Uska staza / A Narrow Road by Ljubomir Dragović
Translated by Saša Važić
Liber, Belgrade ©2011
ISBN 978-86-6133-055-1

A review by Robert D. Wilson

Having edited Simply Haiku for 8 years, I‘ve read haiku submissions from every corner of the earth. Some of them are good, most display a lack of understanding of the genre, and very few merit inclusion in our journal, let alone a showcase. It’s the same with haiku collections and anthologies. Most are self-published in conjunction with a small press who assembles the book, does the prep and footwork, then sends it to “Lulu” or another pay-as-you-order publishing firm. Most poets today pay to have their books published as Anglo-American English language haiku and tanka books are not marketable products for publishing houses. One haiku publisher told me that a book selling three hundred copies is considered a best seller. Three hundred copies is a drop in the bucket. The majority of these haiku poets are lucky to sell between 50 to 100 copies. Why do the majority of Anglo-Western haiku books sell so little compared to other genres of poetry? It’s been said that haiku is a popular literary art form in North America. Sales of haiku books say differently. What gives, and why does an ever-growing number of top haiku poets come from former communist countries in Eastern Europe?

Mirisi proljeća.                          odors of spring . . .
Rogove mladog bika               a young bull's horns
zaoštrio mjesec.                       sharpened by the moon

odors of spring: odors are not tangible objects. They are fluid, impossible to touch, their source not always ascertainable. Certain odors are season specific. The source of the odor is not stated. It could be the feces of a young bull, or the scent of blossoms, fresh air, and mowed grass.

The Croatian poet, Ljubomir Dragović, hints at and suggests, telling enough to lure the reader into his haiku, without telling all.

a young bull’s horns sharpened by the moon:  It’s not possible for a bull, young or old, to sharpen his horns by the moon. The haiku’s final line, which is the line that can make or break a haiku is obviously metaphorical or is it? Maybe it’s the positioning of the bull and the slant on top of a hill that gives the appearance of a bull sharpening his horns with the moon.

The use of juxtaposition between line one and lines two and three is an interesting combination, a combination that, prior to Basho, would have been called crass and not suited for use in a serious literary genre. Basho took poetry to the masses, freeing it from the confines of the Japanese Imperial Court.

Dragović’s haiku is activity-biased, focused on a process instead of on an object or objects.  He knows that a kigo isn’t a nature reference per se, to use in a poem in order to call it a haiku.

Dragović’s haiku aren’t about objects and subjectivity. To him a kigo isn’t chocolate syrup on an ice cream sundae. The use of a kigo in his haiku represents a wedding between the creative power of nature and the poet’s mindset. Spring stands for newness, the birthing of calves, the unveiling of blossoms, unsullied air, an oil painting that takes forever to dry, the poet’s quill, a brush painting, repainting in a continuous cycle. This is a thinking person’s haiku. The depth of this haiku could not take place without Dragović’s skilled use of Japanese aesthetic styles (ma, yugen, makoto) coupled with an intuitive skill for combining opposites, turns the poem into a puzzle of sorts . . . challenging each reader to step inside the haiku to interpret it.

Read the following haiku excerpted from Dragović’s book, The Narrow Road. It’s easy to tell the poet has great admiration for Matsuo Basho, by the book’s title, and by the poet’s use of kigo.

Read each haiku slowly once, then again a second time. What is each haiku saying to you?  It doesn’t matter what the poet was thinking. This is your intimate moment with the haiku. And remember, see each poem through your eyes and the zoka’s eyes. Don’t be in a hurry. Study them multi-dimensionally, and take notes.


Stiglo proljeće.                           arrival of spring  —
Uska se staza skrila                 a narrow road hidden
pod rep fazana.                          under the pheasant's tail


Visoka trava.                                tall grass —
Poljski mrav presječen             a field ant cut by
dugim sjenkama.                       long shadows
 

Noćna svježina.                        night freshness . . .
Perači ulice gaze                      street cleaners stamp down
oprane zvijezde.                        the washed stars
 

Prenut tišinom,                         silence . . .
iz čapljinog gnijezda                the moon rises from
diže se mjesec.                        a heron's nest
 

Ljetna oseka.                             summer ebb tide —
Hod usoljenog ježa                  an urchin’s pace into
u dublje more.                           the deeper sea