The samurai of Japan were more than warriors, they were also poets, as third-graders at the Dayton School learned.
By: Amanda Bok
He rang the gong and everything stopped.
The small library at the Dayton School ceased being a library, the third-graders sitting on the floor stopped being students and teachers stopped having to admonish them to behave.
Fourth-grade teacher Chris Rossman rang the gong and he stopped being a teacher.
Dressed in the wide-rimmed hakama pants that looked like something from a martial arts movie and bamboo-matted slippers, he seemed more like a samurai warrior than an educator.
But Mr. Rossman wasn’t going to talk about samurai warriors or their history. He was there to talk about their poetry, haiku.
Haiku is Japanese poetry that uses few words because it also speaks through what is left unsaid, he told students.
Haiku poetry is composed of three lines, with five syllables in the first line, seven in the second and five in the third. Words do not have to rhyme or form sentences in haiku, but they must adhere to the syllable- and line-pattern.
The third-grade classes of Jennifer Klein, Martha Sletteland and Sandy Pierce are studying haiku as part of their literature curriculum. They gathered Tuesday morning in the library to learn more about it from Mr. Rossman, who has studied Japanese martial arts for more than 25 years and is also a lay Buddhist priest of Japanese tradition.
Mr. Rossman rested his left arm on the hilt of his long, slender sword, called a katana in Japanese. He didn’t wait long for the room to silence. He hushed it with his presence.
Mr. Rossman began by explaining the purpose and essence of haiku to students, using several props to illustrate his point. On a table behind him lay a bamboo flute, a round temple bowl gong made of brass, an old book of haiku poetry and a kit to clean his katana sword.
Haiku is the poetry of the samurai, Mr. Rossman told students. It originates from a Chinese poetic style called tanka, which consisted of seven lines. Over the years, the Japanese developed it into their own poetic form, hokku, which consisted of a minimum of seven and a maximum of 15 lines. During the time of the samurai, hokke poetry shortened into its present form and was renamed haiku.
"Samurai means ‘to serve’ in Japanese," Mr. Rossman told students, explaining to them that samurai warriors were like navy or marine men today, but fought regularly. During the time of the samurai, warriors protected the properties of several individuals. They were ranked second to the nobility under the old Japanese system of social classes.
Samurai warriors didn’t know how long they would live because they were almost constantly fighting, he said. They needed everything in their lives to be simple, clear, concise and to the point. They needed to celebrate life and enjoy every day, for it might be their last, he said.
That’s why they created an art form that is simple, concise and uses only necessary language.
"Haiku is very misunderstood in the west because it uses few words and seems insubstantial," Mr. Rossman said. "But what you say in haiku poetry, and what you don’t say, are equally important."
Mr. Rossman rang the temple bowl gong. The sound resonated for 30 seconds without ceasing, without growing fainter, until he hushed the gong’s rim with his finger tips.
"What’s the most valuable part of this gong in making it work?" Mr. Rossman asked students. The sides, some answered. The inside, others said.
"If this were completely solid, would it do anything?" he asked, nodding to the replies of students.
"The outside gives it its value. The inside gives it its function," he told them. "Let’s think about this. ‘Nothing’ is what makes this really work. ‘Nothing’ is what is important."
Some students giggled. Others murmured. They all smiled.
Mr. Rossman picked up a second instrument, a dark brown, bamboo flute, and played it for a few seconds.
When he stopped he held it in the air, looked inside it like a telescope and held it out to students.
"This is a plain old piece of bamboo. It has nothing inside. But could it make nice music if it were solid?" he asked once again.
"What’s really important is what’s not there. Its emptiness is what makes it work. Haiku poetry is like that."
Mr. Rossman picked up an old, dusty book of haiku poetry. He read a poem’s translation to students: "In silent midnight our old scarecrow topples down weird hollow echo."
"The person who wrote this thought as much about what they needed to say, as about what didn’t need to be in there," he said.
"It is a simple poem, but we can imagine it."
Mr. Rossman explained that haiku often focuses on the environment, nature and everyday life. Despite its simplicity, haiku poetry is difficult to write because it asks us to think in a different way. It comes from a different language, he said.
Then he told students to take out their pencils and try to compose a haiku poem. It doesn’t have to have sentences, he told them, just use three lines and try to count the syllables.
In the next few minutes students poured over their notebooks, mumbled to themselves or stared into the distance in concentration. After a short silence, Mr. Rossman called on them to share. A handful of students read short lines about their grandmothers, dogs or siblings.
"It’s hard to think of the syllables," said Ms. Klein’s student, Zach St. Patrick, at the end of the presentation.
"It’s weird to say things in few words," said Ms. Pierce’s student, Jillian Holzheimer.
Towards the end of the presentation, Mr. Rossman showed students his sword and how it is cleaned.
He kneeled down, placed the sword on the ground and bowed before it. Then he took it out of its black casing and placed it on the floor. He dabbed a fine, white powder along the inside, then the outside of the blade. The dust bounced off the blade like a light fog. It was ground deer bone, used traditionally because it lifts moisture off the blade without scratching it, said Mr. Rossman. Then he carefully wiped the sword down, put it back into its casing, and bowed before it before standing up.
"Everything in samurai culture is done very precisely," he said. "That’s how you have to write haiku poetry."
Dozens of arms sprung into the air when the presentation was over. Students asked questions about the sword, its uses and his martial arts experiences. Afterward they said they had learned a lot about haiku poetry, but also about other things.
"I learned that samurai showed respect for things," said Ms. Pierce’s student, Gregory Anowachek, referring to how Mr. Rossman had cleaned the sword.
"I learned that you should enjoy every single day of life because there’s an end to everything," said Anisha Chadda, Ms. Klein’s student.