Ray Rasmussen
Walking Through Time
A Conversation with Alan Peat
All photos courtesy of Alan Peat
Today, the UK-based poet and author Alan Peat is renowned for his haiku, haibun, and tanka-related work. However, although he had been writing poetry since his days as a university student in the early 1980s, he didn’t find his way to those Japanese forms until the late 1990s—and the involvement intially proved short-lived.
“My first haiku were published in Blithe Spirit and Still in 1997,” he says, “and in 2000 one of my tanka was included in Iron Press’s international anthology In the Ship’s Wake — and then there was a sixteen-year pause. I continued to read haiku and I was writing constantly, but all my attention was focused on educational writing — books on the subject of teaching literacy. I just didn’t have the necessary headspace for poetry.”
Shortly after that pause ended, he says, he became aware of haibun and bought several Red Moon Press anthologies, but didn’t commit to writing the form until early in 2021. “My first attempt, ‘Black Hole,’ went to Lew Watts at Frogpond, who responded positively and suggested changes — a different haiku entirely; some refinements to the prose. I really appreciated the time he’d clearly taken, and his suggestions were incisive. I owe him a great debt of gratitude. Ultimately Lew took the haibun, and I was hooked. Tanka prose followed — it just seemed like the logical next step.”
Since then, Peat’s haibun and his tanka prose have earned acclaim, and his multiple honors include winning a Touchstone Award for Individual Haibun in 2022 and finishing as runner-up for the 2021 British Haiku Society’s Ken and Norah Jones Haibun Award. A fellow of the Royal Society of Arts and the Historical Association in London, he is currently the archivist and librarian of the British Haiku Society. In the following interview, he reflects on his literary approach to haibun and tanka prose, his writing process, and where he finds inspiration.
Ray Rasmussen: Alan, thanks for agreeing to an interview. We recently posted a commentary on your tanka prose piece, “Sit Tibi Terra Levis,” in contemporary haibun online 22.1. It’s a multi-time-period piece starting with a graveyard scene, then moving to a childhood memory of a game in a cemetery, and then to a present-day reading of Caesar’s De Bello Gallico about the Gallic Wars—a reference to a key historical period that preceded the fall of the Roman Empire. The piece is quite demanding of the reader. To fathom what was going on, I had to do some research—which made for an interesting way to spend part of a day. I’d not read De Bello Gallico (and still haven’t, though I might), but I used a research tool to learn where the Gallic Wars fell in the arc of Roman expansion, and what they had to do with Rome’s transformation from republic to dictatorship.
I read the piece aloud to my partner, Nancy—an avid reader of quality literature—and she said she didn’t get it. When I explained what I’d found in it, she said she didn’t know how I’d figured all that out. One reader’s comment put it plainly: “Ray, without your careful analysis I would have missed a deep and moving work.” How do you think about this issue—the gap between what you intend and what a reader may receive?
Alan Peat: We’re constantly walking through the past and the past is constantly walking with us—that’s the main driver in most of my poetry. To me the past and the present really don’t feel like separate dimensions. I was recently re-reading Catullus, a poet in Julius Caesar’s time, and it occurred to me that I was time-travelling—seeing the world through the eyes of a man living (and loving) in the late Roman Republic.
RR: Besides finding it an outstanding piece, I mentioned in my commentary that “Sit Tibi Terra Levis” is a strong example of what Ken Jones referred to as literary haibun—a piece that contains both horizontal information (detail about personal experience) and vertical information (allusions with cultural and historical depth).1 Jones noted that the more common haibun is entirely focused on the writer’s present situation or experience. In the introduction to his book Arrow of Stones,2 he noted the lack of—and need for—more literary haibun. Do you agree with Jones? Do you try to reach for both dimensions in your writing?
AP: I’m drawn to haibun that contain both subjective personal experience and a longer view. T. S. Eliot put it this way in an essay, “Tradition and the Individual Talent”:
“Tradition…cannot be inherited, and if you want it you must obtain it by great labour. It involves, in the first place, the historical sense, which we may call nearly indispensable to anyone who would continue to be a poet beyond his twenty-fifth year; and the historical sense involves a perception, not only of the pastness of the past, but of its presence; the historical sense compels a man to write not merely with his own generation in his bones, but with a feeling that the whole of the literature of Europe from Homer and within it the whole of the literature of his own country has a simultaneous existence and composes a simultaneous order.”3
That sense of the timeless and the temporal together is exactly what I’m reaching for. I don’t agree with Eliot that writing should be impersonal. [Later in that same essay, Eliot wrote, “The emotion of art is impersonal.”] The emotions in my poems are entirely my own, even when I adopt a historical persona or wear a literary mask. But Eliot’s thinking on tradition and the presence of the past has genuinely shaped how I approach the form.
I find the “going for a walk” haibun—what Ken Jones referred to as “reportage of a recent experience”— far harder to read than Eliot or Joyce. I’m always aiming for more than that. “Corpse Road”4 was a deliberate “going for a walk” haibun but with added layers, [although] it is less complex than many of my haibun as the timeframe is mainly linear.
Corpse Road
On this long, flat stone—the first of six where the dead were rested—I am sat with my dad, watching crows. Not crows in flight, but walking crows, the ones that move between sheep with that slow, yet determined gait, enlivened now and then with a fluttering hop. This is our regular stop: for tea and biscuits as the views open up.
dawnlight—
with no map or compass
our whole day aheadA wicker coffin to lighten the load. Too poor for a horse and cart, his neighbors will carry him — sixteen hard, winding miles from Keld to Grinton—over tree roots, across flowing water, then up to the high ground, far from hushed hamlets, where the living might tempt a dead man back. And when they reach St. Andrew’s lichgate, the old warden will lift the lid and, if his body is wrapped in wool cloth, his bones will be fit for the consecrated ground.
less trodden path—
the unpicked berries
black and shrunkOn the last of the coffin stones I am sat quite alone. It is a fine spot to rest in the gentle lower dale, in the heart of its patchwork of drystone-walled grass. The church door marks the end of my walk. I will pass through it soon enough, but for now I am content to stay seated; happy to listen to the lapwings’ calls.
unmoved for so long—
the yew tree I climbed
as a boy*Corpse Roads (or Corpse Ways) are medieval paths that remote English communities walked to the closest consecrated burial ground.
RR: How do you find your subjects? Are they deliberate and strategic, or more a matter of happenstance?
AP: There’s always a point when either a situation or an object captures my attention sufficiently that I know I want to write about it. I don’t go looking for poems, but I do consciously do things I know might spark one: a long walk, a visit to a gallery or museum, listening to a podcast on an unfamiliar subject, browsing art books. Once that spark occurs, I need to write the first draft as soon as possible. The first draft is more akin to a stream-of-consciousness exercise than the writing of a poem. If it’s a haibun, the prose comes first; then the haiku or tanka grow from that. The prose comes relatively quickly, but I often need to let it sit for a few days—sometimes weeks —before returning to it and thinking about the haiku or tanka.
RR: In one of your e-mails to me, you mentioned that your process involves “the roving mind.” Please elaborate.
AP: What I mean by the roving mind is writing without too much conscious control over the outcome. My mind tends to naturally wander off at a tangent, and instead of controlling this I now seek to run with it. The outcome can be wildly variable, but there’s usually something in it that can be refined without losing the non-linear flow. In a sense it’s a process of linking and shifting within the prose itself. I think this strengthens the prose—it adds more layers of meaning—but I acknowledge that it also makes the finished poem more challenging for the reader.
RR: How much revising do you do, generally, from first draft to finished haibun or tanka prose?
AP: Sometimes the first draft is very close to a finished piece, particularly if the subject has really engaged me. The essence is always there in the first draft. I edit as I write, mainly by reading back to myself, in my head and aloud. Although my prose is relatively terse, I do want it to flow at both a sentence level and as a whole. Terse prose should still have a certain musicality. I play trumpet and piano, and musical phrasing definitely informs my writing.
I consciously thin out my poems, especially the prose element of haibun. I’m not a fan of liberally applied adjectives—they remind me of film soundtracks designed to elicit an emotion. It seems overdone and utterly unnecessary. Finding the right, most precise word or phrase—that’s what I spend most time on. Sometimes the most precise word is arcane or unusual. I don’t think we should be afraid of long words or complex words; what matters is that the word or phrase is apposite.
I think all poetry should be honest, at least honest in the emotion it conveys. It doesn’t mean that the details can’t be manipulated, as long as that serves the greater emotional clout of the poem. Canaletto painted Venice but he wasn’t averse to moving the buildings about to create a more balanced artwork. I think that we have a lot to learn from that.
RR: Do you have friends who read your drafts and provide feedback?
AP: My wife, Julie, reads all my work. Before we retired, we ran an educational publishing business. I wrote numerous books for the educational market, mainly on [how to teach] writing, and Julie edited all of them. She was adept at paring back the “fluff.” I have also written books about art, ceramics, and textiles. The precision of non-fiction always appealed to me—and I enjoy the research.
RR: I can’t, with confidence, submit my work for publication without my partner Nancy’s editorial assistance. Is it the same for you and Julie?
AP: I’ve been with Julie for 22 years now, but was first published 43 years ago. So, yes, I can submit without her editorial assistance, but my poems are definitely improved by her second pair of eyes. I don’t always ask her to read my work. Sometimes she’s busy with something of her own and I don’t want to intrude on that. But when I have one of those poems that, in first draft, don’t feel quite right. I turn to Julie. Her background was in newspapers and her advice is often structural —“That would work better at the start,” etc. Her suggestions have made me think about the structural elements of my poems far more. She’s also good at spotting when I’m “over-egging the pudding.” She’s blunt, which I prefer.
I also share my poems regularly with Réka Nyitrai. Although we have never met in person, I regard Réka as one of my closest friends. and I trust her comments in the same way that I trust Julie’s. Réka and I have had a long-running collaboration—our ekphrastic haibun collection Barking at the Coming Rain was published by Alba [Publishing] in 2022. We’re on a very similar wavelength.
RR: This brings up a related question: how does your ego work with feedback, whether from Julie, from Réka, or from an editor’s accept/reject decision?
AP: I’m genuinely not bothered by rejections. The first book I wrote, Midwinter Pottery: A History and Collectors’ Guide, took three years to write and was rejected several times before it found a publisher. I found that hard to handle, but in retrospect it helped me develop as a writer. It also taught me the importance of resilience. And it put the rejection of individual poems in perspective—acceptance doesn’t necessarily mean a piece is “good,” and rejection doesn’t necessarily mean it’s “bad.”
With regard to editorial feedback on my poetry, I’ve found suggestions, on the whole, very helpful. Lew Watts’ suggestions have always been perceptive, and Roberta Beary reworked elements of a haibun I’d submitted in a way that genuinely improved the poem. I’m always grateful when someone gives my work that kind of time and effort.
With Julie, if I’m being honest, I find criticism a little harder to handle. I’d be utterly lost without her, and I suppose I do want the person I love most in the world to love what I do. I trust her judgement implicitly, but sometimes I have to step back and take a breath when a heart-on-the-sleeve poem doesn’t sit well with her.
RR15: It surprised me that you said you’re not bothered by rejections. I had a terrible time at the start—a rejection felt like “Get another avocation” and “Go away, pest.” Was your thick skin there from the very beginning of your work in haibun and tanka prose?
AP: I’ve been asked this a few times and I sense my answer doesn’t seem totally believable. But I really don’t bother at all about rejections, and I honestly never have. I can give you two reasons why I think that is. The first is highly personal. I’ve been married three times. My first two wives left me for other people. That kind of rejection puts all others in perspective; a poem’s rejection really is a minor thing. I’ve been with Julie for 22 years now, so the tale has a happy ending.
The second reason is that when rejections arrive, I’m usually really excited about what I’m currently writing. I’d rather be getting on with that than worrying about the rejection of something I wrote months ago. It’s important to maintain a sense of forward momentum. I write every day, sometimes not very well, but it’s important to treat it as a discipline.
I also think you develop a better personal bullshit detector as you get older. In the 1990s I had two collections of poems—not Japanese short form—published. At the time I wanted to be “a poet.” My personal bullshit detector wasn’t working so well then, and I was more concerned about being in print than about the quality of my work. I think that as I’ve grown older I’m better at recognising poems that just aren’t working. Self-belief is important.
RR: Do you ever have dry periods or writer’s block?
AP: It’s an issue for all of us but when it happens and the blank page or screen stares back at me I find that two approaches help.
- I switch solely to ekphrastic haibun. I’ve always been interested in art. As a boy my parents took me to an exhibition of Lucian Freud’s paintings that made a huge impression on me. In 1972 they also took me to the Tutankhamen exhibition at the British Museum. If I look at an artwork long enough my brain starts to wander and I guess it’s then that the writing kicks in. I want to express something that I can’t quite put my finger on, and the only way to unravel those thoughts (and emotions) is through a poem.
- I write without thinking about meaning [and] more for the musicality of the sentences. There’s a discipline to it. I find that meaning usually emerges — a theme surfaces and the poem becomes a development of those surfacing thoughts.
If neither of those two approaches works I do something that interests me: run (I’m slow but run 5k regularly; I find the repetitive nature of it encourages my brain to wander), walk (we live quite near the Yorkshire Dales and Lake District—with an early get up we can drive to either by 10am), or read (a lot of non-fiction at the moment and also the poetry of Alice Oswald).
RR: You’ve been reading poetry most of your life, from what I understand. How do you find fresh poetry to read?
AP: I have been an avid reader of poetry since my late teens. I guess there must be a couple of thousand poetry books in the house, most of which were bought second-hand over the decades. When we’re in London, Julie and I can spend whole days in the second-hand bookshops of Charing Cross Road. I’m a particular fan of the basements which are full of uncategorised books. I do occasionally buy new, but only from poets I hugely admire.
I am also a member of The Poetry Society (UK) and have been since the 1980s. In the winter 2025 issue of the Society’s journal, Poetry Review, I discovered a new (to me) poet —Felicity Sheehy. Her poem in that issue draws on John Evelyn’s work. I look forward to reading more of her poems.
The British Haiku Society Library also lives at our house. It’s a huge responsibility, but also a treasure trove. I’ll slowly read my way through that over the next decade.
RR: Are you an avid reader of the main haibun and tanka prose journals?
AP: I subscribe to all the main haiku, tanka and haibun journals, though I’ve backed away from avidly reading them—I tend to dip in and out. I stopped reading haibun regularly (about 18 months ago) when I noticed that the great majority being published were mainly linear—a kind of short, short story with haiku attached. It just isn’t what I want to write (or read).
I know this might seem odd, but my reasoning is also that I really want to forge my own distinctive style. I worry that, if I avidly read all the recent haibun, I’ll be tempted to “fit in.” I think that would be a mistake. I’d rather write something that I feel is an honest reflection of what I feel and think (even if it’s constantly rejected) than write with an eye toward publication.
I have also bought, but haven’t read, books on the subject of writing haibun. I’m sure they are well-written but fear that I’ll start editing what I write against criteria which have become, or are becoming, a received norm. I hope there is still room for outliers.
For more about Alan’s thoughts on haibun and his writing process, see his featured writer essay in contemporary haibun online 19.3 (September 2023).
Notes:
1. Haruo Shirane introduced the concept of the vertical and horizontal axes in his book Traces of Dreams: Landscape, Cultural Memory, and the Poetry of Basho (Stanford University Press, 1998). To read more, see Beyond the Haiku Moment: Basho, Buson, and the Modern Haiku Myth.
2. Jones, Ken. Arrow of Stones, British Haiku Society, 2002
3. Eliot, T.S. “Tradition and The Individual Talent.” The Egoist, September & December 1919.
4. Originally published as “Corpse Way,” this haibun won second place in the 2023 Haiku Society of America Haibun Awards and appeared in Frogpond 46:3 (Autumn 2023).
About the Interviewer
Ray Rasmussen has edited a variety of haibun journals and published his haibun, haiga and haiku widely in journals and anthologies. He lives in townhouse looking out to a meadow in Edmonton, Canada. He and his partner enjoy reading, hiking, canoeing, and snowshoeing together. Ray’s haibun collection, Landmarks, is available on Amazon.com. His haibun blog is “All Things Haibun.”