Moon in the Pines: Zen Haiku

"A book to savor. If you're familiar with haiku, you keep feeling a shock of recognition when you encounter a favorite redone in Clements's thoughtful lean style."
-- Joe Haldeman

"An excellent introduction to these poetic gems… Jonathan Clements has thoughtfully reinvigorated the genre with his new translations of old favorites."
-- Asian Reporter

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This collection presents nearly one hundred masterpieces of haiku, from the seminal seventeenth-century work of Bashô to poems from the early days of the twentieth. These are new translations that cast a fresh light on the poems, many of which are well-known. Most of the poems do not fit the traditional form of seventeen syllables in three lines - I have emphasized meaning and allusion over formal constraints in order to capture something of the Zen spirit of the originals.

Zen Buddhism stresses the importance of fully embracing each moment of life; of reaching union with everything that is by penetrating as deeply as possible into the here and now. Zen therefore has a strong affinity with haiku, Japanese verse that is traditionally composed of seventeen syllables in three lines - the shortest form of poetry in the world. Haiku seeks, in a handful of words, to crystallize an instant in all its fullness, encouraging through the experience of the moment the union of the reader with all existence. The reader side-steps conventional perception, startled into a momentary but full understanding of the poet's experience. By locking reader and poet into the same reality, haiku helps us gain an intimation of the ultimate unity of all realities. Haiku transforms the most mundane of moments into something special. In Zen it is glimpses like these, rather than the study of doctrine, that are said to lead to enlightenment - the realization of the true nature of existence.

How can a good haiku so fully recreate the poet's experience in just a few words? As Zen, more than any other form of Buddhism, is a personal experience; so haiku, more than any other form of verse, requires the personal involvement of the reader. The haiku poet, knowing that words are not enough to capture the fullness of any moment, inscribes a partial idea that leaves an all-important space for the reader to fill in. As you question what the poet has omitted, the poem comes alive through your own memories and feelings. When Otsuji writes:

Its sail dips in the sea
The ship on the spring waters.

he does not need to say that the waters are rough, because we have seen the rocking of the sail on the waves. Nor does he need to say that we are watching from a safe position on the shore, since we have noticed the distant sail rather than the movement of the boat itself or the creaking of timbers. The poem tells us as much with omission as it does with inclusion.

Each haiku has its kigo, a word that, by referring to a particular season (and its natural colours and features), triggers a series of personal associations in the mind of the reader. Not all haiku need mention the season itself as Otsuji does here; sometimes the same effect is achieved through less direct means. There are many kigo - a few of the better-known include cherry blossoms, nightingales or willows (for spring); a welcoming evening breeze, dragonflies or lilies (for summer); the harvest moon, reddening leaves or scarecrows (for autumn); and mandarin ducks, frost or hail (for winter). By using kigo and individual associations, the reader spins a whole world of new ideas from a tiny string of words.

The poems are accompanied by Japanese prints and paintings that use techniques of empty space and symmetry to accomplish with pictures what haiku manage with words - each creating a beginning which viewers must complete with their own minds. At the back of the book is a selection of notes to the poems. I advise the reader to dip into the book at will, and to turn to the notes only when the book's supply of verse seems exhausted. The notes set the poems in their historical and personal context, adding another level of meaning that may well transform them once more. On a second reading, the poems will not be the same poems - and you will not be the same reader.

Available in both UK (Frances Lincoln) and US (Viking) editions. Also available in Spanish as La Luna en Los Pinos.