BOOK REVIEW
A review of haiku for a moonless night by Marjorie Buettner
haiku for a moonless night, Vol I by an'ya, published through the natal * light press, is hand-sttched with sinew, and can be ordered for $15.95 + $3 shipping.
Basho said "Verses composed by some are over-composed and lost the naturalness that comes from
the heart." (Haikai Ronshu) Collected Haiku Theories by Basho, 3rd ed., 1951, Tokyo). haiku for a moonless night by an'ya epitomizes that naturalness which comes from the heart; each book is hand-stitched and hand-torn, not dye-cut. There is also a luminosity which pervades these haiku, a sharing
of mystery not unlike those Sufi mystic poets who tell us in so many words that there is no division between the body and the soul, for they are the same:
scented breeze
what did you caress
before cooling me
Many of an'ya's haiku are visual in nature. Her verb usage gives each haiku a sense of immediacy and energy which is satisfying:
the windmill
flinging drops of rain
from its blades
march
a licked forefinger
to the wind
Such haiku reflect an acute sensitivity engaging all of the senses:
scented breeze
the town's name written
in sweet alyssum
an'ya is not timid about exploring and documenting the world right outside her back door; using her actue perceptions, it is the ordinary that becomes extraordinary:
june breeze
a hole in the cloud
mends itself
soft breeze
a bee's stinger lifts
in the air
Many of the actions or activities that take place in an'ya's haiku are elegantly simple, and yet they have symbolic repercussions, almost mythical reverberations:
for world peace
threading daisies
stem through st
moonless night men of the village dance in silence
"As a haiku poet, an'ya is attuned to the cyclical nature of all life, and her haiku teaches us the importance of patience in order to observe, in order to preserve:
becoming daylight--
the fallow deer retraces
its hoof prints
The haiga in this collection by Kuniharyu Shimizu are colorful and vibrant with a clear simplicity and pure exuberance; they touch upon that same visual magic that an'ya knows so well. Thhese haiga are offered to us as if they were a glass of wine saluting the moon:
windswept day
a skater opens her coat
to cross the lake
The magic of an'ya's haiku resides, as I have said, in their visual qualities. At times however, they take you beyond the ordinary world into intuitive vision:
oregon trail
over the top of the moon
the rest of the world
an'ya's haiku remind us to keep in touch with our own intuitive, mystical nature so that the world's luninosity can be absorbed, and then reflected back:
celestial space
geese touching their wings
to the clouds
silent snowfall
the sound of dark-eyed junco
cracking seeds
The world offers to us immeasurable possibilities; it is a haiku poet who delves into a relationship of union with the world--insistent, jealous lover that is--until at every touch, at every sight and sound each poem becomes an act of love, a labor of love, writing it down the reader cannot help but be enriched by anya's labor of love:
no fame no fortune
but all these new year stars
in their right places
an'ya