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Love Haiku: Masajo Suzuki’s Lifetime of Love; English translations by Lee Gurga and Emiko Miyashita. ISBN: 1-929820-00-3. Brooks Books, 4634 Hale Drive, Decatur, 1L62526, USA. US/$15.00.

‘You’d like me to do what? ...a Japanese lady’s book of love haiku? ...just up my street? …moi ?‘ A desire to do something useful in the Universe grapples ineffectually with griping panic ...if I could only read - really read - Japanese ...all those important nuances of tone and cultural understanding that I feel must evade the translator’s touch ...how to deal correctly with anything vaguely Freudian (imagined or otherwise) ...the fear that such preoccupations coupled with general ignorance will prevent any …rattle-phkPLOP ...on my doormat - the manila envelope …which I open …

112pp of quality cream paper in an attractive cover - one of the poet’s shikishi on the front, one of her photographs on the back. The latter (taken when? Masajo Suzuki was born in 1906) shows an older woman whose face suggests the eager excitement of a girl; and I try to conjure an image of the younger woman. 150 haiku selected from a lifetime’s published work (1936-1998) are laid out in publication sections - each seasonally sequenced. There is an introduction to the poetry, a potted essential biography, and something about the translators. Before ‘lights out’, I take a quick peek at some poems from the last section

first sunrise - / I wait with a fluttering heart / as if in love

I look back at the photograph and murmur, ‘...and I eat Life like air ...inept reviewers too?’ …All night long, / wooden gates bang  .......somewhere / in a high wind.

A thoughtful touch points out the season word for each haiku - invaluable: even BHS members might not know when to dive for their Haiku Handbook,

that memory / if it comes to life again ... / warmth within me

For ‘warmth’ think Spring. The quiet use of kigo to convey human emotion and sensuality is varied and effective throughout - even overt Freud has charm (‘green acorn’). Interesting too, how ‘identical’ imagery (in English) can subtly overlap very different emotions, eg. ‘snow on snow on snow’ (+ ‘keri’) and ‘snow piles on snow’ (+ ‘kana’). What a difference a kireji makes? To help the reader understand such things, and others, about a third of the haiku are annotated - social customs are pointed out; poetic thought or circumstances behind the haiku explained.

Imagine yourself enjoying a half in a tiny Tokyo bar restaurant - a fried sardine roll perhaps. You think, ‘shadows in her eyes / that one who served me - I wonder / how she passes time’. About age 30, almost coincidentally, four things happen to Masajo Suzuki: a first husband disappears; a marriage of obligation to her late sister’s husband (whom she can not love); she meets her ‘destined’ love, Y.M. (a younger man, who later turns out to be married - the ‘criminal’ affair lasts 40 years to his death and beyond); and she ‘discovers’ haiku. She is to become one of Japan’s most popular love poets. Following a second divorce in 1957, she opens a small Tokyo pub; and thereafter, the ‘flurry of love’, the hard-won pleasure of successful independence, and the discipline of haiku each night after closing time become the ‘solace and backbone of her life’. Through haiku, she documents her love, not just for Y.M. but for life itself.

Most of the haiku in this book deal with the love affair and its emotional repercussions; and Y.M. certainly lives on through the haiku - whether as presence (not a word for me / he just continues to watch / the winter waves), in absence, or as ghost: a late haiku (someone’s voice /from behind me ... / autumn gale).

The subtle sensuality of the real in early days (a moth dances into the flame ... / the nape of the man’s neck / draws me in) is later matched, in age, by delightful sensuality of the remembered (firefly finds his love / they settle into grass / together); although while, for the most part, kigo and emotional reflection are tightly fused, in later years some emotional detachment of imagery seems to occur, as if age has claimed its own brand of rationality (love is gone …/ entangled butterflies / in front of me).

Outside the affair, I liked the cheerful persona of independence in dried sardines / I grill them right here / in the heart of Tokyo; and enjoyed finding a resonance with Auden (‘As I walked out’) in without regret ... / is such a life possible? / beer foam overflowing. No, not Auden, for what are poets but the words they find to prove our commonality?

Interesting, too, that one of Masajo’s most popular haiku is one that seems to make all-round social appeasement through heartfelt statement.

sheer summer kimono - / it pushes them into misery / this love of mine

Poignancy, honesty and courage - there is much to commend in this book; and one can easily accept the original writing to be ‘exquisite’; one might be tested to imagine more sensitive and careful translations.