Songs of Water: A Critical Study on A.H. Baqui’s Haiku
Poems
Manfath Jabin Haque
Assistant Professor
Department of English
Leading University
Sylhet, Bangladesh
Abstract:
Songs of Water
(2018) is the conglomeration of English ‘haiku’ poems crafted by Gazi Abdulla-
hel Baqui (1951- ). Haiku is the shortest form of poetic composition originated
in Japan consisting of three lines with distinct prosodic pattern of five-
seven-five syllables. Through the gradual development in the history of haiku
poems, it has undergone a lot of experiments by the poets of different
countries. Haiku is not commonplace form of poetry known to the readers of
Bangladesh. Now,
it is a pioneering venture of A.H. Baqui to write and publish haiku poems in
English. Though he is a Bangladeshi poet, he has several times been awarded
internationally for his accomplishment in English poems, especially on ‘Peace’.
He has crafted total two hundred twelve haiku poems maintaining the traditional
haiku pattern on various themes. He has followed the modern concept of haiku
writing without restriction to nature and season as its subject matter. This
paper is an attempt to examine the writing paradigm, creativity and sensitivity
of the themes of haiku poems presented in Songs of Water. It also aims to
explore the worth of the poet’s exposure to a new field of exercise.
Keywords: Baqui;
Haiku; Life; Nature; Syllables
Introduction
To venture newer things is one of the instincts of human
nature. From the dawn of civilization, the world is progressively going forward
and getting rich in every field as the outcome of inquisitive and creative
human endeavor. Literature is the
instance of such an arena which witnesses human’s intellectual progression.
Literature is itself a vast world altogether; whether it is written in English,
French, Bangla or in any other language. Poetry is very ancient form of
literature which handles with the thoughts and emotions of inner psyche. It has
been flourishing through various forms like epic, ballad, sonnet, limerick and
the like. Each form varies from another on the basis of stylistic pattern,
literary characteristics and inherent content.
Haiku is the shortest form of poetry originated in Japan
and is familiarized throughout the world. Generally it follows three lines
metrical arrangement of five-seven-five syllables in each line respectively. A
haiku can convey the meaning touching the intellectual faculty of the poem
lovers. In Bangla literature Nobel
Laureate Rabindranath Tagore introduces haiku by translating Matsuo Basho’s two
pieces of haiku. He includes these in his travelogue 'Japan Jaatri'.
Surendranath Moitra and a few others are the followers of Tagore in writing
haiku in Bangla language. A lot of changes have come to the restrictions of
subject matters in haiku but the maintenance of distinct prosodic pattern is
still followed to give it a special status and original flavour.
Transgressing
the border, A. H. Baqui’s introduction of haiku in English is an adventurous
mission of experimenting readers’ response to the new mode of expressing
thoughts maintaining the technical purity. Baqui has done a brilliant job of
writing and publishing his book Songs of
Water, written in lofty thoughts and in conventional form. It is the
creative production of beauty of his imagination. Scope of discussion rests on
technical and thematic sides. He has walked through a variety of subjects with
depth of thought and insight.
In the past hundred years, haiku has gone far
beyond its Japanese origins to become a worldwide phenomenon—with the classic
poetic form growing and evolving as it has adapted to the needs of the whole
range of languages and cultures that have embraced it. This proliferation of
the joy of haiku is cause for celebration. (Addiss)
For the
effective conveyance of meaning of any poem, the proper tie between approach,
content and structure is necessary. History on the traditional style of haiku
writing shows that a number of modern haiku poets disagree to follow the old
model; rather they have taken a kind of freedom in composing haiku. Poet Baqui also breaks away from the
tradition and has composed haiku on various themes while traditional haiku were
mainly written on ‘nature’ and ‘season’, but he has maintained the technical
form strictly. His collection of haiku poems are usually metaphorical
expression of thoughts containing different literary elements.
A
critical study is a subjective approach to any literary genre. The purpose of
critical study considers what idea the poet is conveying and how he is
presenting. It mainly considers to what extent the poet’s attempt is effective
in conveying meaning. This study examines Baqui’s haiku poems in Songs of Water. It is an attempt to find
out to what extent Baqui’s attempt to familiarize and to entertain the poem
lovers (especially of Bangladesh) with a new expression of thought and emotion
is worth reading. This study considers the following research questions to
reach to the objectives:
i.
What is the history and background of haiku?
ii.
What are the contents of Baqui’ haiku poems?
iii.
Do the contents comply with the tradition of
haiku themes?
iv.
What is the form or pattern of haiku poem and
is the poet following it?
v.
What is the context of the poet’s haiku
poems?
vi.
What literary elements is the poet using?
vii.
What is the approach or tone of the poet’s
writing? Is there any inconsistency?
History and Nature
of Haiku
Encyclopedia Britannica defines haiku as:
Unrhymed Japanese poetic form consisting of 17 syllables
arranged in three lines of 5, 7, and 5 syllables each. The term haiku is
derived from the first element of the word haikai (a humorous form of renga, or
linked-verse poem) and the second element of the word hokku (the initial stanza
of a renga). The hokku, which set the tone of a renga, had to mention in its
three lines such subjects as the season, time of day, and the dominant features
of the landscape, making it almost an independent poem. The hokku (often
interchangeably called haikai) became known as the haiku late in the 19th
century, when it was entirely divested of its original function of opening a
sequence of verse; today even the earlier hokku are usually called haiku. (Vol.
5, p. 619)
The history of haiku dates back to almost four hundred
years. Matsuo Basho (1644-1694) is regarded as the foremost poet of haiku in
Japan:
It is generally considered that Bashō was the poet who
brought haiku into full flowering, deepening and enriching it and also utilizing
haiku in accounts of his travels such as Oku no hosomichi (Narrow Road to the
Interior). Bashō’s pupils then continued his tradition of infusing seemingly simple
haiku with evocative undertones, while continuing a sense of play that kept
haiku from becoming the least bit ponderous. The next two of the “three great
masters” were Buson (1716–83), a major painter as well as poet who developed
haiku-painting (haiga) to its height, and Issa (1763–1827), whose profound
empathy with all living beings was a major feature of his poetry. With the
abrupt advent of Western civilization to Japan in the late nineteenth century,
haiku seemed to be facing an uncertain future, but it was revived by Masaoka
Shiki (1867–1902) and his followers, and it has continued unabated until the
present day. (Addiss, et al.)
Haiku travelled to the West in the hands of imagist
poets. In English, the Imagists (1912- 30) and a few other poets have written
haiku or imitated the form. Ezra Pound, Carl Sandberg, Marian Moore, Amy
Lowell, and William Carlos Williams tried to write haiku in English maintaining
the original form of 5-7-5 syllables:
Many, including Ezra Pound himself, argued that every language
has its own rules of prosody and it is never possible to adhere to the Japanese
metrical arrangement of 5-7-5 metres in English compositions because phonetics
of Japanese language cannot be applied to English language compositions! Amidst
these chaos and confusions, an American poet and literary scholar Richard
Wright, much junior to Pound, startled the Anglo-American arena by writing the
first piece of a real haiku with a strict prosodic purity of the original
Japanese haiku thus:
Coming from the woods
A bull has a lilac sprig
Dangling from a horn. (“Bangla haiku”)
Though contemporary English poets are not always
maintaining the pattern, at present many writers are composing haiku in
English.
Contents
Poet
Baqui has written on various forms of literature both in Bangla and in English.
He has been writing since 1997as a Bangladeshi poet, writer, translator,
researcher and critic. He has already authored twenty books both in Bangla and
in English. His poetic genius has got expression through the publication of his
two books of poetry in English: Peace
Lost and Regained (1995) and Melodies of Hieroglyphs (2006). He has the inquisitive mind to venture new forms. He has
composed a large number of Bangla ‘Rubaiyat’--a Persian verse form consisting
of four lines generally rhyming aaba, Songs
of Water (2018) is the collection of haiku poems many of which have been
published during 1995- 2000 in The Daily
Bangladesh Observer.
Baqui
has chosen eleven specific themes and on every theme he has composed a number of
haiku poems. Other than these eleven particular areas, he has also covered some
more aspects in twelfth section. Thus the total number stands 212 haiku poems.
The sections are arranged serially as “On Haiku”, “On Best”, “on Love”, “On
Conflicts”, “On Seasons”, “On Nature”, “On Life”, “On Philosophy”, “On
Subjects”, “On Culture”, “On Twenty first Century” and “On Other Themes”. His haiku can be divided into two categories according
to the themes: materialistic and metaphysical. The rhythm of water flows through
eleven distinct areas mentioned earlier. He has approached the areas with
various literary elements like sensuousness, imagery, simile, metaphor etc.
In the
beginning section of the haiku poems in Songs
of Water, the poet starts with the introduction to haiku. His first seven
haiku poems in the section “On Haiku” are set as a kind of foreword to the rest
of the journey of presenting haiku. The poet’s intense passion for haiku poems
is discernible in this section. He very passionately utters with a reflective
tone:
My/ mind/ pens/ hai/ku
as/ hai/ku/ haunts/ the/ heart/ to/
bloom/ and/ to/ co/lour/.
Use of imagery makes haiku more appealing and
conveys deeper worth to the expression.
In this haiku the poet maintains the metrical pattern of haiku.
In haiku the impressionistic approach is found; it is concise but precise in
conveying meaning. In
other poems of this section, the poet shows the
analogy of the appeal of haiku with the light of stars, waves of seas, perfume
and peacock dance etc. In haiku no. 6, he introduces the ‘parentage’ of haiku
like:
Haiku is Japan’s
heart; others enjoy its limbs,
not its living beat.
In the very first section of his haiku poems,
along with exposing his love and admiration towards haiku, the poet introduces
the origin and importance of it in Japan. Though the poet says that others
cannot enjoy its living beat, he takes the adventurous steps to compose haiku
and ‘jostle newer feelings’. Use of strong imagery in haiku makes both sensory
and intellectual perception deep and vital:
One magnet is the paradox of haiku’s scale and speed. In
the moment of haiku perception, something outer is seen, heard, tasted, felt and
emplaced in a scene or context. That new perception then seeds an inner
response beyond paraphrase, name, or any other form of containment.
(Hirshfield)
He deals with manifold subjects and contemplates as if he is transported to the spiritual world while walking in the material
world. He says in haiku no. 3:
When a haiku smiles,
peacock dances with plumes spread
and mirth rains on me.
A
total of 25 haiku poems are composed “On Life”. These are both transitory and
eternal concepts of life. The doom of life comes because of a marked reason as
expressed in haiku no. 14:
My total life is
torn between when I love
you
and when I hate you.
In haiku no. 22, the poet summarizes the core
fact of life. In life, human beings hanker after gaining something and they
either gain or lose. If they gain, their lives are ‘great’; if they do not
gain; their lives are ‘small’. These gain and loss may be regarding acquiring
wealth or fame:
Life is between or
within loss and profit or
great and small or none.
In ‘On Love’ Baqui simultaneously goes on talking about
sensuous love, divine love, conjugal love, material love etc. through the poems in this
section. The poet discovers different frontiers of love with their various
shades of meanings and newer dimensions. He
sees love as it is the case in reality; not too much obsessed, optimistic or
pessimistic. His emotion exhibits balanced measurement of love in haiku no. 20:
Love is in fact some
rosy blooms, thorny bowers
and young metaphors.
From this small span of expression true nature of
men-women love comes out. His characteristic feature is apparent from his love
for knowledge in haiku no. 13:
Love
for knowledge earns
concentration
on the theme
of
differences.
Writing haiku and publishing them ensures his love and
concentration on the theme of differences. He heightens the power of holy love
that transcends everything and renders divine purity in haiku no. 19 and 27:
Before holy love
passion burns, spell is broken
but cool fragrance flows.
And,
True
love is the lamp,
earthly
love is its fire and
divine
love its light.
Utility of love for humanity is very
concretely exposed in his haiku. He is a poet who ponders on the humanitarian
love. Absence of love shatters the relationship and brings chaos in society as
presented in haiku no. 30:
Universe is bound
by a strong single
love-chord
whose tearing brings doom.
In
a number of chosen words, the poet focuses on the ultimate power of love that
can act on soul for its development; it can dispel darkness. He, possibly
points to the Creator’s love which turns ‘mud into man’.
Baqui’s haiku can stimulate the emotions of
readers as a full length poem can do. Choice and Use of imagery plays prime
role. There
is an inseparable relation between humans and Nature. The poet handles this
theme with various curious dimensions. The poet consciously or unconsciously or
willfully deals with two types of nature; nature as a vast creation and
secondly human nature as the poet pen forth very aptly in haiku no. 21 and 25
in the section “On Nature”:
Nature has no face,
no body, nothing to love,
but transparency
And,
Home of true nature
is man’s heart where world
finds her
doom or victory.
Nature is the sole witness of ups and downs
of human life and all the ‘ancient tales’ over the ages. This is expressed
through the haiku no. 17:
Hills often whisper
ancient tales that dwell in
vales, caves, rocks and peaks.
Simple
reminder of the father of haiku Matsuo Basho is “if you see for yourself, hear
for yourself, and enter deeply enough this seeing and hearing, all things will
speak with and through you.” (Hirshfield)The same apprehension of poet Baqui is
seen when he says in haiku no. 16:
Light of the woods falls
on the young buds, sweetens them,
to check death in life.
Light is the integral part of nature which
helps buds to bloom and ‘sweeten’. It keeps the blooming buds fresh and prevent
from withering before its time. Though written in few words, the in-depth
imagery renders the reader wide scope of interpretation.
Life
is projected through various colours. In the section “On Philosophy”, the poet
invents and touches a good number of ideas on matters like earth, civilization,
witches, stone, memories, falsehood, water, fortune, oblivion, Creator, beauty,
time, dance etc. Various philosophic concepts are embedded in these haiku
poems. To mention the last one:
Follow one true track
without counting the
countless
common beaten tracks.
A
luminous haiku bursts forth from the heart of poet Baqui that values above all
contrasting import between war and peace in haiku no. 1 in the section on ‘On Conflicts’:
Peace goes without war
but war cannot go without
peace and harmony.
In
fact, war is no more required; its damaging consequences are unquestionably
tremendous. This section contains 10 haiku in which the extensive picture of
conflicts is portrayed in briefest possible way.
Five
haiku poems are shaped on five subjects: Literature, History, Science, Commerce
and Medical Science. The first haiku can enhance our knowledge thus in the
section ‘On Subjects’, haiku no. 1:
Literature tells
lies that give at times
great truths
better than real truths.
The
poet mainly focuses on the role of the subjects but even their merits and
demerits.
In
‘Culture’ section, only 6 haiku are treasured in which true meaning of culture
is reflected like haiku no. 6:
Cautiously walk on,
steps will never slip from
you
towards victory.
‘On
Other Themes’ is the last section where 55 haiku poems appear. Opulent
expressions on multiple themes of life and world are enumerated in these brief
poems where the poet’s newer feelings, moods and thoughts are beautifully
reflected. Some of the haiku are replete with advices and good councils that
are essentially required for the success and uplift of human life as lived on
earth. In all these short poems, one thing is quite evident that the poet
always tries to uphold the truth whatever be his expression on a theme. e. g.
in haiku no.16:
Nobody wants to
be defeated, so the ruin
is victorious.
Literary Contents
Haiku poems in Songs
of Water are packed with literary elements to convey more ideas with small
number of words. We see the use of figures of speech like simile, metaphor,
personification, imagery etc. in Baqui’s haiku. His haiku holds the status of
epigrammatic and aphoristic style if rearranged in one line. In the section “On
philosophy” haiku no. 6 and in the section “On Life” haiku no. 11, 19 and 21
convey paradoxical meaning:
Man
likes to enjoy
tragedy
but in real life
avoids
its sharp sting.
Dead
meat gives vigour
to
living flesh that withers
heading
to graveyard.
Life’s
first lesson is
to
learn to love by loving
most of
which is lost.
Eyes
float and touch things
but
closed eyes touch the unseen
vanishing
distance.
Again in “On Life” haiku no. 25 conveys very concrete metaphor
of life as a ‘large sentence’. Certainties and uncertainties of life take
different turn in different stages but when the living breath stops, there is
end of everything- the ‘full stop at last’:
Life, a
large sentence,
is full
of punctuation
with
full stop at last.
Example of splendid simile we see in haiku no. 6 of the
section “On Nature”. The poet compares the vegetation on earth with ‘a sweet
kiss’ ‘on the vile grey earth’ which indicates the bright and revitalizing fact
of nature:
Look
greens upon greens
and it
is like a sweet kiss
on the
vile grey earth.
Context
The context of his writing ranges from regional to
cosmopolitan setting. Earlier, it was a restriction to write haiku about
seasons and nature. Though this concept has been modified through ages, the
poet does not forget to touch the ancient themes. Marvelously he depicts the
picture of six seasons of his own country Bangladesh. He has identified
different seasons with their most prominent features like Sun season, Rain
season, Dew season, Peace season, Chill season and Rose season.
Use of proper images brings deeper
significance to the theme. He has pictured six seasons serially in the section
“On Seasons”. In attributing the characteristic picture of the season summer,
he simply calls it ‘sun-season’. This picture of summer with excessive heat on
earth that makes life weary becomes visible in the mind’s eyes of the readers:
In the
Sun-season
heat
heavily touches life
enervating
steps.
Rainy season is one of the vital seasons
among the six seasons. The earth takes shower of rain and revitalizes its soil
to help in growth of vegetation:
In the Rain- season
fertility makes all life
multiply and thrive.
Autumn is the season when dew drops are seen
in the leaves of plants. It is the season of richness and ripeness on earth:
In the Dew-season
soft grace and coolness wet life
for harvest galore.
He shows Late Autumn as ‘peace season’:
In the Peace- season
life grows wealthy and tranquil
and mellows to thrive.
In winter life arranges warmth but leaves
fall heavily and make the nature dry and bare:
In the Chill- season
intrinsic warmth overwhelms life
but nature withers.
Nature blooms in spring season with its
vitality and makes the life colourful and joyous:
In the Rose-season
beauty and loud joys make life
a pearl in the castle.
In Songs
of Water Baqui’s prime focus is on cosmopolitan context rather than
particular. He talks about the feelings and experiences of all human beings
irrespective of time, place or class. In the section “On Other Themes” haiku
no. 9, he contrasts the blessings and vastness of nature with the narrowness of
human mind:
Green grass grows on black
dirty soil but no humbleness
grows in dirty soul
In haiku no. 10, the poet contrasts servitude with kingship:
Servitude has one
pore but kingship has many
deep pores unrepaired.
Pattern
The poet has met the challenge of adhering to the
metrical pattern of five-seven-five syllables in all the haiku poems. Other
than following this rule, he has crafted all his haiku in blank verse. There is
no maintenance of any particular prosodic pattern. However, from the section
“On Nature”, haiku no. 1 and from the section “On Love” haiku no. 21 are
analyzed:
/ /
/ U U
Spring thrives /what na-ture
U / U
/ U /
U
can do/ with its
/a-fflu-ence
U U / / U
for the/ dry poor /world.
This
haiku poem does not have any regular rhythm. There are variations in all three
lines. The first foot of the first line is spondee, followed by a dactyl. The
first two feet are iambic followed by an amphibrach. The first foot of the last
line is pyrrhic, followed by a spondee with hypermetrical.
/ U /
U U
Love en-nob-les/ soul,
U / /
U UU /
trans-forms/ dark-ness/ in-to /light
U / U
/ U
and mud/ in-to /man.
In the first line, the first two feet are
trochaic with hypermetrical. In the second line, the first foot is an iamb
followed by a trochee, a dibrach with catalectic. In the last line, the first
two feet are trochaic with hypermetrical.
Inconsistency
A
number of haiku written on the teasing theme ‘Twenty First Century’ in which
mainly horrors, awesome steps of man and the lurid account of the present
period of time are elaborated when the poet regretfully pronounces in haiku
no.3, 4, 7 and 11:
Civilization
and knowledge remain dead mute
to enjoy fresh ruins.
This century fails
to go ahead strongly to
distribute graces.
killers and robbers
Elongate fangs to poison
The modernists’ souls.
Morality and
ethics are now replaced by
whims and mixed sweet will.
In “Twenty First Century”, the poet shows the depressing
picture of civilization. He has written eleven haiku poems on the prevailing
situations of twenty first century, but in this section he has not shown anything
good about the civilization. I think in this section, there is an inconsistency
in poet’s thought process. Because, this is the century where he is living; and
no age totally suffers from curse, or enjoy blessings. Of course, there are
blessings in this modern century though it has a lot of depressing scenes. The
poet’s tone is totally pessimistic here.
In Victorian Era of English literature, Tennyson presents
the picture with a compromising perspective as the age was the age of
simultaneous progression and depression.
In this twenty first century that stream runs parallel. There is
tremendous progression in every sector but human value and emotion are
deteriorating in most of the cases.
Though the poet does not show an iota of positive in this
particular section, a positive approach of the poet cannot be denied when he
says very hopefully in the section “On Nature” haiku no. 2:
How nice the world is!
We pass thorny rosy days
with tears, mirth and death.
If we consider the poet’s approach
summarizing all the poems, we can see a kind of compromising and positive
approach he possesses towards life.
Conclusion
In the words of W. H. Hudson in his An Introduction to The Study of English Literature:
A great book is born of the brain and heart of its
author; he has put himself into
its pages;…for what we call genius is only another name
for freshness and
originality of outlook upon the world, of insight, and of
thought. The mark of a
really great book is that it has something fresh and
original to say, and that it says
this in a fresh and independent way.(15)
A.H. Baqui, a modern haiku composer, has exposed his
thoughts in a fresh and independent way in Songs
of Water. His perspective to life is clear and transparent like water:
Waters
gleam, I gleam,
waters
dance, I dance and fall;
how
life is water!
As long as life is
there, gleam, dance, fall--everything is there. So he talks about every side of
life in his haiku poems. One thing is clear that his life song will continue
with the continuation of breath:
Water is life and
where there are water and life,
there are songs no doubt.
However, Aya Shinozaki Dougherty of Akita
Prefectural University, Japan, asserts in her ‘Preface’ to Songs of Water that:
Depths of questions assail us on occasion in the
beautiful forests of Dr. Baqui’s poetry. I encourage you (readers) to stroll
through the good professor’s poetry, stopping to wonder and ponder. The
journey, with all of its beauty and puzzlement, is worth the toil.
Aya Dougherty, possibly a haiku lover,
contributes a brief ‘Preface’ to Baqui’s Songs
of Water. She has been able to capture the essentials of Baqui’s haiku and
asks the readers to enjoy the eternal charm and to explore the endless
meanings, embedded in his ‘wordless’ poems.
Though
many contemporary poets have discarded the traditional pattern of haiku, I
think haiku’s beauty and specialty depends on its characteristic maintenance of
five-seven-five syllables in three lines. So, Songs of water will bear the stamp of Baqui’s supremacy in the
realm of haiku in English as he has exhibited his superb artistry in his utmost
endeavour. He exhibits the power of controlling in language. He breaks away
from following the very beginning tradition of writing haiku only on nature and
season. Baqui’s new approach is commendable because he has tried to dissect
life through various perspectives. Nature cannot be the only factor of life.
But, he is very careful in measuring the syllables which has made the poems
unique as haiku.
Adhering
to the characteristic pattern of haiku, in both regional and cosmopolitan
contexts, the poet has crafted a number of haiku poems on various themes most
of the time in reflective and optimistic tone and sometimes in pessimistic
tone. In this regard, Baqui’s Songs of
Water is worth reading for the poem lovers.
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Songs
of Water: Haiku Poems. Nahar Publications,
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