Taneda Santoka

-Saigyo

Do you like haiku? I do! I remember the first time I came across Saigyo, I thought I could just die quite happily right then and there in the dear old Abilene Public Library. I came across the name Taneda Santoka in the Haruki Murakami novel I'm currently reading, Kafka on the Shore. By the way, Jason and I are both in some deep, deep LOVE with Murakami. We are delightfully ripping through his novels like our lives depend on it. What a genius he is! Anyway, so I looked up Taneda Santoka and fell in some deep deep love with him, too. Here are a few things I've learned about him so far: His father squandered the family's wealth on women and booze. His mother, exhausted by life, threw herself into the family well when Taneda was a boy. The sight of his mother's lifeless body pulled up from the well was, as one can imagine, something that deeply troubled Taneda for the rest of his days. He had a nervous breakdown and dropped out of school. His brother committed suicide. His wife divorced him. He had a drinking problem. He attempted suicide on more than one occasion. He often wandered alone with only a begging bowl. And yet! And yet, he wrote this beautiful poetry. He was a haiku rebel, not adhering to the traditional 5-7-5 structure. I like people who aren't afraid to push the envelope. And while many haiku poets write about cherry blossoms, Taneda wrote often about weeds.

In happiness

Or sadness

Weeds grow and grow.

One of the things I appreciate most about haiku is the way it brings together the inner and the outer, the spiritual and the physical. It evokes feelings of intimacy with context, combining so beautifully attention to surroundings with awareness of the heart. For me, haiku reflects the oneness of the sadness and joy of living.

Haiku shows us what we knew all the time,

but did not know we knew; it shows us that

we are poets in so far as we live at all.

-R.H. Blyth

Even the sound of the raindrops

Has grown older.

All day,

Without a word-

Waves crashing.