HAIKU CONTEST for children of the world

Book Review : Children’s Haiku From Around the World — A Haiku Primer ; A haiku Primer Translated by Angelee Deodhar into Hindi. English translation from JAL Foundation’s Children’s haiku books. Available from Angelee Deodhar, 1224, Sector 42-B, Chandigarh, U.T. 160 036, India. No ISBN listed. Perfect bound, 5 ½ x 8 inches, 300 pp., free upon request from the author.

Reviewed by Kala Ramesh.

This is the third time I’m reading through this delightful book of The Children’s Haiku From Around the World, A Haiku Primer, an anthology of 306 children’s haiku poems, originally published by JAL Foundation and now, most beautifully and sensitively translated into Hindi by none other than Dr. Angelee Deodhar. This is the 4th of 5 bilingual books published by Dr Angelee Deodhar,
over the last 3 years.The book in perfect bound edition, looks handsome with the cover
picture designed by Angelee Deodhar, depicting children holding hands
around the globe. It has an extensive preface, and two articles ,the first written in
depth by Momoko Kurode and the second by Patricia Donegan and Kazuo
Sato.

Can words fully express the fullness of a dewdrop or the depths of autumn? Most words would fall short of expressing this in simple words. And haiku is all about this, and how often we, as adults fail to understand this simple truth. Haiku has often been called the ‘wordless poem’ meaning that the words are so inconspicuous, or such ordinary words that they just drop away, without attracting any attention to themselves and all that flashes before a reader’s mind is the vivid imagery . . . as fresh to the reader as it was to the poet when he/she first experienced it.

These little thoughts are the rustle of leaves;

they have their whisper of joy in my mind

Said Rabindranath Tagore in Stray Birds, and I couldn’t have explained my reaction to these little poems better than this!

His own mornings are new surprises to God

God finds himself by creating

I have learnt the simple meaning of thy whisper in flowers and sunshine—teach me to know thy words in pain and death.

All these are from Stray Birds again . . . and each of them clearly explain the feelings I experienced as I read through this volume of children’s haiku. I’ve always felt that children and senior citizens belong to a suitable age group, who are in a position to open their hearts to haiku, for the simple reason, the first group is yet to discover —read here, as yet to get corrupted by— the adult ways of expression and the second group are bored of the ways of the adult, perhaps?!

And India is just opening out to haiku, a beautiful art form of season’s / nature poetry, transported from Japan directly and viewed through Western eyes! But nevertheless the haiku spirit has filtered to us to a certain degree intact, retaining its core truth and substance! Viewing from this perspective, this book gains great importance, as a reference book to be read by haiku enthusiasts and children of all age groups. Since the English and Hindi versions face each other, on opposite pages, it will be useful to teachers and students in both languages.

I’m quoting a few of the haiku poems:

The sun
Plays in the sky and
Goes to sleep in the ocean
— Kazuyo Tezuka, 8 years, Japan

See the freshness of the imagery here, an adult would immediately pooh pooh this as anthropomorphism and say haiku means, not giving human qualities to nature, but here the 8 year old child is not thinking about attributing human qualities at all to her little poem, but just writing what she is witnessing, the truth of the moment, and what is most beautiful is that the “I” is clearly absent here, but very much embedded into the poem. It is a view seen from a child’s eyes in all innocence.

Does it have a season word? Can the sun in this instance be considered as a kigo word? I deeply ponder… Isn’t the Sun a star too? And stars are an autumn season’s word in the Japanese Saijiki? But the season word is not a child’s problem at all.

What a delightful poem this is! And Angelee’s version in Hindi has not robbed it of its gentle beauty.

What more does this haiku need? Any thing more said would sound redundant. The imagery clear and strong and the haiku spirit intact. Simply beautiful!

Ice, thaw, storm
Cold, joy, fear
All of this is water
—Nataliya Kalashnikova, 12 years, Russia

How well this child-poet has joined tangible things with intangible things like joy and fear to this little poem. A masterstroke and how effectively executed!

Notice the joy of life in these poems:

Through the magnifying glass
I eat
Bigger sweets
—Sae Furute, 6 years, Japan

Cloudy bear
Flying among the clouds
How does the world look from there?
—Ilya Belyaevage, 10 years, Russia

A puddle
Appearing in the ripples
Is my funny face
—Kazuki Frolova,9 years, Mexico

I can hear
The fruit singing happily
At the party
—Kang Min Kyung, 10 years, Korea

A strong wind blew
The roof right off my house
That night I counted stars
—Aree La-ongthong, 11 years, Thialand

I could easily go on quoting haiku after haiku, from this lovely selection, because each haiku poem has something unique, something that touched my heart, and what I can give you, is only a glimpse from this treasure trove!!

A better suggestion would be that you buy this collection — to own and cherish and go back to it every time you feel suffocated with this adult world . . . yes, the most beautiful place to escape.

The Hindi translation by Dr. Angelee Deodhar is in its most lucid and reader friendly style of presentation. I thoroughly enjoyed this collection, in both the languages and my fervent desire is to see this in schools read by millions of our children, so that they get a grasp of this most beautiful form of Japanese poetry called haiku.

A rewarding project undertaken by Dr Angelee Deodhar and executed to perfection.