Eric AmannEric W. Amann

(16 January 1934 – July 2016)

One of the most influential figures in the formative years of the haiku movement in Canada was Toronto medical doctor and poet Eric Amann. He was born in Munich in 1934. In 1952 Eric and his family emigrated to Chester, Pennsylvania. In 1953, Eric was drafted for the Korean War and escaped to Winnipeg where he stayed with family friends from Munich. He earned his medical degree in 1961.

As many other poets in the 1960s Amann's interest in haiku was sparked by the six volumes written by R.H. Blyth. After reading and writing haiku for several years, Eric Amann edited and published the first Canadian haiku magazine Haiku from 1967-1970. Under Amann’s editorship Haiku rapidly became one of the most influential North American periodicals, publishing experimental as well as classical work. After a hiatus of seven years, during which he engaged in other kinds of writing, in 1977 Amann returned to haiku with a new magazine Cicada (from 1977-1982) which immediately achieved a similar status. The same year Eric Amann, Betty Drevniok and George Swede founded the Haiku Society of Canada, which later in 1985 was renamed to Haiku Canada. Eric served as its first president during 1977-79. In 1979 Eric Amann also published one issue of konkret [a journey into the concrete and visual].

In the preface to the 1986 edition of The Haiku Anthology, Cor van den Heuvel wrote that “Haiku and Cicada [were] perhaps English language haiku's most influential magazines [and that they] are still unsurpassed for excellence in both content and design, though both have ceased publication.”

Eric W. Amann sadly passed away in July 2016 and left a huge void in the international haiku community.

While writing about the significant achievement of one of the pioneers of English-language haiku, Richard Stevenson states: “For Eric Amann, the ideal is to capture the ‘ah experience’ or ‘a mood of serene calm and beauty.’ The form may vary from the traditional three-line, 5-7-5 syllable count to the one-line portrait; it may even be stretched to include the "mutational possibilities" of senryu, vertical, visual, and sound haiku.” – (Richard Stevenson in Canadian Literature, Spring 1985)

Publications:

 

  • Plastic Flowers [a collection of poems] (1964);
  • The Wordless Poem , Toronto: Haiku Society of Canada, 1969;
  • No More Questions, No More Answers, [a collection of one-liners], 1980;
  • Cicada Voices: Selected Haiku of Eric Amann, 1966-1979. George Swede, Editor. High/Coo Press, 1983;
  • The Space Between, George Swede, with Eric Amann, LeRoy Gorman, (Glen Burnie, MD, USA: Wind Chimes, 1986);
  • Eric Amann’s work appears in all three editions (1974, 1986, and 1999) of Cor van den Heuvel's The Haiku Anthology.

Selected haiku:

Winter burial:
a stone angel points his hand
at the empty sky

(1978 Eminent Mention Award, Modern Haiku)

 

Withered winter tree;
its barren boughs reflected
in the sick man’s eye

(1979 Eminent Mention Award, Modern Haiku)

*

Anaesthesia:
the last deep breath
takes the whole world away!

(Cicada Voices: Selected Haiku of Eric Amann 1966-1979, (High Coo Press, 1979)

*

A morning of snow:
listening to the muffled sound
of the blind man’s cane

(Modern Haiku 10:1, 59)

last day of autumn:
and still the sunset lingers
in a one-way street.

(Modern Haiku 1:1, 6)

New Year’s morning:
a sober newsman
repeats the casualties.

(Modern Haiku 2:1, 18)

Softly falling
on the names of the dead:
spring rain …

(Modern Haiku 1:2, 5)

The long walk back:
— A tiger lily
Points the way …

(Modern Haiku 6:3, 9 (a)

The old Ford truck —
still clinging to it:
last summer’s leaves …

(Modern Haiku 1:2, 17)

*

deep inside your mouth      no more questions no more answers

(Cicada Voices: Selected Haiku of Eric Amann, 1966-1979; High/Coo Pr (Jun. 1983); p.50)

deep penetration       the bedside candle quivers lightly in the moonlit room

(Ibidem, p.51)

wild raspberry taste       on the tip of your tongue

(Ibidem, p. 52)

*

Billboards
   wet
      in spring
         rain…

Snow falling
   on the empty parking-lot:
      Christmas Eve…

A night train passes:
pictures of the dead are trembling
on the mantelpiece

(The Haiku Anthology, editor Cor van den Heuvel, 3rd edition, Norton, 1999; pp.2-4)

*

The starlit sea

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~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

(Cicada Voices: Selected Haiku of Eric Amann, 1966-1979; High/Coo Pr, 1983; p. 37)

More haiku at:

http://terebess.hu/english/haiku/amann.html

Sources:

  1. http://performance.millikin.edu/haiku/writerprofiles/EricAmann.html
  2. http://www.haikucanada.org/home/about.php?style=1&page=1001
  3. http://www.brickbooks.ca/a-history-of-haiku-in-canada-in-two-parts-by-terry-ann-carter/
  4. http://www.thehaikufoundation.org/poet-details/?IDclient=1804
  5. http://www.litkicks.com/OnWesternHaiku
  6. http://www.modernhaiku.org/MH-Archive/authorsA-D.html#a

Essays and articles on the works of Eric Amann: