Haiku & Ghazals?

What do haiku have to do with ghazals? One connection is that some poets write in both forms. Joshua Gage is one of the poets who succeeds in both forms. In the past, Josh has contributed excellent ghazals to The Ghazal Page, along with some useful prose about ghazals. Now, Josh has published an impressive collection of haiku.

The collection is Breaths, published by vanZeno Press in its Professional Reading Series. Published in 2008, Breaths is a trade-sized paperback of 50+ pages, perfect-bound with a full-color cover: a professional publication in other words.

The haiku form is often misunderstood in the English-speaking world. Just consult some of the major handbooks of poetic form, for instance. If you'd like an overview of the haiku as an English form, I recommend the definition posted by the Haiku Society of America.

I highly recommend this collection whether you like haiku or not. Consider that your attitude toward haiku may be distorted by the misunderstanding so common in this country. Here are a few exemplary haiku from Breaths:

Cinco de Mayo
the moon wears
a shroud of clouds

blackout
I sit and listen
to her breathe

grey morning
a dead fish floats
on the waves of the lake

In reading these examples, please remember that haiku are intended to stimulate a train of reflections in the reader, to, in a sense, be completed as they are read. Also, it's important to recognize that haiku come from the poet's perceptions, not from sheer imagination. An experience lies behind each poem. The haiku in Breaths convey tender moments and also moments of life in an industrial city (Cleveland, Ohio) in the 21st century.

Comments

[Gino Peregrini]

Hi, Saroja,

In reply to this comment, the blog on TypePad is inactive. If you repost your query to the current blog, I will publish it. It
may attract some attention -- I get more hits on the new blog. The URL for that particular post is http://ghazalpage.net/blog/2009/08/haiku-ghazals/ (I moved
all the Typepad posts over to WordPress.)

In fact, it might be better for your query to be the basis of a new post, where I could give it appropriate keywords and so on. I could use this message from you and write a brief intro for it. Please let me know what you think.

Your project sounds really good. I don't have any source suggestion right now. I don't have regular contact with Naranjan but can contact him and also put out a general query.

All the best,

Gino

[Sarojaishere.blogspot.com]

Dear Gino,

Gulzar's Trivenis have not been translated in their entirety into English; however, I do intend to undertake such a project soon. I am also writing a paper about the trivenis and the how Bly's ghazals may fit into that rubric. If you or Niranjan can recommend any other academic work on this subject, that'd be great, and if not, I hope this becomes a start to this discussion!

Saroja

[Gino Peregrini]

Niranjan,

Thank you for this information. It adds a lot to our understanding of the ghazal form, its possibilities, and its changes.

Have any of Gulzar's Tivenis been translated into English?

Gino

[Niranjan Sarkar]

Closely related to the 3 line poetry and the now Tercet Ghazal format, a new form is slowly developing in the Hindi/Urdu side of the things. This new form is coined as "Triveni". It is concieved by Gulzar, a poet, a lyricist and a film producer of substantial repute.
Word Triveni comes from Triveni Sangam, the famous confluence of three rivers Ganga, Jamuna and invisible Saraswati at Allahabad, India. Ganga and Jamuna are visible but Saraswati is a mythological river and is supposed to be flowing underground. Likewise, the beauty of "Triveni" is, that first two lines in themselves are expression of a complete image, but when you read the third one, a whole new dimension is added to the original one.

For example consider this "triveni"

Hai nahi jo dikhaayee deta hai,
Aayeene par chapa hua chehra;
Tarjuma aayeene ka theek nahi.

Roughly goes like:
It is not what it looks like,
The image of the face posted on the mirror;
It is the translation by the mirror that is improper.

A collection of Gulzar's "Trivenis" are released in a book, and the great Jagjit Singh also experimented "Trivenis" in his album "Koi Baat Chale" creating a history of sorts. A preview of the same is here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O4lGP92Pg7g