HCSHR 4:26—image and haiku in three books

 

HCSHR 4:26— image and haiku in three books: Freeman Ng/ Cassandra Rockwood Ghanem, Annette Makino, & Elizabeth McFarland

Basho’s Haiku Journeys, text by Freeman Ng, illustrations by Cassandra Rockwood Ghanem. Berkeley, CA: Stone Bridge Press, 2021. p-ISBN 978-1-61172-069-3, e-ISBN 978-1-61172-951-1. 40 pages. $16.95/$9.95$US, www.stonebridge.com
Water and Stone; Ten Years of Art and Haiku, by Annette Makino. Arcata, CA: Makino Studios, 2021. 979-8519290142. 124 pages. 24.99$US. www.makinostudios.com
Birth, haiga by Elizabeth McFarland. Winchester, VA: Red Moon Press, 2021. 978-1-947271-75-3. 94 pages. 25$US. redmoonpress.com

Review by Maxianne Berger

Each of these three books combines text and images, and each presents this in its own way.

Basho’s Haiku Journeys by Freeman Ng with exquisite illustrations by Cassandra Rockwood Ghanem is a children’s picture book, intended as an introduction to haiku. Snippets of Basho’s life are presented in chronological order, with emphasis on the travels recorded in his haibun, although the word “haibun” is never used.

Near the beginning of the book we find Basho setting out after his hut has burned.

“Forever afoot,”
thought Basho, “seeking the Way:
I could live like this.”

Each journey is identified, and the poems that follow relate to it. For example, “Basho’s Fifth Journey/ May – October 1689” begins,

West and East and South.
What road remained untraveled?
The uttermost North.

Aside from adhering to the basic outline of Basho’s life and travels, there is also an adherence to the notion that haiku are composed in a 5-7-5 syllabic structure. This is further emphasized in the section at the back of the book where the “rules” of haiku are explained.

In English today, people often write haiku with five syllables in the first line, seven in the second, and five again in the third and final line, though that’s not the only way to do it, and many haiku poets follow additional rules about what should be talked about in the poem.

As an example, Ng provides “Basho’s most famous haiku,” which, he says, “went like this:”

Silent ancient pond:
the frog makes a sudden leap.
Splash! goes the water.

For those who have a well-developed aesthetic about haiku in English, this poem speaks volumes. Those who would like to experience more of the book’s flavour, however, can watch the pages turn as the poems are read aloud here (link Dec 2021).

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Happily quite different is Annette Makino’s Water and Stone. The paintings that support her haiga are as lovely and lively as any that illustrate children’s books, although she writes for all ages, looking at inner and outer life, often simultaneously.

The book is organized traditionally, according to season. The painting of three racoons (fall) carries this truth:

watchful eyes
the wilderness
inside us

Cows grazing (summer), riffing on the “other side of the fence” reminds us about

the grass on this side—
the gift of wanting
what you have

The haiga in this book are interspersed with haibun, often being “home” to the haiku within the accompanying image. Winter includes “In the balance,” where Makino speaks of a local racoon they’ve named Delilah. “. . . I wonder what it means to be wild, especially when human activity reaches every corner of the planet, . . .” The haiku that follows this paragraph is picked up in the painting on the facing page:

fox tracks . . .
who was I before
I was tamed?

The images in Annette Makino’s collection are lovely, the prose is limpid, and the haiku seem effortlessly to verbalize how we are part of the world.

water and stone
how we shape
each other

***

Elizabeth McFarland’s Birth marries handwritten haiku to sumi-e and the occasional collage of what appears to be newsprint. The art is mostly figurative and impressionistic, the handwritten poem composed as a balanced frame.

The haiku juxtapositions are both startling and reassuring in their effortless rightness. Readers might notice in this haiku of McFarland’s similarities with Makino’s title poem, and yet they are so very different.

mother & daughter—
the sea washes and washes
its fragment of glass

 The haiku inside the book that pairs with the cover image is written in four lines under the
sumi-e, a possibility in haiga for artistic reasons. The haiku itself, as in the case of each haiga in the book, is printed on the facing page in its traditional three lines.

centimorgan crescent moon—
a mouse sings
its own lullaby

The poems speak of family and relationships—the appearance of the word “centimorgan” although unusual, is the genetic measure of kinship. And there are many dear ones alluded to.

winter jasmin—
he apologizes
in his sleep

Aside from this unidentified “he,” there are various unidentified “you”s.

late summer—
how can the wasps
live longer than you?

Elizabeth McFarland uses a dash after line one or line two to mark the caesura in nearly all these thirty some poems, too many for my liking, but a minor quibble given the overall quality of this beautiful book.

Maxianne Berger
December, 2021

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