Poetry Magazines - The best collection of poetry magazines online - Simon Armitage

In the afternoon of August 9 1956, a fine sunny day, the doorbell rang at my quarters in Rotterdam, where I lived as an intern of the surgical ward of the Harbour Hospital. A pretty young Lady entered my room to bring me a birthday present. She was a nurse in one of the wards. Her present, which turned out to be a small German edition of Japanese haiku, was the beginning of something that would become of increasing importance in my life. Vollmond und Zikadenklänge [Full Moon and the Sound of Ciccadas] was among the early translations of classical haiku poetry into a European language. On the page that gave

there was a note: ‘Das Menschzenleben ist eine Pilgerschaft’ [Human life is a pilgrimage...]. How true, I thought, and I took the idea with me for the rest of my life.

Stimulated by my acquaintance with the young lady, I soon knew the greater part of its contents by heart. It became a sort of cultural backpack which I took along with me when, as a naval surgeon, I was sent to ‘Dutch New Guinea’, as it was called then - now Irian Jaya. We were at the time ‘at war’ with Indonesia, which country claimed the large island as its political inheritance, while the Dutch kept up a stubborn resistance to the world’s opinion. So I spent a few years in our last lonely outpost in the Far East on a destroyer, which was patrolling in an almost deserted archipelago. In those days I was a great admirer of Somerset Maugham, and much of what I experienced I viewed in the rather melancholy light of his writings.

But of far greater and more lasting influence was the little haiku volume. It gave me a feeling that it might be possible for me to express my own relationship with my surroundings in the austere, measured structure of a haiku. Having grown up in an anthroposophical atmosphere I had come to the conclusion that a spiritual background must be recognisable in the lines of a haiku. And on reflection I made a decision to shape my thoughts in the ‘5-7-5 way’ when observing something that impressed me as essential. I still remember this inward decision as one of the important moments in my life.

In those days the earth was still of enormous dimension, and nature seemed endless and unspoiled. A feeling of general responsibility for its continued existence had not yet sprung up. There was still left in us, human beings, a trace of an attitude of amazement with which we looked at our surroundings - at least,

there was in me. Looking back I realise how much has been lost in the fifty years that passed since. The world revolved without the help of electronic gadgets, and the three windows (the car windscreen, the monitor of our computers, and the TV screen) had not yet spoiled our interest in nature.

When flying back to the Low Countries I took my chance to make a stop in Tokyo and as a result of this visit I cherish the memory of Fuji-san and the Road to Edo. Soon after my return I wrote:

    at dawn already
I saw the high window
   traversed by gulls

which seemed a premonition of future ambitions. The interesting thing is, though, that I remember the moment and situation when it was written.

In Holland I found my wife, and with her I decided on a further adventure, this time going to the North of Norway. As a district doctor I served the local population of the Vesterålen, well North of the Polar Circle, mostly by boat. From early boyhood - I was a sea scout - I had had the secret wish to be a sailor, and this existence was the fulfilment of my heart’s desire. In the dark days of winter I found my way across the fjord with my skipper in our wooden boat, guided by the Northern Light. For two months the sun hid behind the Lofoten Ridge and on the day it returned a son was born to us. Spring, coming late, was an explosion of flowers and green across the desolate grey landscape. The contrast between the Tropics and the Polar region has remained a basis of my relationship with nature.

A sedentary life followed as a country doctor in the small town of Sneek in Friesland for thirty years, in which I gradually learned to listen to the worries of other people. The existence was made acceptable to us by the many trips we made with our gaff rigged boat. There is intense satisfaction and, consequently, gratitude, at listening to the sound of halyards tapping against the mast and waves lapping against the wooden hull, when lying safely at anchor in a snug creek, the oil lamp lighting the tiny cabin, and one’s best friend snoring on the other bunk.

In the end, however, this way of life became a repetition of events, the landscape gradually lost its former charm and it occurred to me that it was no longer necessary to experience freedom in this way. The boat was sold - at too low a price - and with no little pain and regret. My friend died, too, prematurely. I wrote

from the haze
an old moon rises, teaching me
how to be alone

I now acquired a cylinder press on which I spent many an hour, trying to print the poetry I meant to impress the world with. My private press was appropriately called It’s Time. Looking back now this ‘Longing to Appear in Print’ presented itself as a moment of supposed adulthood as a poet. I believed that at last the day for publication had come after some years of wrestling with ways of expressing myself.

Now I see that this, too, was a station I had to pass, a moment of consciousness of the increasing part poetry had come to play in my life. Printing and binding my work seemed a satisfactory way of offering my modest poetical potential to the world. It takes many years and many failures, errors and mistakes to become a real printer, though, and this I was to learn bit by bit. It is but right that one should use one’s own literary output to experiment with. So the break between luncheon and consulting hours was filled up with typesetting, and many a patient may have wondered what strange medicine had left those black marks on my fingers.

But after many a happy hour at my Asbern press a lead intoxication became evident, an affliction that probably worsened the beginning deafness which I had inherited from my grandfather.

             to grow deaf, OK,
but if I don’t hear you any more,
             September rain...

This led to my decision to retire to the countryside. The press was sold and a printer bought, and so I entered Modern Times, determined not to become the ‘mouse-arm slave’ of my PC by carefully dividing my time spent between the PC and more healthy hours amongst the vegetables in our garden. My press was renamed The High Word because now we lived on Friesland’s highest hill, It Heech, a full 11 meters above sea level.

I became a sort of amateur-editor now. One of my more interesting projects is the production of Radish, a series of A8 size booklets, made from one A4sheet, offering 32 small pages to haijin who wish to present themselves to their literary friends. The title, Radish, was taken from Issa’s

   The turnip puller
points the way to me
     with a turnip

I replaced the turnip by a radish, in the conviction that I am, and always will be, an apprentice; this seems to me the right zen attitude, necessary in my relationship with both haijin and haiku itself. Another discovery was the close connection between garden work and writing ku.

fresh snow -
beyond the garden fence
the pure land

Either subject requires devotion, much care and attention, patience, love for whatever my surroundings may offer, and in the end, now and then, my efforts will yield something to present to others. Also both have greatly increased my respect for other workers in the field.

   his father’s hoe:
a pilgrim’s staff to
  the old gardener

This reminds me of the Bhagavad Gitâ (13-1) where Krishna says: ‘The body is a field, Arjuna: he who knows it is called the Knower of the field.’ All outward things belong to the field, from which the Knower may learn. This is what the garden is to the turnip puller, this is what his surroundings mean to the haijin. Issa’s poem became the motto to the Radish series, in which recently the 25th volume was published, l’Année Haïku de Daniel Py from which I quote

I’m proud too to have done a volume for David Cobb, which was called Just an Alphabet of Haiku.
When serving the Dutch Haiku Circle (HKN) as its president for some years (they could find nobody else) I got acquainted with many poets and so it was not difficult to find authors whose poetry I could edit. I discovered how much more interesting it is to study and publish other people’s work than to go on navel-staring at my own ku. This new view of life also led to the foundation of an independent international haiku magazine by myself and Milivoj Objedovic, a Croatian refugee who wanted to meet somebody in Holland who was as much interested in haiku as he was.

is a recent ku of his.

Our acquaintance led to founding Woodpecker, a biennial publication offering space to an international public of authors. It has been alive and kicking for seven years now and - after one or two years of being subsidised - it is now financially independent, surely something rather uncommon in our literary world; but it must be said that all the jobs are done by the Staff on a voluntary basis; we have some very qualified people, among whom I wish to mention Gerda Naarding-Tukkers, our excellent translator. It is a pleasure to get in touch with poets all over the world and to be able to offer them space to share the best of their work with their colleagues elsewhere. This has meant writing in English and in other foreign languages, which has given me much pleasure. Doing this one makes interesting observations: using somebody else’s language is like wearing their clothes, a thing that, even if you have asked permission, may cause a feeling of unease, however much you love the language. It is like being an actor in a play. In the end you feel you have to put on your own well-worn old jacket again.

Another thing I have noticed is that language is more specific than belonging to one whole nation; everybody uses their mother tongue in a different way and so is a co-creator of its new developments. This is reflected in haiku. Language is very close to the soul; it is an intimate phenomenon.

More intimate than language is music. While my speech makes contact with other people possible, this contact is limited to my countrymen only; when I make music I have access to everyone in the world. Music seems to be the highest of all arts, because its instrument is least physical - and so most spiritual. This may make haijin a bit more modest.

Our ku reflect our best moments, those moments we like to call our ‘haiku-moments’, though this phenomenon seems to be unknown among Japanese poets. I don’t mind; haiku, anyhow, has become rather independent of its mother country. We may respect, even revere that country but need not necessarily follow all its ways and rules regarding haiku any more.

Biographical data are nothing but the thin shell of what I have come to look upon as an inner biography, which one may read in my ku. Though I have discarded 99% of these myself and others maybe cast away three quarters of the rest, still there may remain some from which the personal ‘Narrow Road’ I went could be traced. Another name for a haiku could be ‘biogram’, since it is the smallest possible description of an essential moment in the poet’s life; and threading a series of them on a string would give the reader a reasonably exact description of the author’s way in life.

the choir left
but the singing remains
in the May evening

*

For a few years now I have been a pupil correspondent to a Japanese haiku teacher of the old Bashō School; I believe she is of my age but she is very severe in her lessons. It is not at all easy to accept someone else changing your ideas and ku, and I must say her approach has made me rather rebellious now and then. In defence, I gathered all the basic philosophy and mysticism I could muster to spread out before her, but it has not as yet led to a common point of view.

It is clear, though, that she makes a point of my ku having to ‘rise from nothing’, i.e. from an inner attitude that is free of bias, judgement, personal emotion etc. whatsoever. That I have not succeeded in reaching such an emptiness will surprise nobody. We have reached a point where both of us seem to be rather out of breath; and this may be a good basis to continue. Atman and the German Atem (Dutch Adem), Breath, are linguistically connected. But she requires me to even let go of Atman, while I say that Atman is my true spiritual self without which all being ends. Well…

         old pail
teach me how to pray
without complaining

Lying awake in the middle of the night, listening to the winter wind (difficult because of my hearing problem), I have come to believe I am writing ku as a way of showing my gratitude for being alive and to account for my life. Thomas Merton writes (Thoughts in Solitude): ‘Reading ought to be an act of homage to the God of all Truth. We open our hearts to words that reflect the reality He has created or the greater reality which He is.’ If this is true for reading, all the more so for writing, because the writer is, in a way, a minor instrument of God.

I think writing should be done without emphasis; but it is precisely this which is I find so difficult. Avoiding emphasis is one thing that I think characterises haiku.

Much poetry has to be discarded at a later stage. I wonder when I will stop throwing away my own creations. Maybe this is necessary as a proof of self-criticism. Learn from the pine tree, Bashō said; I looked at the poplar and found it throwing its cotton-wool seeds all around in a careless way.

I discovered that, because of the ‘hidden laws’ of haiku, it was impossible to express any philosophy in a direct way and it became quite clear to me that the haiku way was open only to observations, free of subjectivity and judgement. This is affirmed by Bashō’s

yield to the willow
all the loathing, all the desire
of your heart

which seems to give a clear indication of how to follow the Road on which he is our guide. But only very few people seem to agree with me on this point. So I feel alone; but this is of no importance. That, too, is a feeling easily yielded to the willow or the poplar.