Three Demons

Three Demons: A Study in Sanki Saitō’s Haiku marks the first English book of work by the Japanese haiku poet whose nom de plume, Sanki, means “three demons.” As translator Ryan Choi points out in his translator’s note, these translations do not adhere to the 5-7-5 rule of haiku. Indeed, the haikus are not discernible as individual poems in the book, and Choi has said of his English renderings that they are “novel arrangements” of the source poems. In part, this choice may derive from the fact that, as Choi notes, Sanki “tended to write in thematic sequences instead of stand-alone units.”

The book comprises eight sequences, each presented in a different form. For instance, in series II, the poems span the entire width of the page, with spaces between the words:

    Charred        butterflies on stone,        born on a hill of stone. 

Happy Birthday—faces          again in the town      square mirror. 

Frosty grass, in-    rooted moon; dogs—    who squall for whom?

 

In series IV, they zigzag across the page:

                                                 Violet—twin 
                                                             gales, 

                                                              rumpling    the boat- 
                                                                                    pond skin.

 

Cooped in

                 a white           mosquito 

net

Sanki’s poems oscillate between tender observations of the natural world, and absurd, sometimes politically inclined commentary:

Maiden’s         sun- 

bathed grave
                  blistering           to the touch. 
  
                                  POWs 
                 asleep                 on the 
                 rugged
                 lake          shore.

The jagged, uneven form finds its counterpart in lines that embed the prospect of violence in descriptions of a seemingly serene spring/summer day.

Bunched on the sod, 
                                                               Slowly but surely the 

                                                               clouds
                                                               and wheat stalks 

                                                                      stretch their bodies 
  
POWs 
                                                       Green plums, 

                                                               babies crying 
                                                               in 

                                                               the dark

The distribution of images in the different sections of this book recalls the work of painters rather than poets. It is as if each section encompasses a range of zones in which events of different orders of magnitude are occurring simultaneously. In one zone, sparrows fold in for the evening; in another zone, the speaker says:

                        I fondle                                          Our bodies 

                        fired      tofu   we   cut 

artillery                               into  cubes.

While these poems speak to a specific tradition, familiarity with the Japanese Haiku is not necessary to appreciate the experimental range on display in this book.