Hackett Memorial, August 2009
James W. Hackett Birthday Tribute August 2009
World Haiku Review, Volume 7, Issue 2, August 2009
James W. Hackett 80th Birthday Tribute
James W. Hackett, Honorary President of the World Haiku Club, has become eighty this month. On Thursday 6 August 2009, to be exact.
Considering the enormous contribution he has made to the development of world haiku, we decided to have a special feature in this issue of World Haiku Review to celebrate his birthday and his achievements by publishing tribute haiku written by those who admire, respect and love him and learn from him. They also chose one haiku by James that they love most, a very difficult exercise for them and a mental torture for some!
An Empty Snail Shell
In the year 1994 I published a little bilingual book called 30 Zen-Haiku/ J. W. Hackett to coincide with the visit of Jim and Pat Hackett to Ireland. The cover had the following haiku on it:
The pursued beetle
just led the other into
an empty snail shell
My Irish translation contained the word poigheachán. Yes, we have one word in Irish for an empty snail shell! What I love about this haiku is that it is practically meaningless. It is an intense interpenetrative observation of one of those millions of little events that happen all the time and appear to be random, without any great purpose or design. School children and university students are constantly being brainwashed and told to believe that there is a design, a meaning to everything - but, of course, it's all an empty snail shell really.
Hackett was right to call his own great collection Zen Haiku because, it seems to me, this beetle-haiku of his (and many, many others) is pure Zen. Zen is a form of seeing: it is seeing with the heart, with the uncluttered mind, it is seeing the beautiful mystery of emptiness. It is seeing form in emptiness and emptiness in form.
During the course of many conversations with JW on his Irish trip to Dublin and Connemara, I can't recall now whether or not he had told me that Shunryu Suzuki's great book Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind was on his shelves. I have a feeling he has studied that particular text. The author says: 'The true purpose of Zen is to see things as they are, and to let things go as they go.' And this is what JW has done, beautifully, in the beetle-haiku.
I remember looking at a photo of JW in his Hawaiian garden and saying to myself, 'Hmm, looks like his mind is fairly empty!' School children are punished for being empty-headed when they should be praised! Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind says: 'If your mind is empty, it is always ready for anything: it is open to everything.' This is so. And JW has shown himself to be ready for anything. That's what it takes to be a Master, this readiness, this emptiness, this awareness. His mind, at eighty, is the beginner's mind.
As a haijin of timeless stature, JW has everything. He has everything in the Zen Mind sense: 'You already have everything in your own pure quality. If you understand this ultimate fact, there is no fear.' By discovering his own pure quality, JW has given pure haiku to the world. We must all learn from him and be humbly grateful.
(Gabriel Rosenstock, Ireland)
a bitter morning
surely, of all j. w's immortal haiku the one that will stand out is that written in his backyard in san francisco,
sitting with his friend ray mondini, and observing
a bitter morning
sparrows sitting together
without any necks
as I understand it (Patricia or he could verify) he sent it off in the j.a.l. competition and won the first international haiku contest ... (and international recognition) ... a trip to japan ... ... and in effect an historic bridge between the venerable Japanese tradition and the west ...
gassho
gary gach, usa
sparrows sitting together
Greetings from Finnish summer!
This is one of my favourites:
A bitter morning
sparrows sitting together
without any necks
because it is simple - in a good sense - and above all it is a good example of keen perception, an invaluable quality for a haiku poet. At a riverside cafe in Joensuu I love watching sparrows. They are curiously hopping around or bathing in tiny holes they have dug in the sand.
Best wishes,
Riitta Rossilahti, Finland
Searching on the wind
I consider this poem one of the best haiku written by James W. Hackett:
Searching on the wind,
the hawk's cry...
is the shape of its beak.
Ion Codrescu, Romania
Time after time
My favourite by James W. Hackett is:
Time after time
caterpillar climbs this broken stem,
then probes beyond.
(In: The Haiku Anthology, Edited by Cor van den Heuvel.)
Hans Jongman
somewhere in the dark
somewhere in the dark
a mountain spring rippling
the cosmos beyond
Tiong Chunghoo
this bitter morning
all my promises become
a mouthful of fog
cheers & beers
Ross Clark, Australia
old dog old master
pacing each other
When I was awarded Third Prize in a 1996? Contest (either HSA's Henderson or in Timepieces - my records have become tangled) and the judge was James Hackett, I was most thrilled by the fact that this icon of the haiku world had been the judge.
favorites of work by James Hackett:
A bitter morning
sparrows sitting together
without any necks
That old teapot
the way it leaves an enso
upon everything
Peggy Heinrich
Tribute Haiku
chinese wedding
sizzling through the night
two red candles
by Tiong Chunghoo
each drop of the icicle
takes with it
the moonlight
by Ion Codrescu, Romania
quiet afternoon-
the thump of a magnolia
on the car roof
purple half-moon
-new songs
from the neighbor's guitar
Spring break -
a jacaranda undresses
on the street corner
longer days
-the weight
of a watermelon
spring morning-
contrails compete
among the walnut leaves
by Devika Menon
cliff walk
his voice
carried by the wind
September hike
under a traveling sun
leaves wave in the wind
on the beach road
moving inch by inch
thick fog
meadow ramble
surrounded by the hum
of bees
by Peggy Heinrich honouring James W. Hackett
To celebrate with you
I lift my invisible cup
and drink to your health
on the roof
I spread black plastic sheets
before the rain comes
mimosa trees
remind me of the Islands
on a summer day
My friend, Omar
and I will drive to Austin, Texas
this weekend
Omar collects editions
of The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam
there is an exibit in Austin, Texas
Can I visit the Zen Center there?
I like to touch into my Buddha Nature
every so often
In yoga class today
we all felt comfortable
in the corpse pose
at the closing,
eanine sang in French
"La Marseillaise"
Frances said a prayer
and we said our first names
this way and that way
We held hands
in a circle and felt peace
and plenty
When I am no more
let there be someone who says
"Now, let's have some tea."
by Howard Lee Kilby, USA
scratching his ribs
the old dog flips a flea
into outer space
Gary Gach
my haiku for James W. Hackett is:
flying to the sky
on the truth way-
philosopher
and one selected of his work:
the eagle lofts away,
lifting his pray with wings
that stir the sea
by alexandra flora, Romania
Here is my haiku for Mr. Hackett's birthday:
mountain sunrise --
the yesterday's quarrel
forgotten
by Valeria Simonova-Cecon