Withdrawn by Author's Request

Angelee Deodhar

This poem was received for the kukai, and in the voting it was clear that it was an early favorite, receiving many votes. Early in the voting we received a question from one of the participants, who asked if this poem was perhaps too close to another poem, which received third place in the Shiki Kukai in December of 1997.

first snow . . .
all the Kyoto Buddhas
becoming snowmen

Donald McLeod

We asked Dr. Deodhar if she could tell us more of her inspiration for the poem, and she provided a very reasonable reply.

My haiku was a spontaneous one written for my friend - Stanford Forrester in who's home I stayed in Connecticut this summer, after the HNA conference in 2003. He and his wife Mary and their two little girls made me feel very welcome. In his garden there is a stone Buddha and even a stone lantern. I imagined Stan's Buddha covered with snow and wrote the haiku specially for this Kukai and for Stan. As a child I grew up amidst snow covered hills where beleive it or not we made snowmen and had snow ball fights. So a childhood memory and a tribute to a friend's garden was this haiku.

Yukidaruma is even given on a list of haiku season words.

Our friend Charles Trumbull was able to share with us several example poems about snowmen and Buddha from his wonderful archive of haiku. Sôkan, Issa, and Shiki all wrote haiku about snow buddhas, and Stanford Forrester has had two snow buddha haiku published, no doubt inspired by the same garden to which you made reference, making your selection of your poem's subject a fitting tribute to your host!

     Cold you may be,
But don't warm yourself by the fire,
     Buddha of snow!

	Sôkan	
        Blyth, History of Haiku I:55


even our fleeting snow
becomes
Buddha

	Kobayashi Issa
	Lanoue Issa Website


     The snow has melted
On one shoulder
     Of the Great Buddha.

	Shiki
	Blyth, Haiku IIóSpring, 121


snow melting
in the temple garden . . .
buddha's nose

	Forrester, Stanford M.
	Author's Selection; Chiyo's Corner 2:3 (winter 2000-01)


melting     into pure water     the snow buddha

	Forrester, Stanford M.
	Author's Selection; ïstill 5:2 (2001)

Unfortunately, we then became aware of another haiku that did cause us concern. We still have no thought at all other than that this is a case of what Michael Dylan Welch calls "cryptomnesia". He discussed this concept on the "nobo" mailing list back in September. Carl Jung used the term to refer to information that was previously learned and is consciously forgotten but still stored in the subconscious. By the stimulation of other thoughts, this stored information in the subconscious is remembered by the average person, believing that the memory is actually new information.

How natural it would be for someone, seeing a stone buddha in a garden being covered with snow, to choose this as the theme of their haiku. Nearly a year previously Pamela Babusci used the same theme at a meeting of Evergreen at Asahi university, January 19, 2002.

morning storm--
the garden buddha
becomes a snowman

fuyu-arashi
niwa no sekibutu
yuki-daruma

Evergreen January 2002

Again, it is only natural for poems to spring to mind when such a similar scene is observed, and as Jung has said, for us to not remember the original but perceive that we have discovered a new thing. Both the original and the new poem are beautiful pieces and the latter has received many votes, reinforcing the concept that this is a powerful image.

When we shared the latter poem with Dr. Deodhar, she quickly agreed that the appropriate response was to withdraw the poem from the kukai. We join her in apologizing for the inconvenience to those who "spent" a vote on this poem. Sadly it is just not possible for us to be aware of every possible source of haiku. All we can ask is that those who participate in the kukai will understand that to check every poem thoroughly for originality is beyond our ability both in resources and time, and ask that those who become aware of a similar situation bring it to our attention gently, as did "Flatline" and Grzegorz Sionkowski.

Thank you also to Michael Dylan Welch for his opinions on the matter and his previously shared material on cryptomnesia and deja-ku, and for Charles Trumbull and the use once more of his phenomenal database of haiku!

And to Pamela -- Congratulations on a beautiful poem in Evergreen. It is a lasting image that continues to resound with many who have read it!

Thanks for understanding,

Gary & Jennie