Greetings, Poetry Lovers! Thanks for the enthusiasm about my National Poetry Month project for Poetry Fridays over here, a little time spent with recent Issa haiku translations by Dr. David G. Lanoue - specifically, Issa's dewdrop haiku. (Just scroll back to last week's post if you didn't catch all that.)
First, a little diversion. In the comments last week, Janet Clare Fagel mentioned a book she has loved and used over the years when sharing haiku with students, IN A SPRING GARDEN, edited by Richard Lewis and illustrated by Ezra Jack Keats (The Dial Press, 1965). How did I not have this book in my collection of old (& some new) haiku books for young readers?! I am so grateful she mentioned it. I was able to find a very nice copy on Ebay.
The book presents haiku by old masters corresponding to the unfolding of a spring day, beginning to end. Many poems, such as the Issa dewdrop haiku pictured above with my dewdrop of a doggie, Rita, were reprinted from R. H. Blyth's Haiku volumes (Hokuseido Press, Tokyo). Of course, the art is fantastic. Thanks again, Janet.
The poem above ends with "pearls of bright dew." If you go to David G. Lanoue's Issa Haiku Archive page (remember, there are upwards of 10,000 poems he's translated, plus hundreds of new ones added during quarantine!) and type "pearls of dew" in the search box, you'll find several examples there, including this one, followed by David's commentary:
1814
.露の玉どう転げても愛出度ぞ
tsuyu no tama dô korogete mo medetai zo
pearls of dew--
whichever way you tumble
is happy
Based on Issa's many other haiku about dewdrops, their happiness is due to Amida Buddha's vow to save sentient beings from this temporary world of sorrow. They fall to nothingness, but Buddha will, in a sense, catch them. Of course, the dewdrops are sentient only in Issa's imagination; they more accurately represent Issa and his human readers, present company included.
Translations and commentary ©David G. Lanoue. Rights reserved.
One reason Issa is so beloved is that his body of work demonstrates his ability to see life sympathetically from many perspectives - other people, animals (especially the most humble or cast aside of humans and beasts), plants - and, even, dewdrops! As David writes in A Taste of Issa, Issa is known, among other things, for his "warm, loving connection with living things, especially animals but also including humans and plants. As a Buddhist artist brimming with compassion and respect for his fellow beings, however small, Issa likes to address his nonhuman colleagues directly...." (David adds that critics have called Issa 'a poet of "personification" or "anthropomorphism," ' but rather than projecting human attributes onto a nonhuman subject, Issa recognizes even a small creature such as a snail as a "fellow traveler on the road of existence.")
In November, for a Zoom gathering for a Hot Springs, Arkansas, haiku conference, David delivered a presentation called "Dewdrop Worlds - Recent Discoveries from Issa." (I was able to listen in on my phone from my studio that day, but, alas, couldn't see the visuals. David kindly shared them with me and I'll share a couple of those this month, too.)
"Dew is a traditional Buddhist image for how brief and fleeting life is," David explains. Issa was a Buddhist of the JōdoShinshū faith, a school of Pure Land Buddhism. We'll explore this theme of transience a little more as the month goes on.
For now, here are a couple more of David's pearly dewdrop translations:
****
1821
.福の神見たまへ露が玉になる
fuku no kami mita ma[e] tsuyu ga tama ni naru
good luck god--
dewdrops are transformed
into pearls
Issa plays with the different meanings of tama: ball, sphere, jewel, and gem. He imagines that the god of luck is bestowing him with riches.
****
and this one from 1811:
.世の中は少しよすぎて玉の露
yo [no] naka wa sukoshi yo su[gi]te tama no tsuyu
passing briefly
through this world...
dewdrop pearls
Translations and commentary ©David G. Lanoue. Rights reserved.
Thanks as always for joining in, and be sure to check out all the sparkling offerings over at The Opposite of Indifference, where the incandescent Tabatha is rounding up Poetry Friday. Thanks, Tabatha, and continued thanks to David for the generous sharing of these Issa haiku!