Adventures in Haiku

Keith Jewitt (70-77) talks about his debut haiku collection, In a Magpie’s Eye: the Jesmond Year in Haiku.

Far went they forth from the School of the North”– these unforgettable words from The School Songare both a statement of historical fact, and an exhortation to future “ generations to continue going forth. I always try to do the opposite of what is expected of me, and in one respect I’ve succeeded –because I’ve spent my whole life moving closer to the school. I lived with my parents in Tyne Dock; then Benton, the first home

I bought was on Osborne Road in

Jesmond, then four years ago, I moved to a flat only 200 yards or so from the RGS.

Why is this relevant? Because my flat has a wonderful and inspiring view over the garden attached to Newcastle’s Mansion

House. Like most people who have outgrown work, I have plenty to fill up my time, but a portion of each day is always devoted to watching what is going on in my little-known urban paradise. After a while

I started to record my observations in haiku, a 400-year-old Japanese poetry form which was popularised in Britain by North Eastern poet, James Kirkup.

I use the ‘traditional’ haiku structure which I first encountered at RGS in 1972 and which is still taught in many schools.

The opening haiku in my book tells the reader roughly how this works:

Write down what you see in seventeen syllables no more and no less.

Then I make it more precise:

Five in the first line seven in the second, and five more in the third.

Many modern haikuists favour a looser structure, but I decided that I needed the discipline of this traditional approach. I also confined myself to the traditional haiku subject – observations of nature including, where possible, markers of the passing seasons. Finally, out of sheer laziness, I decided to work only in Jesmond, bounded to the south by the Civic Centre and to the north by Matthew Bank – my area therefore includes the RGS.

I set myself the challenge of trying to see the Jesmond year through the eyes of its non-human inhabitants – mainly the animals, the trees and the birds. I spotted small conflicts over territory: birds nesting and then either raising young or abruptly going away; trees looking almost dead through the winter, then suddenly bursting into leaf. Best of all, I spent hours watching a family of Kestrels, feeding their young all spring and teaching them to fly in summer. Each time I gathered some potential raw material, I noted it down on the back of an envelope – a primitive form of recycling. I then worked on the envelope sketch until it was moulded into haiku form.

When I had accumulated 100 or so haiku (NB: haiku are like sheep – the singular and plural are the same) I began to think that they might make a book. At this point, the task changed – in addition to recording each moment, I was also trying to build a considered collection telling the story of a whole year. Oddly, when I took stock of my material, I found that the summer months were under-represented, possibly because so much is hidden by trees. As a result, I spent the summer of 2017 being extra-vigilant, especially on my daily shopping trips up Osborne Road, when I am often accompanied by Crows and Jackdaws.

Finally, my collection was more or less complete, so I asked one friend (who is a leading Poet) to read it and another friend (who is a part-time Publisher) to publish it. Both, astonishingly, said yes.

This all sounds far too easy doesn’t it? It was in fact at this point that the hard work began. My Poet-friend urged me to remove anything which read like ‘Telegraphese’ – a concept which I am just old enough to understand. He also strongly advised

Keith at his book launch at Blackwell’s book shop, Newcastle upon Tyne

me to remove my original highly irreverent epilogue, saying, “This is the sort of thing Larkin might have got away with – but only just”.

Then a long argument broke out with my Publisher over the title. Throughout the writing process my working title was The Haiku Diary of a Geordie Gentleman, which is a pretty exact description of the book’s contents, but the Publisher rejected it. I resorted to asking my other friends what they thought of it, with varying results. Eventually my wife settled the first phase of the argument by commenting that it sounded more like a range of table mats than a book!

Now, having abandoned my original title, I had to find a new one. In a Magpie’s Eye aims to tap into all of the different meanings of the word ‘Magpie’. First, because of our football strip, all Novocastrians are Magpies. Second, the Magpie is a gatherer of miscellaneous objects. Third, the real-life Magpie is present in Jesmond throughout all four seasons – always finding new ways to survive, always looking as though he/she has a plan.

I’m going to finish by quoting two haiku conceived just a few yards away from the RGS. First, the spring at Eslington House:

Eslington House pink shockinger than puce, blossom of a tree in heat.

Second, a winter haiku at Jesmond Metro station:

Unfancied by birds, Metro tunnel tree shows its berries to the sun.

Keith Jewitt’s In a Magpie’s Eye: the Jesmond Year in Haikuis available from Blackwell’s bookshop in Newcastle, from the Laurel Books

website and from Amazon.