Haiga223-Basho

Haiku by Basho. From "Narrow Road to Oku"
I designed the blades of the grasses like swords. "dream, aftermath" is expressed in a cicader shell. The cicada will appear again in the later haiku.
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Rita Odeh of Israel generously translated my haiku into Arabic.(see the link: Kuni's haiku in Rumanian translation)
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My haiku novel "Lady without shoes" is on view at a Japanese haiu website (http://weekly-haiku.blogspot.com/). Those who can read Japanese are welcome to visit the site.

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Haiga 222

Haiku by Sora. From "Narrow Road to Oku"
Basho could not come up with a haiku at Matsushima, so included Sora's haiku in the book.

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Haiga 221

Haiku by Basho Matsuo. From "Narrow Road to Oku"
A painter named Kaemon gave each Basho and Sora a pair of straw sandals with throngs dyed dark purple, which reminded BAsho of iris flowers. Such a nice present for the travelers.
I, as a painter, might give them pairs of Nike shoes with iris colored throngs if they were to come around my way.

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Haiga 220

Haiku by Basho Matsuo. From "Narrow Road to Oku"


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Haiga 219-Basho

Haiku by Basho Matsuo. From "Narrow Road to Oku"
When I read this haiku, the following haiku written by Kobayashi Isssa came to my mind.
Being lost on
dim vague path,
I step on water puddle (my translation)
I made haiga for this haiku some year ago. I got the data out and reworked on it and turned it into this haiga.

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Haiga 218

Haiku by Basho Matsuo. From "Narrow Road to Oku"
I emphasized the vertical composition to express the festive air of this haiku.

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Haiga217-Basho

Haiku by Basho Matsuo. From "Narrow Road to Oku"

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Haiga 216-Basho

Haiku by Basho Matsuo. From "Narrow Road to Oku"
Very few people, including myself, know the chetnuts flower. I had to web-search to find the photograph of the flower. To emphasize the "unnoticed", I placed a well-known, or rather "well noticed" flower on the side.
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Haiga 215-Basho

Haiku by Basho Matsuo. From "Narrow Road to Oku"
Kanji for the rice field is "Ta", which looks like four squares put together as in the haiga.
I played with the shape of the kanji as well as with the musical notation.
Rice planters used to sing songs as they did the tedious work. Nowadays, sophisticated planting machines took the work, and what we hear is only their drone.
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Haiga 214-Basho

Haiku by Basho Matsuo. From "Narrow Road to Oku"
One of Basho's wishs in this journey was to visit places where well-known poets in olden time had visited and had written masterly Waka poems. Saigyo, a buddhist monk, was one of the poets Basho admired. This haiku was written when Basho visited the willow tree Saigyo wrote about.
I added a dragon fly to symbolize Basho.
For rice planting, the field is first filled with water and the planters step into it and plant young rice shoot one by one. The brush strokes in the middle depict the watered field.
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Haiga 213-Basho

Haiku by Basho Matsuo. From "Narrow Road to Oku"
I suggest that anybody who are regularly viewing this blog get a copy of "Narrow Road to Oku", or any translation of this book, and read along as you view my haiga. For some haiku, what is written in the book helps your appreciation.
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Haiga 212-Basho

Haiku by Basho Matsuo. From "Narrow Road to Oku"
The "little hut" was inhabited by a well-respected monk. In my haiga, I placed a little tree with many leaves instead of the hut, and faintly spot-lighted it, making it so special that woodpeckers would not dare peck on it.
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Haiga 211-Basho

Haiku by Basho Matsuo. From "Narrow Road to Oku"
"high clogs" here are one-blade wooden wares. They are rather heavy, too. Certainly not a suitable ware to trek on the mountain path, but waring them is a part of the spiritual training.
Perseverance is the point.
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I wrote a report(Japanese and English) on WHA Japan Conference. The report, along with photographs and such, is on the following webpage now.
http://www.worldhaiku.net/news_files/2009japan_conf/index.html

Haiga 210-Basho

Haiku by Basho Matsuo. From "Narrow Road to Oku"
One traditional way of the spiritual training in Japan is to stand under the water fall and being beaten by the falling water. This is practiced even today. For Basho, the trip to Oku meant a journey to search a breakthrough in the art of haiku, it was like a spritual training for him.
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Haiga 209-Basho

Haiku by Basho Matsuo. From "Narrow Road to Oku"
Basho wrote this haiku when he visited the Nikko Shrine, the prestigious shrine dedicated to the then mighty Tokugawa Shogunate. In the original Japanese haiku, it says "Hino hikari", meaning "light of the sun". This allueds the name of the shrine "Nikko", meaning also "light of the sun".
I thought about including a part of the Nikko Shrine here, but I decided to put more emphasis on the essence of this haiku.
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Haiga 208-Basho

Haiku by Basho Matsuo. (from"Narrow Road to Oku")

The last part "the eyes of fish fill with tears" is an interesting expression; it is almost sur-realistic.
This tells that "sketch" approach advocated by Shiki and later by Kyoshi, is not only way to write haiku.
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Haiga 207-Basho

Haiku by Matsuo, Basho, from "Narrow Road to Oku".
Dr. Donald Keene has generously given to me his permission to use his translation of the Basho's haiku. I will be showing my haiga of all the haiku in "Narrow Road to Oku"
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Donald Keene (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donald_Keene)

Haiga 206

Haiku by Keiji Minato of Japan. Keiji teaches English literature at a college in Kyoto. Keiji writes poems, haiku , senryu, and does translations. He came to see me at my haiga exhibition, and showed me his newest translation of "Haiku Guy" by David Lanoue.
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Jim Kacian gave me an email today, informing the launching of a new website, The Haiku Foundation(http://www.thehaikufoundation.org). In its Digital Library, I found pdf file of "A Dozen Tongues 2000". I am happy to see this booklet has gotten an extended life in this way, for this booklet marks my first involvement with haiku and haiga.(I did the cover and illustrations)

Haiga 205

Photo by Natalia L. Rudychev of USA, Haiku by Kuniharu Shimizu
Natalia-san emailed me a note of congratulation for my haiga exhibition. Attached to the email was this charming photograph of a sleeping boy. The photo, according to Natalia-san, was taken at The Japanese Friendship Garden in San Diego. I digitally manipulated the photo a little, like darkening the backgrounds of the verses, brightening the above-left corner to suggest "morning", and blurred the edges to suggest "dream".

Haiga204

Haiku by Haruko Iijima of Japan.
I often wear the white cotton socks for my work. Crispness of the sockes always makes me feel refleshed. Now that a festival called the art exhibition is over, I stand to head toward the next festival.

Day Four, the final day of the exibition

On the last day, I received yet another gift of flowers. I arranged the flowers around the "World Haiku 2009 Anthology", which I sold at the exibition. This exhibition is the first time for me to exhibit my haiga in the actual gallery setting, and I am very happy that it ended with a big success.

Day Three: see haiku exhibition

It is rainy here, but a lot of people showed up for my exhibition. The chairwoman of the Tenri city council, blog friends from Osaka, and Kyoto, Haiku friends, Japanese music people. Ban'ya-san, who had sent to me a big flower pot, wrote a haiku for my exhibition:
May breeze...
a hundred flowers fly to meet
a hundred paintings

Day two: see haiku here exhibition

The day two is over. Among the adult visitors, there were quite a few young ones: elementary, junior high children. Haiku people are mostly elders in Japan, and now there are some young ones interested in this old tradition. People I only know through blog came also. It was nice to see in person.

Day One, see haiku here exhibition

My haiga exhibition has started.
It is the holiday week here in Japan so good number of people are expected. The first visitor was a 4th grader girl. Surprisingly she came alone, took good look at the haiga and left. I received congratulatory flowers from Ban'ya Natsuishi and his wife Sayumi Kamakura, and also from Tenri Japanese calligraphy asscociation.

Haiku gathering in Tokyo

I participated the World Haiku Association conference in Tokyo. It was held in a nice setting of Japanese garden and an old house. About 30 people gathered there. Top photo: from the left, Bin Akio, Chuei Yagi, Ban'ya Nastuishi, me, Sayumi Kamakura.
After the official agenda, there were haiku readings by the particiapnts, which was accompanied by traditional Japanese muscic. The string instrument, Shamisen, came in after each line of haiku.
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Director Ban'ya Natsuishi's greeting (Japanese, French, English) is up on the YouTube website.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wgXQnUvEVbE