Mitsuaki Kojima

　The new year has renewed our haikuists interest in writing about everyday events that become special because they occur for the first time in the year. Doc Sunday scored his first haiku win of the year for his poem that was selected by the Satsumasakura club. And Corr recorded the first sneeze of the new year in his Uenoyama area home.

Adjusting
kimono sash:
first sneeze

　On the seventh day of celebrating the new year in Yamanashi, Marites Omori savored the last piece of rice cake. And in Nagoya, Satoru Kanematsu writes with relish about his first hamburger proving that almost any topic can be written about poetically.

Seventh day
eating the last piece
green rice cake

Hamburgers
after new year's feast
with old friends

　Listed among winter season haiku references to animals such as kuma the hibernating bear, ukinedori meaning waterfowl that float asleep, and kujira the whale-is the namako, the sea slug. One of the stranger kidai (haiku topics), the sea cucumber is a shell-less mollusk that regularly appears in Japanese folklore and in haiku. Robin G. Gill just wrote a book about them.

　"Rise, Ye Sea Slugs!" is a 480-page book published by Paraverse Press that is solely dedicated to the plain-looking relative of the sea urchin and starfish. One thousand holothurian haiku were compiled and translated by the author for the first edition that was printed by Lightning Source in the United States and Britain.

　This new year haiku attributed to Soshun (1666-1740) was translated into a 3-5-3 syllable form by the author.

　toshi o hete nan no yo ni ka namako oke

a new year
what can we do with
the slug tub?

　In a chapter titled the nebulous sea slug, the following haiku by Masaoka Shiki (1867-1902) was translated literally and in a pithy English version by the author based on his preference for seven beats rather than 5-7-5 syllables translation.

　Hare mo sezu yuki ni mo narazu namako kana

　Clear does-not, snow-too become-not seaslug

won't clear
won't snow: call it
"sea slug!"

　Members of the class phylum Echinodermata, 1,400 species can be found around the globe. Several species live in seas around Japan. It is eaten raw, dipped in vinegar and soy sauce. The kinko species found in northern Japan and baika namako in Kyushu and Okinawa are used in Chinese cooking. Here is another haiku from Gill's intriguing book.

sea cucumber
struck speechless by
its own wonder

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