白く白くどこまでも愛より深く祈ってる 種田スガル
shiroku shiroku dokomademo ai yori fukaku inotteru
white so white my prayer deeper than love
Sugaru Taneda
from “Chô–Shinsen 21” , (“Super New Selection 21,” an anthology of the haiku poets under 50-year-olds) edited by Bansei Tsukushi, Yasuko Tsushima, Leona Takayama, You-shorin, Nagano, Japan, December 2010
Fay’s Note: According to the bio and the editor’s note, she was born in 1986 and started writing haiku in 2010 right after she read “Shinsen 21,” a haiku anthology under 40 years. She chose ‘Taneda” for her haiku name because Santoka Taneda is a brother of a grandmother of her grandparents. This is free-style, non 5-7-5 format.
3 editors chose 19 poets for this anthology and left the last 2 spots for ‘open’ contest. 64 poets sent his/her work (100 haiku each). Sugaru Taneda and Fuko Ogawa (her haiku will appear here tomorrow) were the winners.
Blue Willow Haiku World (by Fay Aoyagi) 
This certainly is a marvelous haiku… and points the way to the depth of understanding one can acheive with the art.
Merrill: Glad to hear you like this one. Honestly speaking, I had a hard time choosing my favorite from her 100 haiu in the anthology.
Hi, Fay, It may be peculiar to me…but being an artist… I face a blank piece of white paper as I come to the point where what is in me trying to come out faces the requirements of that white page to make it happen. That white page is more terrifying than any editor can possibly be and yet more deeply requiring what is in me than any lover could possibly be for until that pen marks that paper it remains an empty page. There are many negotiations between us during the execution of the drawing… it’s almost like a marriage that has gone past being in love but it so essential to life itself. I suppose it might be the same for a writer too… to come to the blank page. But a writer has a lot more lea way than I do as the slightest off-curve of the smallest line on a drawing can render it useless sometimes.
That anthology sounds very interesting if this is an example of what it contains. Could you give me some information on if it’s available???
Many thanks Fay, for your great help with these.
P.S. I hope you understand that when I used the illustration of a piece of paper requiring the drawing…it was as a metaphore for the prayer requiring our deepest truth.
Merrill: Thank you for your comment! Next 20 days or so, I will introduce one haiku each of the poets in this anthology. Unfortunately, this is Japanaese anthology and I am not interested in book-length translation. I do hope English language poets take a peak… at least.
Dear Fay, So glad you will make some of these haiku available in English. I have never been able to learn another language and understanding that Japanese has so many cultural implications I realize that any attempt to even try would be futile. But a book like that is very interesting to me. I am thankful for your translations.
Nice blog, add my knowledge. Thanks