e a m harris

Carpe Diem #948 brush

The post #948 on Carpe Diem deals with the haiku principle of yugen. This word, first used by Chinese philosophers, generally means ‘mystery’ and ‘unknowable depth’.

It is up to the reader to decide if a poem has yugen or not, so interpreting the term is very subjective.

I have no problem with this. I think that all responses to all poems are subjective, and readers frequently find features the poet did not intend and miss others s/he worked hard to include.

Maybe most poems have an element of yugen – sometimes it’s obvious and other times obscure.

Twinkle, twinkle little star
How I wonder what you are.

may be a rhyme for children, but does it differ much from

Tyger, tyger burning bright
In the forests of the night.

In my opinion Blake’s poetry includes yugen, even though he probably didn’t know the term.

But back to #948. The following is my contribution to the discussion:

Deer fly when no one
watches. In the snowy field
their flight leaves no prints.