
Some
of the longer haibun in this collection have weak haiku
(like the internal links of a renga) that are only a comment,
a single image, or a statement expressed in three lines.
Many of the long haibun strike me as egocentric autobiographies
with passing commentary haiku. Perhaps the longer haibun-sequence
is one of the English-language haikai arts we need to work
at to achieve a mature degree of achievement. I do not find
most of the current examples satisfactory in this regard.
The
haiga in this collection are contributed both by leading
contemporary practitioners (such as Jeanne Emrich, Susan
Frame, and Kunihara Shimizu) and from relative beginners
(Angelee Deodhar, Tom Clausen, and Karen Kubara). Unfortunately,
the poor quality of the haiga reproductions makes the majority
of the haiku illegible. I can read the haiku in only half
of the forty-two haiga presented in this collection. Fortunately,
the interesting haiga by Borivoj Bukva includes translations
into English. Of course, it would be a much more expensive
production if the publishers were to create plates instead
of using digital halftones for each work of art, but the
original quality of the artwork is difficult to appreciate
in these fuzzy, dotted versions.
Moreover,
many of the originals are beautiful full-color haiga, available
on line in all their glory, so it is especially disappointing
to see them here as mere shadows of the original creations.
The artists employ a wide range of media, including traditional
painting and computer graphic software to create these haiga.
This anthology gives a sampling of the work, but to see
the originals as the artists intended them one must to seek
them out on the Web, or in other publications. For example,
the haiga by Kuniharu Shimizu illustrating Santôkas
eccentric Zen haiku are beautiful because of their use of
color to suggest the tone of the haiku. View the originals
at:
www.mahoroba.
ne.jp/~kuni/haiga_gallery/hai_jin25/ santoka_more.html
I
recommend that you buy this third anthology in the Red Moon
Press series featuring contemporary haibun and haiga. It
is a valuable addition to your collection. If enough readers
buy this edition, its continued success might help Red Moon
Press afford a higher quality production for next years
anthology.
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