Honkadori

Since long before the written word was invented, humans have been making poetry, usually in the form of songs. Given that probably a few billion poems have been composed, is it possible to create one that's fresh and original? Should a modern poet even try?

I would say the answers to those questions are "probably" and "yes." But anyway, even if every topic or rhyme you can think of has already been used, and as disappointing as it can be to realize a line you thought you made up was actually one you read somewhere, there is something to be said for variations on a theme.

In traditional Japanese theater, the goal of the performers was not to be innovative in their role, but to perform it with as much precision and attention to detail as possible (see Donald Keene's Japanese Literature). Similarly, haiku and tanka poems didn't strive to be original or experimental, just perfection of form and evocative in imagery. They commonly took conceits or  lines from earlier poems, giving them new contexts, or invoked an older poem (which the poet assumes the reader will recognize) to set a certain mood. This kind of allusion is called honkadori.

As an example, consider Seidensticker's translation of Kokinshu 292, by the poet Henjo:

The tree denies the fugitive its shelter.

It sheds its scarlet leaves, and so rebuffs him.

And the tanka I wrote in response, finding Henjo's tree to be a bit mean-spirited:

Only the maple 

gives the wretched fugitive

shelter from the rain.

And even its scarlet leaves

are beginning to scatter.

Sometimes connections between poems are not direct allusions but purely coincidental. Because so many poets deal with the same themes, it's not unusual to come across poems very similar in images and sentiments written by poets who are cultures and centuries apart. Compare Melville Cane's "Snow Toward Evening":
 

Suddenly the sky turned grey,
The day,
Which had been bitter and chill,
Grew soft and still.
Quietly
From some invisible blossoming tree
Millions of petals cool and white
Drifted and blew,
Lifted and flew,
Fell with the falling night.
 

And Kiyowara no Fukayabu's "Kokinshu 330":
 

It's winter now, yet
From the skies blossom
Comes fluttering down;
Beyond the clouds
Can it be spring already?

It is of course possible that Melville Cane read Fukayabu's poem somewhere, but the comparison of snowflakes to falling petals is such an obvious one that it's probable many poets independently came up with that image.

Any literary work, like any idea, owes its existence to a number of previous sources which rarely appear explicitly enough to be counted as allusive. Because the vast majority of words and phrases used by writers have been used before, its impossible to write something that has not been influenced in one way or another by what has been written or said before, even (perhaps especially) if the poet isn't consciously aware of it.

Professor Wright and I used to give each other lists of random words that we would use write something to share the next time we met. From one of these lists I wrote the following tanka:

 Under the lime tree
I sought clemency from the
 serene citrine sun,
But thrice I heard the cock’s crow
At the gate of Osaka.

This poem has three influences I'm aware of. One is a famous poem by Sei Shonagon, which appears both in her Pillow Book and the Hyakunin Isshu (this translation from One Hundred Poems from the Japanese):

Though you can tell me
You heard a cock crow
In the middle of the night,
The guard at Osaka Gate
Will not believe you.

(This poem is itself alluding to a reported incident in Chinese history in which a political prisoner escaped by having one of his men imitated the crow of a rooster, which tricked the gatekeepers into thinking it was dawn and opening the gate).

The other allusion is to the O-Zone song "Dragostea din Tei." The title translates as "Love under the lime (linden) tree."

Often it is not specific words or images in a poem that inspire imitation but its structure. After all, every fixed poetic form (e.g. sonnet, haiku, sestina, villanelle) was invented for the first time by someone, and usually modeled off some previous form. Trying to avoid any kind of emulation would limit a poet's creative freedom as much as deliberately copying another poem.

I was inspired to write this poem by Wallace Stevens' "Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird."

Shades of Lavender:

The thunder clouds choking the sky
This morning are faintly lavender .
 

Murasaki tells us the hue of the troth

Is lavender.

 

Over there are bare brown vines.
They drip in summertime with lavender wisteria.

  

 It was love at first sight, I thought
As I held the lavender rose.

I open a dusty book, and out falls
A single lavender valentine.

Taking a walk in the chill air,
I pass a door painted lavender.

Will the bee fly to the crimson rose
Before the somber lavender?

I used to see him here.
Tie me a lavender “forget-me” knot.

The influence of previous works is usually subconscious. There was a haiku that came to me once, and I was sure I had not actually made it up but remembered it from somewhere else, but after searching for it and not finding it, I decided to take credit for it.

Why do you,

of all the seasons,

have two names?

It refers of course to autumn, also known as fall. Autumn was the favorite season of many Japanese poets, because the decline and silencing of life that occurs before winter embodies some of the culture's traditional aesthetic ideals, such as mujo--the bittersweet impermanence of things--and the related wabi sabi, the beauty to be found in tarnish, decay, imperfections, and forlornness. And the explosion of vibrant reds, yellows, and oranges preceding the withering has its own entirely different appeal.

 I told Professor Wright this haiku once, and he liked it so much he later asked me to write it down for him. I was at work at the time, so I jotted it down on a piece of receipt tape, which he found amusing. He taped it up on his kitchen wall.

It didn't take me long to find the unremembered poem that had inspired my haiku: Kokinshu 839 by Mibu no Tadamine, which I had read in the Tale of Genji:

Why did he die in autumn, of all the seasons?

In autumn one grieves for those who yet remain.

Like many others, this poem took on deeper meaning for me after Professor Wright's death. He died in autumn, of all the seasons.

The brain is an amazing thing. We are influence by everything we've read, heard, or thought in the past and everyone we've ever met, whether we remember them or not.