SOURCE: "Lucien Stryk: An Interview by Kent Johnson," in American Poetry Review, Vol. 19, No. 2, March/April, 1990, pp. 47-55.

[In the following interview, Stryk, an American poet and translator of Zen poetry, reveals his thoughts on the work of Takahashi Shinkichi, the art of translation, and the nature of Zen in poetry.]

[Kent Johnson:] Your work in the past two decades as translator and scholar has been instrumental in bringing Zen literature to the English-speaking world. Your translations of the poems of Shinkichi Takahashi are among the work that has caused the most impact. Sadly, you received a call from Japan a few months ago informing you of his death. I was wondering if you'd be so kind as to reflect today on what his work and friendship have meant to you, both personally and as a poet.

[Lucien Stryk:] The friendship has meant everything, and I have felt strongly for many years now that he was one of the great poets of the world. This obviously made my sense of him very special. I felt always, in his company, that I was privileged in being with a very great spirit. This led, I suppose, to my taking the greatest possible care with his poetry. The desire at all times was to give the English-speaking reader as full a sense as possible of this man's genius.

So because of the high regard I had for his character and his poetry, the friendship was very special; I would say, in fact, that the feeling was more familiar than such relationships tend to be. It certainly wasn't a literary relationship. I have a very great feeling for his life, not only as a poet, but as a husband and father of two daughters.

I also had a very strong sense of his position in the literary community of Japan. He, of course, benefited, as all would, from his special gift, and was recognized for it. But at the same time he was thought by many as some-thing of an oddball, an outsider—his was a very special kind of position. The feeling, I'll tell you, was very exceptional, and I've never known anyone like him. He set the standard for me. I take it we're going to be talking about the nature of Zen poetry, or of matters along those lines, and perhaps I might say at this time that when I think of Zen poetry written by anyone, wherever in the world, it's always measured against what he accomplished. And this is something that I have become conscious of, if anything, more acutely in recent years, when I have been asked rather often to comment on the work of Zennists—some of the moderns who write what is sometimes termed "Zen poetry." There's always the feeling that he accomplished the very rare feat of expressing his Zen spirit fully through poetry. And this, I think, is very rarely achieved, in Japan or elsewhere. Now when we talk of the older Zen poetry, the sort that I included in books such as Zen Poetry and The Crane's Bill, well there, of course, we have great masters and the pure expression of profound insight.

Takahashi's verse is filled with the depth of those older poems. He was of an extraordinary character, as might be expected of an enlightened man, given formal testimonial of his achievement by Shizan Ashikaga, one of the great modern masters. He is, in my judgment, unsurpassed as a poet of our day. What his person, his friendship, have meant to me, is very difficult indeed to put into words.

Judging from comments of his, Takahashi also thought quite a bit of you.

A very remarkable thing, for I had no idea why! What I think he felt was that I made a very great effort to understand him and to render his poetry as it should be in English. Takahashi read English, as you might know, so we worked closely with him through the drafting process. When I say "we," I am speaking, of course, of the late Takashi Ikemoto, my friend and collaborator on so many projects. A very interesting, often complex process… Takahashi gave permission in many cases for things in the original to be left out, simply because they did not work well in English. One of the best examples is in the poem "Burning Oneself to Death," one of the best known and most admired of his poems. There was material—about a stanza—that I felt was too discursive. Not in Japanese, perhaps, but no amount of trying could bring it over adequately into English. Hence he agreed, after discussion, that it would be all right to cut that out. This actually happened in a number of cases, and Ikemoto mentions this in his brief account of our translation practice in Zen Poetry. So in many cases you have pieces that are greatly compacted, but always with his stamp of approval. The creative element hence became enthralling, because, you see, I was given virtually a free hand in working with the material.

What Takahashi saw as my major qualification was my involvement in Zen thought. It certainly wasn't linguistic, because that work I couldn't have done on my own; I had to work very closely with Ikemoto and Takahashi. There was a sense of exuberance working on texts that were far more than poetry—they were documents, spiritual documents of the most important kind. And when Afterimages, the first collection, came out, there were responses that suggested the poems could indeed affect lives in a very profound way.

I remember Jim Harrison's essay in the American Poetry Review.

Yes, his was especially moving—and as you may know Zen is of deep importance to him. The work on the Takahashi poems has always been of that kind, a spiritual exercise, more than just the making of literary translations. Anyhow, these are some of the things I have felt for him.

I was aware that there were a few poems that were "compressed," where things were left out. But it seemssome might object, on the basis that the original text was being manipulated.

I think that when the translator is privileged to work with the poet, it's not so much a matter of literalness, because, you see, the poet has made a judgment regarding the nature of what is being done. Takahashi's approval in some instances of deleting material came out of his understanding of the difficulties of bringing certain things into another language. The question of literalness is a central one in translation, of course, but I think in the case of our work with Takashi, we were seeking always to transmit—as "literally" as possible—the spiritual energy of the poem.

Could one say that the more highly charged the "spiritual energy" of a text such as one tends to find in Zen poetry the more open to interpretive possibility the translator should be?

Exactly what I have to do as translator of Takahashi is rise to the challenge; rise with passion and tact when that is called for. I've never thought of a translator as someone who should be an apologist, always worried, hat in hand, about the degree of faithfulness to the original. But as someone who when working intensely can spark those magical moments, when in fact he is the equal of the person he is translating—he must be that equal in order to render those poems properly. This is particularly true of Zen literature; an energy level as great as the poet's, a like degree of linguistic inventiveness, simply has to be there, there cannot be a gulf between such things. Otherwise there is only the husk.

When was your last meeting with Takahashi?

Two summers ago. It was when I was in Japan putting together Triumph of the Sparrow and also beginning an Issa volume.

Did he give you new poems at that time?

No, he was too ill to be thinking of new poetry. When I was with him that last time he couldn't even stand. You might remember my mentioning that he postponed a visit to the hospital to spend time with me. That touched me very deeply. But he had said the important Zen poems were behind him, and in his last years he was occupied mainly with prose, though far from prolifically. Actually, the poems I've translated were selected from a large group—they represent only that part of his work that I felt capable of dealing with. Other translators, perhaps, will attempt those other poems someday.

So many of the poems still overwhelm me when I think of them: Poems such as "Position of the Sparrow"—I have rarely found any work of poetry which is as compact and full of the deepest philosophical insight and velocity. It's amazing to me how much he was able to get into those verses.

Clearly, then, the work with Takahashi has influenced your own poetry.

I think profoundly. But I must qualify immediately. I don't mean I have hope of ever matching his greatness—far from it!

I think the best things I have done—and some of the poems in my new collection are perhaps among them—may have a trace of his velocity and the impact that comes of the arresting image. In others I'd like to feel I've won through to moments of stillness, though one must not counterpose stillness to energy—and often in Takahashi's work there is an amazing interdependence of the two… but it's very difficult to characterize one's own work. You are familiar, I'm sure, with Stephen Berg's book, Singular Voices. I'm represented there by my poem "Awakening," and I discuss it at some length. I think that poem shows to what degree there has been from time to time in my work an attempt at that kind of compactness and rigor.

Were you aware of Takahashi when you wrote "Zen: The Rocks of Sesshu"?

I was, though less completely. The thing about that poem to me is that it was, almost by design, an attempt to deal clearly and overtly with Zen principles. Later poems, such as "Awakening" are not ostensibly about Zen, but more personal, maybe take things beyond that stage into areas of further clarity and suggestiveness. Which doesn't mean, incidently, that I would dismiss the earlier poem. I would think of it as one of my lucky moments in poetry. But it so happens that at the time I wrote that I was clearly involved in trying to grapple with and straighten out my attitudes toward Zen at a relatively early stage of my practice. Now I feel that poems written about my immediate world, sitting out in my backyard, here in DeKalb, capture the spirit more fully than anything. There are poems in the last section of my Collected Poems, like "Where We Are," which I feel are as deeply grounded in Zen as the earlier, might one say, more "doctrinaire," pieces.

Or "Willows," which is clearly about your practice, yet somehow also a ceremony of place.

Yes, "Willows," and what makes that an important poem for me is that it represents a serious effort to come to terms with problems of discipline, when one lives away from the Zen community for long periods of time. That is, "Where am I?" and "What am I doing?," and "Is it still possible for me to feel that way?" and testing, pushing those questions to their limits. I found, in doing so, what I hope is a productive metaphor.

You used the term "a lucky moment" a few minutes ago to describe writing the "Rocks of Sesshu," and that seems a curious way of referring to a poem that took you two years to compose.

Well, there are "moments" and there are moments! You see, this poem led me to other things, opened up paths I had never suspected, and I speak of this in my essay "Making Poems" in Encounter With Zen. Incidentally, I had a very special experience recently in Japan, the time I saw Takahashi for the last time. I visited Joeiji temple where "Zen: The Rocks of Sesshu" was written and made—and I hesitate to use the term, but it certainly felt like it at the time—a spiritual return to the very house in which the poem was done. It was not occupied at the time and I was able to go to the very window and look in where that was experienced, when I stayed up all night, literally, beginning to think in the early afternoon and working until 6:00 the next morning, restructuring and reworking and getting a sense of what I might do with the haiku—like patterning that was emerging so insistently.

I had a powerful sense, looking into that empty room, that I had begun there something that was central to my life. I say "lucky," for in a sense the poem was sparked by my having said something shallow about the rock garden to Tenzan Yasuda, who did not hesitate to dress me down and to challenge me to look at it with fresh eyes. "Willows," I think, was another such moment. It is a poem that deals frankly with the difficulties of practice, and it seems to have struck a chord in others to whom Zen is important: a friend wrote me recently that he's at the "seventh willow"!

As long as we are talking about poems, let me show you this one, which is very recently finished. May I read it to you? (Stryk reads "Translating Zen Poems.")

That's very fine. The image of the vase…

It is written in memory of Takashi Ikemoto, of course. This poem was another return to a room—to the one in Yamaguchi where we sat together and worked. The memories of those days are very intense. It is from a new collection, Of Pen and Ink and Paper Scraps, which will be published in 1989, and I'd like to feel that it exhibits the kind of thing we've been talking of—where such spirit takes over the work when I'm lucky. Anyhow, I was very fortunate, of course, in having Ikemoto as a friend and collaborator. He was very patient with me, and there was a perfect balance in that he was a very careful scholar, with a deep appreciation of poetry. He knew that I would have to take certain liberties, but never too many, and often he would pull on the reins!

So it was a marvelous thing; we shared in the spirit of the enterprise and in all practical ways. It was a trusting and, really, a loving relationship—a rare thing. All of it a wonderful sense of our doing something important, not only to us, but to others.

This comes back to Takahashi. In his youth Takahashi was influenced by Dada, and his first book is, in fact, titled Poems of Dadaist Shinkichi. I'm curious about the possible relationship between his intellectual and emotional involvement with Dada and his later Zen, particularly in regard to his poetry. It seems one could find analogies between the alogical dissociations in Takahashi's Zen imagery and those informing much Dada poetry and art. Are these similarities superficial, or is Dada and its iconoclastic spirit perhaps informed, at a deeper level, by intimations of Zen awareness?

I think in Takahashi's case the predisposition was clearly there, the movement away from all things conventional. For Takahashi the literature of 1920s Japan, certainly its poetry, was empty of spirit. And one day he was galvanized by an article on Dadaism which seemed to him absolutely what he was looking for. Well, Takahashi became the central figure of Japanese Dada, publishing a manifesto, his poems, even a novel entitled Dada.

He was quite confrontational during this time and was often in trouble with the police. You may remember the story, as I have told it, that he was in prison when his book of Dada poems was published. When he was handed a copy through the bars of his cell, he went into a rage and tore it up. You see, attractive as the feeling was, and as spirited as the work was that came of it, Takahashi realized that he wasn't doing anything for his life. It was that simple.

In Japan it's been a long tradition that when an artist needs help he goes not to an analyst, but to a Zen master. There's a remarkable story, mentioned in my interview with the calendar-maker in Encounters with Zen, in which Yukio Mishima sought out Shibayama-Roshi just before his ritual suicide and then canceled the appointment at the last minute. Who knows what might have happened had they met. Mishima was not a Zennist, but clearly there are instances of a Zen-like sensitivity in his work—no artist in Japan, really, can avoid being affected by Zen culture. And one might well find glimmerings of a Zen awareness in those Dada pieces of Takahashi, but—and this must be emphasized—not in any essential way. Perhaps it is useful to speak of the comparison on the level of the individual's psyche: Clearly, the state of spiritual completeness and harmony associated with Zen is quite different from the nihilism so often exhibited by those involved with Dada.

Now Takahashi wanted some advice and guidance and he went to the right man. He went to a man who was a distinguished Zen master, who would not be impressed by his poetry, but would see him as one who might use his poetry as an integral part of a spiritual quest, in handling koans, for example, as in the case of the poem "Collapse."

When he became a Zennist, naturally the poetry he wrote would reflect the kind of freedom Dadaism called for. But it was suddenly anchored in a very special world, with definite principles and clear aspirations, with concerns of a very special sort; the sort, of course, that Dada would never have. Dada had no concerns.

So he brought to his Zen inquiries that same freedom. And one might say he was prepared, as poet, for the kind of freedom that the Zen pursuit requires. But if you look at his poems with their wildness of imagery in mind, you find that when examined properly, they make the most absolute sense in Zen terms. There's nothing "dadaist" about his Zen poems. One thinks, for example, of "Burning Oneself to Death," a poem of profound spiritual and, I might say, political message. Of course, there is also much precedence in Zen literature for the kind of strange vision expressed by Takahashi—in the work of Kiso, Zekkai, Hakuin—and many others.

I'd like to return to the dynamics of form and content in Zen art, but since you mentioned the political implications of one of his poems, I'll pick that up and ask you about Zen's relevance to social issues today. In the Introduction to Afterimages, Takashi Ikemoto writes of Takahashi: "He had read Marx and Lenin and set out to discover whether Marxism or Zen had the ultimate truth." What seems implied here in the counterposition is that Marxism—and even perhaps the idea of any activist stance towards social reality—decisively lost out to Zen. Could you speak on your views concerning the relationship of Zen art and culture to the social and political issues of today?

Takahashi discusses his early attraction to Marxism in an essay called "Komu," an autobiographical essay, where he speaks of his youth and of the philosophical issues that preoccupied the young during that time. He was born in 1901, and Marxism was in its heyday—in Japan as elsewhere—during the twenties and thirties. So there was a climate of political excitement sweeping up the young intellectuals of the day, and Takahashi came to feel that too many were allowing themselves to be too easily swept up. It is in this sense that his option for Buddhism may be seen as a statement, as the taking of a stand. It was not so much a rejection of the nature of Marxism, as it was an assertion of the essential value of spiritual life. Very difficult point to make, and I'm not sure I'm making it well. But Takahashi was not then and never was "apolitical" or "reactionary."

You see, he could not compromise; the undertaking of Zen study is all-consuming. One cannot have, in Zen, two masters: one that guides and challenges the disciple to revolutionize his or her spirit, and another political or ideological one. But the full commitment to spiritual practice by no means precludes an involvement with social concerns. There is no solipsism in Zen. To the contrary, Zen practice may be seen as a ripening of the subject for a more profound and effective engagement with the world. In fact, this is the disciple's vow, to act compassionately for others. I have never encountered a Zennist who was anything less than hopeful about social progress, and indeed, the Zennists I've known were all strongly progressive in their views.

What is important to recognize is that in the Buddhist worldview, there can be no meaningful social change without an equally radical transformation of spirit. The coupling of these two tasks is, really, an expression of the Zennist's quest to break through the subject/object distinctions that govern our daily consciousness.

You mentioned that training is importantly a preparation to "act compassionately for others." Can "compassion " encompass activist positions that assume ideologically oppositional stances to the social order? One thinks of Gary Snyder, for instance.

Absolutely, and Snyder of course is our most eloquent spokesperson—and example in practice—for that joining of compassionate attitude and full commitment. Hard to measure the extent of his contribution—how the writing, life and political vision are so interwoven… an exemplary person, I feel. And of course, we have countless examples of Buddhist monks in Asia who have been visible participants in many movements and causes: against nuclear weapons, for human rights and democracy in various nations, against the war in Southeast Asia. One mustn't deny that there has been, at times, a quietist impulse. Snyder himself has spoken critically of this; certainly Zen has not had throughout its history a hegemonic stance in terms of social action. But, clearly we know that there is no fundamental conflict between Zen spirit and enlightened action. I would say that Buddhism has had, and must have, a meaningful role to play in movements for peace and especially in defense of the planet's environment. There is no question that the current disregard for the planet's ecology is a profoundly spiritual problem.

I had an interesting experience a number of years back. Let me tell you about it, as it may strike home with the things we are talking about. During the sixties, Alan Watts befriended me. He admired, and was kind enough to say so, the early book of mine, World of the Buddha. It was around the time of the '68 election. Watts was invited to give a talk at Purdue University and he suggested that I be invited to be on the panel, which also included Van Meeter Ames and a Japanese Zen Master. I myself had the highest regard for Watts's book, The Way of Zen, and found him to be a most generous person. Anyhow, Watts was the keynote speaker and he was very persuasive, because he was a very brilliant man and a thoroughly engaging orator.

There was a huge crowd and the election was very much in the air. McCarthy had spoken at Purdue the day before. During the discussion period someone directed a question at me, asking if my statement that "Zen would guide one's life in all ways," meant also that it would guide one's decisions in an election year. And I said that of course it would, and that it would tell you necessarily for whom to vote, and that if it didn't, questions might be raised about Zen's relevance to modern society. Now Watts did not receive this practical association too kindly, and I found him looking over at me with an expression of—should I say—marked skepticism! But I believed men and I believe even more today that, yes, Buddhism does guide one in making choices in all areas of life.

Watts, then, viewed political involvement as interfering with spiritual life?

He might have explained it that way. But again, if you read carefully the books he was doing in those days, Zen for him was a very personal quest, and if one had personal problems and hang-ups this was a way of getting rid of them. I don't mean to sound critical here. He was a very brilliant man and his writings—especially The Way of Zen—will continue to affect lives for a long time to come. But I think there was a sense on his part that one could go too far in bringing Buddhism into the practical arenas; and certainly that concern was legitimate during the spontaneous atmosphere of the sixties. But for me Zen has a vital role to play in the moral and social issues of the day. The people I most respected in Japan—Takahashi and Takayama—expressed this clearly as well.

And yet you recently spoke of Takahashi's personal option for Zen over a practical involvement with the issues of his day. Could you clarify?

It's important that we make a distinction here between the period of formal discipleship, and what may follow a completion of study. One must also distinguish between the responsibilities of the disciple and the lay person with a Zen practice.

You know of the idea of "non-attachment" in Zen. I think that the non-attached state is not only desirable, but absolutely necessary. If one is going to make progress in discipleship, one cannot hope to work properly under the guidance of a master while at the same time attending political rallies and getting excited about things outside the Zen community. In World of the Buddha, I have a chapter based on a special surra in Buddhism that is shocking because it suggests that a disciple should not only be apart from, but be virtually disdainful of all life outside the Zen community. The purpose—and I say as much in my commentary—is to lead to the kind of non-attachment that would make progress in a community possible.

Now this is meant, of course, to be abandoned. And the length of time will vary, from disciple to disciple. That attitude reflected in the surra is meant to be supplanted by a healthy, positive attitude of commitment to all living things. But in the process of training there can be no divided allegiance. To an outsider, the intense, non-attached spirit of training in the early stages may seem indifferent, cold, lacking in compassion. And that can be a problem, I think, for many.

The assumption, you see, behind the principle of practicing non-attachment, is—and this may seem a paradox—that action is better performed when one is free of those concerns and concepts that will lead to a kind of unsteadiness; so that if one's hands are free to act without being misdirected by a confused, agonized mind, the action will be all the more perfect. There will be no impulsiveness that might lead to harmful action.

Such as violence?

Zen is uncompromisingly nonviolent.

In relation to this theme of Zen and social commitment, could you comment on one of your better-known poems, "Cherries"?

Because I sit eating cherries
which I did not pick
a girl goes bad under

the elevator tracks, will
never be whole again.
Because I want the full bag,

grasping, twenty-five children
cry for food. Gorging,
I've none to offer. I want

to care, I mean to, but not
yet, a dozen cherries
rattling at the bottom of my bag.

One by one I lift them to
my mouth, slowly break
their skin—twelve nations

bleed. Because I love, because
I need cherries, I
cannot help them. My happiness,

bought cheap, must last forever.

Yes, the poem is an attempt to deal with the suffering of others, not in a self-righteous way, but in the sense of recognizing my own complicity in their suffering. As we luxuriate in our privileges, others suffer; it is not enough to just recognize suffering and injustice. Many of us do indeed "care," and proclaim our opinions, but our lives are so often falsely lived: we go on, taking our pleasures for granted, not thinking that the root of the fruits we enjoy is so often the pain of others. I believe this very strongly, and I think that one might relate that poem to Buddhist Karuna or compassion. I can see it being read very much in that context.

I think we have to examine ourselves constantly. You know this more than most, perhaps, because of your work in Nicaragua; that experience must have helped you more clearly perceive these connections.

The poem works for me as a kind of "ethical koan," if such a thing is possible—a challenge to reevaluate the relationship of one's personal life to one's stated values. It seems that without such self-reflection on deeper motivations and desires, political values will become rigid and self-righteous? You're right that working in Central America opened my eyes to a number of things. It was a rich experience. But frankly, what's interesting to me is how easily upon my return I was pulled back again into the kinds of complicities you deal with in the poem!

I would say that to truly transform one's life—that's the task of Zen. And to be aware of that complicity, to feel that there is something infinitely richer, is a first, difficult step.

On a different theme, but which might bring us back in suggestive ways to some of the questions we've been discussing: Are you familiar with Language poetry?

I'm familiar with the term and I've read some samples of the writing, yes.

Well, as you might know, the Language poets have had a prominent role in the growing interest toward the relationship between politics and poetry here in the U.S. The political "content" of their work is not didactically posed, but rather implicit in the ways the writing itself unsettles conventional constructions of "meaning." I was wondering if you might find any points of convergence between this writing and that of Takahashi, in the sense that he also is involved, insistently, in defamiliarizing conventional ways of seeing and thinking. I've brought along a few poems from Michael Palmer, whose work I admire, and I thought we might use these as a point of reference. Is it possible to see in the ways that both these poets disrupt expected narrative frames, an affinity in attitude toward the relationship of language and world? That conceptual structures are not reflections of reality, but illusions? (Stryk reads "Dearest Reader," "The Night Sky," "Poem in Two Parts," "The Painted Cup" from Palmer's First Figure.)

I think the great problem with finding a similarity between such poems as these by Michael Palmer and those of Takahashi is that Takahashi would leave such formal kinds of concerns behind in attacking what Zennists would see as the important issues. I think theme dominates his most important poems, hence you have pieces such as "Position of the Sparrow," "Burning Oneself to Death," "Disclosure," so many others. These poems advance, of course, in very startling, seemingly fragmentary ways, but never lose sight of their central theme. I think the poems I've just read by Palmer would appear to be a denial of theme and reference. I think the poems are impressive on the intellectual level, and I might find, were I to read more, that there are other stimulations, attractions, interesting nuances, but not of the kind I could relate to the Zen poems I most value.

I was wondering if there might be points of contact in the attitude toward the "self." The Language writers are working to an important extent out of post-structuralist theory, and there is an implicit but consistent critique in the work of traditional conceptions of the unitary "I." Clearly, there would seem to be some analogy here to Zen's attitude towards normative perceptions of self. In a related way, it would seem both Palmer and Takahashi might share some affinity in their epistemological stances towards the "outer world." That is, a strong sense that the narrative continuities we take for granted are not natural, but imposed.

An interesting question, but I would maintain that there is a significant difference. One cannot reduce the intuition of "non-self to a linguistic or formal matter. And if one adopts the view that language is all pervasive—impenetrable, these poets might say—then one can easily get caught-up in the repetitious exercise of the "imitative fallacy," where "non-self is mimicked through all sorts of disjunctions and fragments. Takahashi's poems go far beyond being mere critiques of standard ways of perceiving life; they are that, you see, but they are also profoundly assertive of realms beyond the linguistic. They are, we might say, studies of the "non-self," of the oneness of sunyata and tathata (respectively, the Buddhist concepts of "emptiness" and "suchness").

Now I must say that these remarks are given in a cautious spirit, as I do not know the work of the Language writers all that well. I am saying this all rather instinctively, based on the examples you have just shared with me. Certainly, I would be interested in learning more about the views of these poets.

But couldn't that avoidance of "theme" you were talking about in Language writing be valuable in that it might help redirect our attention toward the fact of language itself, forcing us to pay more heed to the ways in which meanings are constituted? That is, help make us more self-reflexive about the "themes " that structure our assumptions about the world?

It may contribute. But what I would suggest is that fine poems of whatever persuasion or school do that. The fine poem by a Hart Crane, Dylan Thomas, or Wallace Stevens would exhibit all that finesse with language that would ask for the greatest kind of focus on words, the greatest concentration on the manner in which these words mean. I would think that the ideas that inform Language poetry are implicit in many important poems that also communicate with—are grounded in—the world outside language.

There are too many urgencies of life, demanding issues which make us constantly aware of our humanity and challenge our spirit. I suppose some would regard my views as conventional, but how can we forget about these things, or counterpose them to the interests of linguistic experimentation? That we must be aware of language, always look at it afresh, why, yes, this is at the heart of the poetic enterprise. But formalism can be taken too far, I think, and method become a substitute for the poet's responsibility to communicate in ways that can make a meaningful difference.

Your comments are interesting and raise, I think, further questions. Again, it is possible, I think, to find significant affinities between deconstructionist critiques of language and the Buddhist views toward self and conceptual thought. Nagarjuna's writings, for example, which are essential to the Zen doctrine of nothingness, posit that the space between the object and its sign is unbridgeable. Wouldn't the questioning of the assumptions we make within language—an exploration of those linguistic gaps—be a legitimate undertaking from the Zen point of view? In fact, you yourself, ih discussing the poems of Takahashi in the Introduction to Zea Poetry, quote Pingalaka to illustrate the Mahayana doctrine of inter-penetration:

If the cloth had its own fixed, unchangeable self-essence, it could not be made from the thread… the cloth comes from the thread and the thread from the flax.… It is just like the… burning and the burned. They are brought together under certain conditions, and thus there takes place a phenomenon called burning… each has no reality of its own. For when one is absent the other is put out of existence. It is so with all things in this world, they are all empty, without self, without absolute existence. They are like the will-o'-the-wisp.

There are strong suggestions here, it seems to me, to what deconstructionist criticism would term the endless "deferral" of meaning in language.

Let me tell you that Pingalaka's comments are very much the Buddhist view. But as you can see, in order to express it, Pingalaka had to give us very clear images. I think that Language poems might somewhat suggest the feeling of non-self, but as with the danger of the "imitative fallacy," they could at the same time be expressing innumerably other things. Pingalaka, like Takahashi and all Buddhists who write of such things, gives us clear, assertive expression. When Takahashi is writing about denying self, or speaking of the disgust he feels with self, that is the theme. I don't know quite how to put my complaint, but it's just that the poems—and I take it that these are typical, even distinguished among the Language group—do very little for me, they don't direct my imagination. I would think that they tend to be less effective than surreal poems, which they might, at least superficially, resemble. But in the case of surreal poems, with their force and boldness, there is an assertiveness I think can be engaging. What I suppose I am asking is this: if Language poetry is meant to make us more aware of the ultimate ingredient—the word itself—what makes it so very different from a random selection of words taken from the dictionary, when examined very carefully. What is there about the poem itself apart from what I suppose might be seen as tonal unity—the words seem to be tonally chosen—what is there about these words which call for greater focusing and greater examination than perhaps would the random choice of words from any source? You see, what is so compelling about those words, why not turn to five pages of the dictionary?

Well, this actually brings up another question I had, which is the relationship between Zen and chance. There are American artists and writers—John Cage and Jackson MacLow come immediately to mind as artists deeply influenced by Buddhism—who would argue a deep value in chance operations. And actually, a technique employed by some Language writers has been to go to the "dictionary," relying partly on the force of randomness.

Yes, well I'm very much aware of Cage's ideas; I'm very much interested in them. MacLow I know less of, but I'm aware that his name is being increasingly recognized. In the case of the random element in Cage—and here, of course, we are dealing in sound—and I see the parallel and it's a very real one: why not just open your ear to the window, rather than playing Beethoven's Fifth for the five-hundredth time… the ear becomes accustomed to the pattern so that it no longer listens with the kind of attention sound deserves. Why not choose from the air, and delight in the pattern—it could be infinitely more exciting than one of those old war-horses thrown at us! There are wonderful possibilities in the sounds that come at us spontaneously from the wind, the sound of the cars, the sound of glass against glass, what have you. That I respect very much.

But language is very different, I feel. It doesn't so much come at us as that we go for it. In other words, the randomness is of a very different kind. Who knows if when we look at that page of the dictionary, the randomness is always pure? It seems to me that there are many other factors, pressurings if you will, that direct us, nudge us toward a choice. Of course, this is because words and our relationships to them are always bound up with meaning and the complexities of their signification.

Sound is different. The cry of a creature, and the wind's murmur, let us say, rise out of a pure realm, one that doesn't have its source—as language does—in reflective and conceptual thought.

Again, a personal experience, and one that I speak of in my interview with the aesthetician in Encounter with Zen, when we are talking about museum-going, and I say that there have been periods in my life when I had a sense that the movement toward the museum, the walking there, is more visually exciting than anything that happens in the museum. If I look as I should look, if I look at that face moving toward me on the street—look at it, couldn't that experience be more vital than what any painting could give me? The leaf, as I stop to look at it on the branch, or on the pavement, and what Morikawa says to me is, "Well, you can hardly expect me to agree with that, I'm an aesthetician!" But, you see, what I'm saying at that moment is very much what Cage is saying: whenever you look at something as it should be looked at, your learned concepts of what is "mundane" and what is "art" begin to collapse.

Yes, well then to go back to my question about the possible affinities between Dada and Zen, couldn't Duchamp's "found objects," for example, be regarded as an expression of—or at least a desire for—"pure seeing" and pre-reflective awareness?

Hardly. The Dadaists were, I think, searching for oddness, very deliberately.

This leads me into a question I had on the relationship between form and content in Zen literature and art. One finds a distinct difference in representation between, for instance, a Ryokan and a Takahashi. Or between the meditative quiet of the T'ang poets who were very close to Buddhism, like Wang Wei, Tu Fu or Li Po on the one hand, and the almost surrealist tone of your translations that appear in The Crane's Bill and Zen Poetry. It seems one could draw similar distinctions between a Sesshu, whose most famous paintings seemed infused with a delicate stillness, suggesting at the same time a connection to traditional perspective, and the explosive boldness of a Sengai or Hakuin, whose works have a clear thrust toward abstraction, where the figure's representation is most tenuous. What of the relationship between Zen spirit and form? Are these different styles inscribed in different experiences, or perhaps different levels of enlightenment, or is there a single source?

Surely a single source. Now we have to make allowances for very great differences in temperament. We also have to make allowances for the fact that some Zennists, masters included, have been strongly predisposed to the making of powerful poems. Others have been predisposed to responding in ways that might be seen as more delicate. But one must in no way assume that these differences reflect a greater or lesser spiritual experience. I think that when you examine some of the Zen death poems you must have in mind, you will find differences in temperament—some poems as with Nansen, express a profound stillness; others, such as Dogen's, speak of shattering the very universe. Yes, one must make allowances for those differences in temperament that will result in differences in expression.

I think that Takahashi, for instance, would have been seen as genius even had he not gone into Zen. He was, in a sense, the Japanese Rimbaud. But I don't think he would have become as great a human being or as great a poet. Those flashes which distinguish his poetry would still have been there in the formal sense, but of course, we would not have had the powerful resonances that came of his struggle with koans, with those giant issues set before all Zennists: the nature of time, the nature of space, those remarkable insights which derive from his pursuit.

The question is a very interesting one, and I'm sure silently asked by many who are drawn to the Zen arts. Why such great differences in expression between people who are part of the same tradition? But I don't think it would be proper to assume that the poem's form or its tone is necessarily an indication of the depth of the Zen experience.

To what extent might those differences in temperament and expression take place in a single individual involved with Zen and still reflect an integral spiritual experience?

The feelings of the Zennist will differ according to all sorts of circumstances, but the spiritual feeling of the poems will bear a consistency. I think that each time there is the inclination toward poetic expression, whatever forces would be generated by that will, will come to the surface. In other words, when the poem is triggered, when it is called for, all those predispositions which lead to the poem are funneled toward a determined end.

I ask, partly, because I find that in your own work there is a diversity; in the "Rocks of Sesshu," for example, where there is a terseness and compression, a chiseled quality, which seems to differ markedly from some of your newer work in Bells of Lombardy, which is clearly more traditional, in a lyrical sense, than your better known "Zen" poems.

This is a very good question, and I want very much to explain what I think happened. You may remember, from some of the things I have written, the term "man of no title." The Zennist abhors being pigeonholed. When I began Bells of Lombardy, I was very much aware that my better known poems had tended toward that terseness, into which I had tried to pack whatever insight and meaning I had received. I was aware of what my "style" was. And now I wished to write a different poem—one through which readers might wander, in the way they do through, say, a Wallace Stevens poem, taking sensory delight in a richness and accumulation of image and phrase. Secondly because I felt I could do it, and wanted to.

So I wanted to see whether it might be possible to sustain, using the normal narrative and rhetorical devices, a symbolic structure throughout the range of the poem. And begin to have, through the recurrence of these more "lyrical" resonances, special meaning. Knowing, by the way full well—I think I knew—that I would be returning to a method much more evident in my work up until then. This is very much in the spirit of becoming the "man of no title," of not binding oneself, of remaining open to new challenges and problems.

But your forthcoming collection does represent a return to your more "recognizable" style? That of much of the work beginning with The Pit and Other Poems?

I think so, very much. No, I think Bells of Lombardy was a very special book. But I recall delighting at the time in its difference. And I still do.

As you know I'm interested in haiku, and I'd like to ask you a couple of questions on the subject. Here is a quote from your introduction to Zen Poetry:

The Zen experience is centripetal, the artist's contemplation of subject sometimes referred to as "mind-pointing." The disciple in an early stage of discipline is asked to point the mind at (meditate upon) an object, say a bowl of water. At first he is quite naturally inclined to metaphorize, expand, rise imaginatively from water to lake, sea, clouds, rain. Natural perhaps, but just the kind of "mentalization" Zen masters caution against. The disciple is instructed to continue until it is possible to remain strictly with the object, penetrating more deeply, no longer looking at it but, as the Sixth Patriarch Hui-neng maintained essential, as it.

Yet on the previous page you speak also of the finest haiku having a "range of association that is at times astonishing." Does metaphorization in the art of haiku interfere with or deepen the identification with the object itself? For example, is Basho's "Old Pond," read as symbol of the poet's mind, an obstacle to understanding the poem's transcendent nature, or a signpost pointing the way?

Old pond,
leap-splash
a frog.

I think you might remember that in that introduction I draw the comparison between Pound's "In a Station of the Metro,"

The apparition of these faces in the crowd;
Petals on a wet, black bough.

and a haiku by Onitsura,

Autumn wind—
across the fields,
faces.

I point out that in the Onitsura piece there is no metaphor, but rather that it stuns with its immediacy. I think that the greatest haiku avoid the kind of symbolization that tends to take place—consciously or not—in most Western poetry. The paragraph you read aloud is as true as anything I've ever written of Zen training or Zen experience. It is "centripetal." I have heard Zennists speak constantly of the dangers of mentalization, and they would see the seeking for similes and comparisons as instances of mind-drifting. I think that the most important examples of haiku probably come as a result of that staying with the object, exploring it for all its worth, finding within it the imaginative essence. I'm sure there would be exceptions, but if you take, for example, the great Buson haiku:

A sudden chill—
in our room my dead wife's
comb, underfoot.

Well, there is no metaphor there. And I think there are very few figurative flights in great haiku. The directness, the simplicity, the extraordinary juxtaposition, that in its truest form cancels simile.

But what of the "range of association?"

The range of association is precisely the result. For example in the Buson, there is no metaphor to that. The complexity of sentiment that is generated by that act is what I mean by association. It isn't the sort of thing we might mean in speaking of the many different metaphors or images we would be likely to find in a "good" Western poem. There is a very great range of association in the Basho poem you mentioned, but not in terms of simile or metaphor.

Very well, but I believe I speak for many in saying that I have read Basho's "Old Pond" on a symbolic level, where the pond is the real pond itself, but also a metaphor for the poet's mind.

That is the way it is often read and quite properly. I think that it might be read on both levels, and why not? That profound symbolism is part of its greatness—and I use "symbolism" here in distinction to metaphor. In Western metaphor an image tends to stand for something beyond itself, and often in a subordinate relation to it. In the kind of "symbolization" we find in the Basho poem, there is a profound dissolution of categories; a pure merging of inside and outside.

I think that one has to know, in order to appreciate the poem as much as it should be appreciated, the circumstances of Basho's conversation with the Master Butcho. It is out of that exchange, and the act of the frog's leaping, that his mind was exploded and enlightenment ensued.

In the way that double reading is made possible, could it be said that haiku collapse the expected hierarchies of symbolization? In other words, that while in our tradition the symbol points to an "other," in the haiku the "suchness" of experience fully encompasses the symbol?

Take, for example, the great poem by Boncho:

Nightingale—
my clogs
stick in the mud

How much that tells us of Boncho's sensibility. We might say the poem is "symbolic," in a narrative sense; we know here that an unusual man has been stopped in his tracks by a bird's song. And we may well imagine many things about the circumstances surrounding the event. And yet the poem simultaneously shatters the narrative connection, exposing the utter strangeness and mystery of the experience. Again, the range of association becomes infinite.

Then the challenge would be to penetrate that narrative level?

Well, I suppose I might say that great haiku ultimately challenge our propensities to make these analytical distinctions! It's curious, I had a meeting with two young poets in Chicago just the other day…

Not Language poets, I suppose?

(Laughing) No, though I do hope they would understand that my previous comments were made in a modest and noncontentious spirit—perhaps sometime I will have the chance to sit down with one or more of them also, and learn more about their views. But anyway, one of these poets in Chicago was telling me that haiku had influenced his work a great deal and that Issa was his favorite poet in the world. And though his own poetry bears no resemblance whatsoever to the haiku, he spoke to me of how the work startles him and of the way he receives impressive haiku. And he wants, somehow, to bring that spirit into his own work. I mention this, without being more specific, I suppose, because poems by Buson, Issa, Basho, the other great masters, make their impact through their method, without recourse to the kinds of elements and practices we seem to feel Western poetry would require. The bareness is the marrow of that richness. The Boncho, the Onitsura examples I quoted, make this so clear.

There is a relatively large and vibrant community of haiku poets in the United States and Canada—some of them like Robert Spiess, Marlene Mountain, John Wills, Elizabeth Searle Lamb, to name only a few, important practitioners of the art. But the haiku seems little practiced among "mainstream" poets. In fact, you do not seem to write any yourself! Why?

As for myself, I can only answer with the utmost frankness and risk, I suppose, seeming overly dramatic. Because I have worked now for so many years studying the great haikuists, I find myself powerless, simply not knowing how to begin. I have tried, I have found myself too much concerned, too self-conscious, in a way that I never am with my other writing. I am too aware of the shadow of Issa and Basho, of what this art has brought into being. It's a confession of which I am not proud. But I have tried from time to time, and always have felt the efforts were laughable in comparison. Perhaps those pieces I have come away with might have been seen by others as "publishable." I don't know, because no one except myself has ever seen them! I do think I understand the dynamics of haiku, their linguistic structure, their relationship to Zen spirit and principles. But I am afraid I have become too overwhelmed by what has been accomplished to be a true artist in the form. Now, my great hope is that as a translator I am successful in registering the excitement I feel. And I would like to think I have contributed meaningfully in this way.

Another issue is that as a writer of "normal" poems, the world I experience as an American living in Illinois rests, as far as making poems goes, on devices that would have to be seen as more traditional and Western. This is a very odd thing, perhaps. As you know, image and metaphor are very important to my work. The haiku on the other hand, certainly must have affected my work—even if unconsciously—when, for example, I composed "Rocks of Sesshu" or "Awakening." So the feelings here have a strange mixture.

Might that "silence " on your part toward the haiku imply you would consider it the highest expression of written art?

I believe very strongly that the finest haiku are among the most sophisticated expressions of human spirit, yes. No poetry has affected me more profoundly than the haiku of the great masters. But I wanted to return to something you said in your question about haiku not having found an audience among mainstream poets. And I must say that if that has been true, then things would seem to be undergoing a change. Robert Bly, for example, has been deeply affected by the art; Robert Hass, Sam Hamill, I recall, have written well on Basho; and W. S. Merwin, of course, in his fine, recent book Finding the Islands, explores the form in interesting ways. So I wonder if we are not seeing a shift toward a new receptiveness.

You have been involved with Zen for many years now, and a number of your poems have dealt frankly with the difficulties and frustrations of spiritual discipline. To return again to "Willows," which closes your Collected Poems:

WILLOWS

(for Taigan Takayama, Zen master)

I was walking where the willows
ring the pond, meaning to reflect
on each, as never before, all
twenty-seven, examine twig by twig,
leaf by pointed leaf, those delicate
tents of greens and browns. I'd

tried before, but always wound up
at my leafless bole of spine, dead
ego stick, with its ambitions,
bothers, indignations. Times
I'd reach the fifth tree before
faltering, once the seventeenth.

Then, startled by grinding teeth,
sharp nails in the palm, turn back,
try again. Hoping this time to
focus on each bough, twig, leaf,
cast out all doubts that brought
me to the willows. This time

it would be different, could see
leaves shower from the farthest
tree, crown my head, bless my eyes,
when I awakened to the fact—
mind drifting to the trees ahead.
I was at fault again, stumbling to

the flap of duck, goose, a limping
footstep on the path behind,
sun-flash on the pond. Such excuse,
easy to find, whether by willows
or bristling stations of a life.
Once more, I'm off. This time

all's still. Alone, no one to blame
distractions on but self. Turn in

my tracks, back to the starting point.
Clench, unclench my hands, breathe in,
move off telling the leaves like
rosary-beads, willow to willow. Mind

clear, eye seeing all, and nothing.
By the fifth, leaves open to me,
touch my face. My gaze, in wonderment,
brushes the water. By the seventh,
know I've failed. Weeks now, I've been
practicing on my bushes, over, over again.

You have devoted your life to Zen, and yet speak without hesitation about being an "unenlightened man." To conclude this interview, I wanted to ask you: How can we be sure that there really is such a thing as "enlightenment"?

We can be sure by meeting those who have experienced it. It has been my great privilege to know intimately people like Taigan Takayama, Shinkichi Takahashi, and to see how their lives have been affected; to live among them, to hear them talk, observe their interaction with the world, to read their work, that is how we can know.

While "Willows" is, on one level, about disappointment, I want it to be equally seen as a poem of positive values—an expression of an unenlightened man attempting to better his life, who makes an effort to practice "Zenkan," or pure-seeing, so that he might go from one willow to another, without being turned around constantly by inner conflicts and problems. It is a mirror poem in the sense that more than any mirror could show, the trees reveal one after another the degree of my unenlightenment, the distance I would have to travel in order to find awakening. And the poem, I suppose, might be seen in its final stanza as humorous. Maybe it should be! It is in a way amusing that I must lower my sights by "practicing on my bushes." But I'm still involved and hopeful, and this is the most important thing.

And we can be aware of the possibilities of Zen through practice itself. Zenkan is difficult, but through it we can come to sense, even if we never fully grasp it, that there is something fathomless of which we are a part. I may never become enlightened, but I can say that I am not the man I was when I began. My hope, always, is that the change over the years has been transmitted through the work.