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Suiseki

Rainfall has stopped; it’s the best time for hunting a stone.
Drizzle still dampens debris;
Trees put forth roots unobtrusively; mosses have grown;
Animals leaving their burrows run free—
Sodden land quivers, unearthing examples unknown.

Seeking encounters fortuitous, off we proceed,
Hillsides with streams our most suitable goal,
Forested banks far from urbanized greed,
Health for the soul.

What are we looking for? Character, dignity, beauty austere,
Striking simplicity, curious appeal.
One in ten thousand, attractive to one of us here,
Sculpted by nature conveying a hardy ideal,
Resting among circumambient charm as a thing
Judged by its shape, color, texture and heft the prime trophy to bring
Home and discover the essence its features reveal.

Leaving the landscape unmarred by our search,
Each of us washes his find to see all of its surface emerge.

Into which class will it fit?
Mountain or island or waterfall, figure or animal, dwelling or pool?
Where is its front and the base upon which it must sit?
Study is needed to choose proper placement through wit.
Merit suggests more than one, but our choice has a rule:
Finders decide while experience guides in the waterstone school.

Pleasure and honor increase as observers survey
Special collections of picturesque stones on display.
Energy surges—exhibits dry dappled from splashes or spray.

Honor and pleasure repay cultivation of stone.

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Margaret Coats lives in California.  She holds a Ph.D. in English and American Literature and Language from Harvard University.  She has retired from a career of teaching literature, languages, and writing that included considerable work in homeschooling for her own family and others. 


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40 Responses

  1. Brian A Yapko

    Margaret, this is a most enjoyable and intriguing poem on a subject of Japanese culture with which I am unfamiliar. I will surely offer a more detailed comment when I have access again to my computer next week. In the meantime, I am particularly intrigued by the rhyme-scheme and line structure of this poem. May I assume different line lengths to reflect the variety of stones one may find on a search in nature?

    Reply
    • Paul Martin Freeman

      Irregularity is of the essence
      To illustrate the water stone’s quintessence.
      So kindly don’t expect conformity
      As that would only be deformity.

      Reply
      • Margaret Coats

        Thank you, Paul Martin, for this regular quatrain giving the logical reason for my irregular lines. A chosen suiseki, one that is a real find, must be unique, not like a brick or a concrete block or even like the other stones at the edge of the stream. The shape of the poem (with different line lengths and stanza lengths) reflects that, within a context of dactylic meter and rhyme.

    • Margaret Coats

      Brian, that’s an interesting suggestion. I had thought of the poem as a single suiseki. They can be quite large. But the varying line lengths could reflect the variety of stones available for choice when making a search. The Japanese word means either “water stone” or “water stones.” I’ll say more about the rhyme scheme to Colonel Peterson below, as he is our fellow poet most insistent on rhyme. Looking forward to your further comment!

      Reply
  2. Roy Eugene Peterson

    Margaret, fascinating subject and rhyme pattern. My pleasure in reading this poem was my grandfather often took me on walks (ages 5-13 –we moved to Texas after that) through pastures, by streams, on mountain excursions, and went with the family on trips searching for agates, jasper, and other stones that he could fashion into jewelry. Montana agates and Fairburn, South Dakota ones were particularly prized. I note your varied uses for the stones found in Japan that are much more than for jewelry. Then I remembered the pet rock craze of several decades ago. In other words, I was totally immersed in reading your wonderful poem and reveling in the images it conveyed.

    Reply
    • Margaret Coats

      Roy, suiseki really are like pet rocks to individual collectors. You are correct that they are different from gemstones. They are “viewing stones” not used for jewelry. No cutting or polishing is allowed, although an exception may be made for a single cut to release the stone from a larger formation, or to provide a better base.

      I made the rhyme a pattern (as you say), because a rhyme scheme would require something more like regular stanzas. Rhyme does, however, stay within each stanza. That means my 2-line and 3-line stanzas can only have one rhyme sound. The 4-line and 5-line stanzas rhyme alternate lines on two rhyme sounds; the 6-line stanza also has two rhyme sounds but in an abaabb pattern. The 7-line stanza uses three rhyme sounds. Now what to do with that final 1-line stanza? It goes back to the first rhyme sound of the poem, AND includes an internal rhyme with the stanza immediately preceding it. So, the varied line lengths may look like crazy free verse, but they have a dominant meter and every line rhymes! I knew you would appreciate that, and I am glad it brought back memories of looking for stones in nature, along with your grandfather as experienced guide.

      Reply
  3. Cynthia Erlandson

    I enjoyed this as well, particularly the originality of the varied numbers of meters in each line, and the interesting rhyme scheme. Also, it reminded me that, in order to be a good poet (I believe), one needs to take interest in the concrete things in the world and their various beauties.

    Reply
    • Margaret Coats

      Thanks, Cynthia. The two to seven feet per line make up the intriguing peaks and valleys of the poem! I agree with you that poets do well at times to turn their interests to concrete natural beauty. Suiseki appreciation demands applying imagination to the treasured stones, and some collectors go so far as to write poems to accompany a stone on display.

      Reply
  4. Paul Freeman

    I’m happy to read a poem like this, Margaret, not just for its unique lyrical format, but because I wrote a poem about a stone quite recently, and yesterday was working on a rediscovered poem about a fossil in a stone. Your right that when writing about nature its good to sometimes pick a more tangible subject.

    Thanks for the edifying read.

    Reply
    • Margaret Coats

      Thank you, Paul. These stones represent another way of looking through nature–to bypass much of it and find one object with special meaning intelligible to the individual. That can be beneficial to artists and to anyone who wants to be happier and more appreciative of the world around us.

      Reply
  5. Joseph S. Salemi

    This is a beautiful poem, and is especially to my taste because it takes as its subject something unusual, strange, unexpected: the unpredictable appeal of an object and our human response to it. Countless individual stones can be dull and not noteworthy, but every so often one turns up that has a charm and gracefulness that set it apart. Shape and color and texture and natural patterns all touch some deep aesthetic nerve in us. Leave it to the Japanese to turn this phenomenon into a cultural experience.

    I have spent hours in newly-dug trenches at construction sites, and have been lucky enough on occasion to find a stone of such beautiful characteristics that I had to take it home.

    Reply
    • Margaret Coats

      Thanks, Joe. I recall your two poems about stone, and the one on a shell stuck in sidewalk concrete. I was a collector before I knew about Japanese ideas on the subject. Rescued a lovely wedge of Ohio rose quartz with mica flecks that was being used as a doorstop, and I still have it uninjured. The Japanese started appreciating stones because of Chinese scholar stones (meditative desk ornaments), but as the Japanese often do, they took something good from elsewhere and did even better with it. There are suiseki groups and displays all over the world. I noticed a very active one in upstate New York, but I can imagine there isn’t much opportunity to search out stones in the city–except at construction sites.

      Reply
    • Margaret Coats

      Here’s another thank you, Joe, hoping that it may help release the earlier one from cyberspace.

      Reply
    • Margaret Coats

      Thanks, BDW, for relaying Basil’s reflection. I just looked at my Victorian anthology, and I see Coventry Patmore uses rhymed lines of varying lengths in poems long and short on diverse subjects. “The Toys” (almost unbearably emotional) mentions a treasured stone. For the technique well done in a short poem on a topic we can all appreciate, there’s “Magna Est Veritas.” I much appreciate your bringing up these analogues.

      Reply
      • BDW

        as per Basil Drew Eceu:

        Coventry Patmore (1823-1896) once wrote to Gerard Manley Hopkins (1884-1889)”: “Your careful and subtle fault finding is the greatest praise my poetry has ever received.” And I do not doubt it—at all.

        I must admit my ownly [sic] interest in Patmore was peripherally back in the early 1970s, perhaps more in his prose, when I was absorbed in the poetry of Hopkins.

      • Margaret Coats

        I recall that Coventry Patmore was among literary critics of the past that I had to read as a beginning graduate student (late 1970s). The English department was trying to make us talk more like critics, and this was certainly a better method than forcing us to adopt current literary “isms,” as is done today even to undergraduates (causing a decline in popularity for English as a major). Still, I prefer the poetry; in my opinion, Patmore is underappreciated. But to each his own! I am glad to hear you say you were absorbed in the poetry of Hopkins, rather than in his criticism.

  6. Joshua C. Frank

    I like it. I’m not used to the uneven meter and stanza length, but I guess it’s fitting given the subject.

    I’m fairly familiar with Japanese culture, but I’ve never heard of suiseki stones. Thanks for introducing me to this concept.

    Reply
    • Margaret Coats

      Thank you, Joshua. Now please tell me where the meter is uneven! Let’s see if you choose the place where I think a reader might be tempted to make a mistake, or the place where there is a potential substitution.

      Reply
      • Joshua C. Frank

        I didn’t mean the scansion, I meant the line lengths. Sorry about that, I should have been more clear.

      • Margaret Coats

        Thanks again, Josh. I’m glad you didn’t notice a metrical problem, because my unusual procedure with line length only works well if supported by dominant regular meter. I was a little worried that someone might slip back into iambic with “trees put forth roots,” but now I have your testimony (as well as my husband’s and Evan’s) that it didn’t cause a cough. “Curious appeal” might have an extra syllable to some readers, but by that point in the poem, the dactylic meter is established.

        Because of BDW’s comment, I read some of Coventry Patmore’s poems with irregular line lengths, and found that even ideas expressed in our usual iambic meter could get confused. Reserving special effects for very occasional use, with appropriate subjects, is best!

  7. C.B. Anderson

    Well, Margaret, I need to get me some o’ them thar things, if I don’t have some lying around already. As others have noted, your heterometric approach to the subject is perfectly apposite. As it happens, carefully chosen & placed stones are always an important feature of gardens I construct — tack to the next Stone Age, I say.

    Reply
    • Margaret Coats

      C. B., when we try to grow vegetables around here, the first step is getting rid of “local potatoes” and replacing them with actual soil. Only very slowly do they come back on their own (unlike weeds and critters). You undoubtedly choose and place much more view-worthy stones in your creations. Thanks for reading the poem and approving its heterometry.

      Reply
      • C.B. Anderson

        Most edible plants, Margaret, don’t mind threading their roots around rocks, but try to grow something like carrots in those conditions and you will have a tough go of it. Your soil sounds like it has a lot of what Connecticut soil is famous for.

      • Margaret Coats

        We grew tomatoes above and sweet potatoes below. Learned from a Japanese gardener with limited space, and it worked nicely because tomato season was over before the sweet potatoes were ready. But you are correct that leafy greens could co-exist with rocks in the soil.

  8. Monika Cooper

    Margaret, I’m intrigued by the East-West interplay or fusion in this and so many of your poems. The poem on the page has an asymmetrical blockiness, like a distinctive stone.

    Milosz said in one poem that “rocks are here to hurt our feet.” And that’s part of the story but there is much more, as your poem brings out. It makes me think of the various useless and unconventionally beautiful rocks and pebbles in my life.

    Reply
    • Margaret Coats

      Monika, I would say beautiful rocks and pebbles are far from useless. There are little bursts of satisfaction at seeing or touching them, and some open up stores of memory. And I love the story of Dr. Samuel Johnson, our first dictionary maker, kicking away a stone and saying, “So much for Bishop Berkeley!” Berkeley was a foolish cleric who thought material things did not exist.

      I have been fascinated by Japan since childhood, and having married an art historian whose specialty is Japan, I had the great privilege of living in Kyoto for several years. The Kamo river runs through the city, and there are seven specific areas for gathering different kinds of suiseki along its banks and those of its tributary, the Takano.

      Reply
      • C.B. Anderson

        You underestimate Berkeley, Margaret, and you interpret his findings too narrowly.

      • Margaret Coats

        My esteem for Berkeley is less than Johnson’s. The existence of material things “in perception” remains a difficulty for bodily beings who trust their senses for education. And when we come to those higher things of the spirit, we have to test the spirits on the basis of earlier learning from books and teachers (i.e., sight and hearing).

  9. Joseph S. Salemi

    My wife and I live in a house built in 1899, that has been in her family since 1910. For the first three decades after it was built, the house was heated by coal (most homes in New York City were), until the switch to oil was made in the 1930s.

    Many years ago, I discovered in the cellar a large number of reddish granite stones, from two to three inches in length and about two inches wide. They were smooth and polished, and lovely to look at and to hold. An elderly relative explained to me that these were used in coal furnaces when (prior to banking the furnace at night) ashes, clinkers, and unburnt chunks of coal were sifted out by shaking over a metal grate. The granite stones were there to help the process along. Since this sifting occurred every day for over thirty-five years, the originally rough granite pieces had become as rounded and smooth and shiny as river pebbles.

    Something beautiful had been created — not by anyone’s plan or intention, but by sheer accident. Years later, when a maintenance man came to repair some part of our oil burner, I spoke with him about the history of the house. He asked if the place had originally been heated by coal. I said yes, and then went upstairs to get three of the small granite stones, which I gave to him. He was dumbfounded, and said “I’ve never seen them before, but I know EXACTLY what they are! Everybody in the heating business does! Thank you very much!”

    Reply
    • Margaret Coats

      This is a wonderful story, Joe. In the last part, you show the generosity that develops in “cultivators of stone.” There is much satisfaction in giving or exchanging our treasures with others who will appreciate them. And now that I have learned about the granite stones used in household coal burning, I will have to ask my relatives in Pennsylvania coal country if they have any of those lovely pebbles. Never would have thought of it! Coal was used for heating there into the 1970s.

      Reply
  10. Talbot

    Lovely appreciative piece. I’m not sure as to the prized aesthetics for these stones in Japan, but in China these “Scholar’s Rocks” are prized for overhangs, resonance, glossiness, and their resemblance to legendary mountains. I found a mountain-like stone next to a railroad track once and pocketed it, though I still haven’t made a fitting pedestal to hold it. Thanks for the read.

    Reply
    • Margaret Coats

      Thanks, Talbot, glad to hear from you! The idea of “mountain” may be the main thing Japanese and Chinese aesthetics share when considering stones. I have even heard it said that stones, being of the same material as mountains, inspire the solitary natural virtue they seem to represent, as opposed to overly sexualized urban decadence. But Japanese extend the possible interpretation of a stone’s appearance to landscape of any kind, animals, persons, and simple buildings. The concept of “uncentered beauty” is important, and an opening in the stone (such as in the illustration above) is highly valued. A bit of natural gloss may be appreciated, but Japanese and international suiseki exhibits make a point of splashing or spraying water on prize stones, to watch them “energize” by showing motion on the tranquil surface as they dry gradually. Wouldn’t work with a shiny stone. About mounting your mountain–try various placements in a tray of sand first!

      Reply
  11. Sally Cook

    Dear Margaret —

    I too once collected shells; once displayed on sand under a glass table top, now they lie packed away. I love them still and always will.

    Rocks too have been a part of my life, and given me much to think about in poetry. My father, always looking for recognition but rarely finding it, liked to write the date and sometimes, “I was here ” on a grey granite stone with indelible ink, then replacing it in a flower bed.

    We lived on or near to the shores of Lake Erie. I took to painting on medium sized – 2-3” smooth granite rocks and giving them to friends. I still have one I gave to my father. This inspired several poems. I have photos of many and will send you some. My father’s rock sits on a shelf and as I pass it each morning I pick it up and hold it for a moment – it is very cold and smooth, and gives off an enigmatic vibration as it waits for my caress.

    Best –
    Sally

    Reply
    • Margaret Coats

      Dear Sally,

      Thanks for reading my poem and telling me about your ventures with shells and rocks (and your father’s way of ensuring recognition in the garden). Coming from Florida, I have seen many miniature paintings in shells, but very few where rocks are used as the canvas. It will be interesting to see some photos of your art on rocks. Your story about holding your father’s rock every morning has inspired me to once again bring out my grandmother’s piece of rose quartz. Carrying it to my poetry-writing chair and table, I admired its top surfaces on two different planes–pink and whitish stone for the most part, but at an angle there is a slice that looks almost gray with many shining flecks of silver and gold. No wonder special stones have always fascinated people of an artistic bent. I didn’t put this in the poem, but avid suiseki collectors in Japan feel they should be conversant with the other arts (painting, sculpture, literature) in order to fully appreciate and properly display their treasures from nature.

      My best to you,

      Margaret

      Reply
      • Sally Cook

        Dear Margaret —
        Your grandmother’s rose quartz sounds beautiful, and something to be respected; Have you any geodes? I have a double amethyst one somewhere in this house.
        Took a look for the photos but plan to get down to serious rock photos ere long. I always find so much on which to reflect in your work — an added layer, so to speak.. In my zeal to respond I may not always give your magical words their due. Please let this be my heartfelt apology. Thank you for sharing all that you do with us !

      • Margaret Coats

        Thank you again, Sally. I hope my words do often have an added layer, and sometimes that must be credited to the careful reader. You are fortunate to have both halves of an amethyst geode. Just think what skill it takes to locate one in nature, recognize it for what it is, and skillfully cut it to preserve its full beauty. Take your time looking for your rock photos, and be assured that I always value your comments on my poems. The time and effort to say something mean more than the display of critical skill!

  12. Sally Cook

    Critical skill? Well, Margaret, perhaps I might reach that level if I actually knew and understood the meaning of the phrase. I just assume the mantle of willingness to make a fool of myself for poetry and go on from there !
    My amethyst geode is not in two pieces; rather it is conjoined. Oh, if I can find it. As well as the rock photographs — never fear, Margaret, I am ready and willing to make a fool of myself in this instance also.

    Reply
    • Margaret Coats

      Sally, I agree that it does sometimes seem foolish to put forth our interpretations of other writers’ poetry. But as my most valued mentor Helen Vendler said, once a poem is published for others to read, it is no longer entirely within the author’s power to define its meaning. If we as good readers can support our interpretations by the words of the poem, the author cannot forbid us to read it that way. Readers sometimes make mistakes out of ignorance of a word or lack of experience with a thing, but I say critical skill is just good reading. We bring a reasonable knowledge of words to a new poem, and our own experiences contribute to what we find in it. My poem on suiseki can speak to you about your father’s rocks or about a conjoined amethyst geode. Critical skill is discovering something in a poem, not imposing an alien ideology on it. Too often critics are in love with their own theories rather than with poetry. You, I think, are a poetry lover.

      Reply

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