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An Interview with Robert D. Wilson

by Aurora Antonovic**

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Published Poetry Life and Times 2007

Copyright Aurora Antonovic & Robert D. Wilson,

All Rights Reserved


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ROBERT D. WILSON


Robert D. Wilson lives in both California near Yosemite National Park and in The Philippines. 

He is a school teacher, columnist for Teacher Librarian Magazine, and the owner/managing editor of Simply Haiku


Introductory Questions ~Senryu and haiku


Robert, you are a well-known, successful haijin, editor of the world-renowned international Japanese form poetry journal, Simply Haiku, and a teacher of poetry to many. How did you begin to write poetry, and why did Japanese short form poetry grab your interest?



Robert Wilson.:

My father had a love affair with the English language.  He was Executive Planning Officer for the City of Los Angeles.  He was also a speech writer, poet, and artist.  I have fond memories of my father asking me to read a passage from Shakespeare's Julius Caesar, after which he'd re-read the same passage, this time with meaning and passion, making the passage come alive.  Thanks to him I read most of Shakespeare while I was in the 6th grade.  Poetry when read and interpreted correctly is magical.  I have little use for poetry lacking meter and emotion.  Take for instance, this excerpt from Markham's Man With a Hoe; a poem my father introduced me to when I was 10 years old.  Pay close attention to its sense of rhythm, the power in the words and what is unsaid.


Bowed by the weight of centuries he leans

Upon his hoe and gazes on the ground,

The emptiness of ages in his face,

And on his back, the burden of the world.

Who made him dead to rapture and despair,

A thing that grieves not and that never hopes,

Stolid and stunned, a brother to the ox?


To this day it is one of my favorite poems.  Perhaps if more teachers read poetry to their students with feeling and understanding, more young people would see poetry in a positive light.


My father, Robert Dean Wilson, also wrote haiku and had books of haiku and tanka in the family library.  He introduced me to haiku when I was in the 5th grade. Having a love for things Eastern, he began writing haiku in 1959 and, like some of the Beats, he composed haiku that didn't conform to the rigid 5/7/5 syllable formula indigenous to Japanese-language haiku.

Willow bough,
Still water,
the wind practices calligraphy 

October 1963 Robert Dean Wilson

During the Vietnam War, I was introduced to Lawrence Ferlinghetti and Jack Kerouac.  When I returned from the war, i wrote poetry voraciously and soon developed a reputation as performance poet.   I corresponded with Ferlinghetti, Ginsberg, and McClure. I read, I studied, and I wrote, never satisfied with my artistry.  I was moved by the meter and lyricism in their poetry.  And it began to show in my poetry.  Soon I was nicknamed the Meter Man.  In 1988, I met the great Catalan poet Agusta Barta's daughter at UC Santa Cruz.  She introduced me to her father's poetry, gifting me with a limited edition book of his poetry.


"When, Finally, There is Nothing Left..."

When, finally, there is nothing left of me but my words

Perched like birds on the taut wires

Of spirits faightful to the hymns of life,
A hammer will cry out for the extinguished light.
The day will wear mimosa wreaths.

Perhaps there will be forgiveness on the ceaseless sea.

The sun will bear in its mouth, by the stem, its Everlasting

And new voices will say the joy of water.
The wind will lay waste streetlights and statues.
Summer will wear its yellow smock

And the white cane of the blind will tap on grey cobblestones.

Among the jagged rocks and in forests of souls Orpheus will seduce the anonymous beast.
Full moons will await the advent of love amid cricket and acacia. 
I will be faceless. In my ears of grass
Time will ring a bell made of stars.

Agusta Barta


Barta's book included several haiku as well.

The light is teaching

the air that ever travels

how roses are born.

Barta

During this time, I also discovered good translations of poetry penned by Basho, Buson, and Issa.  I was fascinated by the depth of their poetry and their ability to pack so much into a short three lined poem.  The American haiku I read at the time didn't interest me.  Most lacked the meter, depth, and range of emotion I found in Japanese haiku.  It wasn't long before I was writing haiku almost exclusively.  I joined the Shiki online forum but found the forum too contentious.  I left Shiki and joined the World Haiku Club under Susumu Takaguchi, and via work-shopping, further developed my craft.  To my great fortune, the noted English-language Japanese short form poet, Anita Virgil, took me under her wings and discipled me in the arts of tanka, haiku, and senryu, much like a sensei would in a martial arts school.  She is a great human being but a hard taskmaster, continually prodding and goading me to read, study, edit, write and LISTEN.  Needless to say, my library expanded as did my understanding of Japanese short form poetry.
Aurora A.:


What are the current weaknesses of the haiku community today?


Robert Wilson.


There are a core of poets in the English-language haiku community who take their craft seriously, studying the form, paying their dues, and writing daily, with a focus on quality versus quantity.  Their participation in on-line forums and publications are doing a lot to give the genre credence and needed definition amongst Occidentals.

There are some areas that need to be improved upon by the English-language haiku community.  Senryu and haiku need to be recognized as separate genres and not lumped together as some journals are prone to do. It is not uncommon to receive submissions under the listing of haiku that are a mixture of the two genres.  I also would like to see more depth and less dependence on formulas.  For a poem to be memorable, one needs to use an economy of language and mine the poem's essence.  The use of metaphor is rare, as are mono no aware (the pathos of things), and yugen (depth and mystery).  These are tools that go beyond the said, into the realm of the unsaid, from which the essence of a poem can be found.  As I stress to poets continually, not the flower but the scent of its blossom. 

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Aurora A.:


Matsuo Basho said, "The temple bell stops but I still hear the sound coming out of the flowers." (Translated by Robert Bly). Please expound.


Robert Wilson.:

What men make will eventually crumble, but nature continues forever.

Basho utilizes yugen (depth and mystery) in this haiku; and like a Zen koan, it provides a stimulus towards change and deep thought.  If this were a concrete "tell all" haiku, it wouldn't be magic.  To plumb his subject's essence, Basho artfully infused into this haiku more than one tier of meaning. By doing this, the poem causes one to think about the poem in a cerebral manner conducive to introspection.


Aurora A.:

Part 2: On Writing Japanese Form Poetry

Athletes have a regimen of exercise, diet, and supplements to help them achieve their goals. What sort of practices could enable a writer of Japanese form poetry to succeed?


Writing Japanese short form poetry is not a hobby or a job.  It is a path.  How far one goes down the path is determined by one's devotion to it.  Anyone can write tanka, haiku, and senryu on a physical, formulaic plane.
But to capture what it really is requires one to inhabit the unsaid, to enter a state of mind that perhaps some Westerners aren't comfortable with.  Those who gave us these genres were in touch with the metaphysical, influenced by their Ainu roots, and the contributions of the Chinese.  They communed with their deceased ancestors, their religious sensibilities influenced by Zen Buddhism, Shintoism, Taoism, animism, and other belief systems indigenous to their demography.  The unsaid was very real, integral to understanding the said. They could infuse into a few short lines what many Occidental poets take several lines to achieve.  To them, grasping the essence of something, required stepping out of the concrete into a multi-cognitive world seen with all of one's senses.   This said, an Occidental cannot pretend to think like a Japanese nor should he have to in order to compose Japanese short form poetry.  Yet, to compose a meaningful poem, he will need to visualize the 'unsaid', to plumb a subject's essence, utilizing all of the senses, seeing as a blind person sees.  It is imperative that those walking up or down this path not be in a hurry.  Study beyond what is offered in how-to handbooks, online forums, and the advice offered in journals. Study the poetry of those who gave us the genres.  Reading is not enough.  Know the poets intimately, understand their perspective, and the tools they infused into their poems. 

I write Japanese short form poetry daily.  It's a discipline for me.  The more I practice the genres, the better I will be.  On the surface, the genres appear to be easy to write and master.  But that's a misnomer.  Because they are short they are harder to write.  Using an economy of words, one needs to cut to the chase, to mine a subject's essence.  This is where the 'unsaid' and it's intertwinement with metaphysicality comes into play.  Haiku Master Yosa Buson (1716-1783) advocated going out into nature, away from human influence, without a preconceived idea as to what to write. Communing with nature, one has no distraction during the creative practice. To Buson, the creative process wasn't something turned on and off at will. It was a state of mind.  Taking this one step further, remember that the Asian mindset often views life differently. Buson taught, "Haikai values a verse that detaches itself from the mundane while using a language that is mundane. Making use of the mundane while being detached from it --- such an art of detachment is very difficult to put into practice. 'Listen to the sound of one hand clapping,' said a certain Zen monk.
 In those words lies the Zen of haikai as well as the art of detachment from the mundane."


Aurora A.:

Your work is very visual, yet interlaced with a mystical quality. Is this style deliberate? What influenced its formation? 

It's not deliberate.  I operate on a right/left brain continuum, which is hard for some people to figure out as most are either right or left brained, not both.  As a painter, I'm naturally visual.  When I paint, however, I enter the metaphysical, becoming whatever it is I'm painting.  That's how I compose poetry.  When I regress and write about a particular place or event I've previously  experienced, I visualize it in detail, seeing with all of my senses. I live in two worlds and the two have meshed forming a unique view of the world.  This coupled with cultural memory and an animistic/metaphysical  conceptualization of the world gives my poetry its distinctive imprint.


Aurora A.:



Part 3


I don't believe there is a haijin today who has not been influenced by your work, and your publication. What advice do you have for burgeoning poets?

Do not resemble me ---               ware ni nina

Never be like a musk melon        futatsu ni wareshi

Cut in two identical halves           makuwauri


Bashô

Translated by Makoto Ueda


Although it is good to learn from others, be careful.  One will tell you it is wrong to personify an inanimate object.  Another will tell you it is okay.  Still another will tell you that is incorrect for a poet to infuse a metaphor.  Another will disagree.  Read and study Japanese short form poetry written by those who gave it to the world. They are the best teachers. Be patient.  As with any art, competence and proficiency are not acquired in a few short weeks or months.  And remember, "the more you study and practice, the better you will become."


Aurora A.:

How would you define the haiku moment?

The "haiku moment" comes about when one's subconscious mind merges with his natural surroundings, forming a symbiotic relationship with one's conscious mind.  Such a moment cannot exist without makoto (truth and beauty).  Truth is the core of haiku as is beauty which can manifest itself in many forms (Webster's dictionary will not help you here), the least of which is meter and language usage.  The haiku moment is that moment when everything clicks and the poem writes itself.  The aha!



Aurora A.:

In recent months, I've seen some gruesome examples of "haiku", particularly on blogs.  Why do you think the form is misrepresented, and what can we do to teach more about the genre?


Robert D. Wilson:

It is reasonable to assume that the general perception of haiku in the United States is not shaped by writings emanating from Japanese short form poetry journals like Simply Haiku, Frogpond, Modern Haiku, Heron's Nest, Acorn, and others, on and off-line. It is also safe to say that the vast majority of North Americans have not participated in on-line haiku forums, attended Haiku Society of America conferences, or read William Higginson's seminal Haiku Handbook. The majority are taught the rudiments of writing and understanding haiku by teachers in our public and private school systems.

As a public school teacher myself, I can attest that haiku is barely covered in textbooks and what is covered is too general and sparse to give the genre justice. Teaching poetry of any kind, for that matter, is done in such a way as to make it one of the most disliked and occluded areas of a student's education.   Whatever interest in poetry survives the ordeal in high school (and earlier exposures in middle school) appears to be entirely the product of the student’s innate interest in poetic experience and language.  Suffice it to say, the average school teacher knows little or nothing about Bashô and Buson,  Issa and Chiyo-ni. Surprising enough, more than a few participants in online forums know much more. Sabi? Juxtaposition? Yugen? Kigo? Tiered meaning? Meter?    Some become critics within a month; others harbor the mistaken impression that haiku is easy to write, fathom, and master, and therefore, submit haiku to various publications and contests. Imagine a person who took a month of piano lessons then entered a piano playing competition. It would be a disaster.

My vision from the onset of Simply Haiku has been to educate and strengthen the English-speaking Japanese short form poetic community.

Poets need to take their art seriously, studying the works of Japanese masters; learning about their lives and teachings. Instead of going to the leaves and branches, one needs to address a tree's roots.


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Read more by Robert D. Wilson in Featured Poets current issue.