What is wabi-sabi? How might it define the life of a frugal poet?

First in a series
Smiley-face note: Wabi-sabi is not to be confused with wasabi, a hot green horseradish paste commonly served next to Japanese sushi.

Japan, one of the most refined, thoughtful and poetic societies of the world has gone through unfathomable disasters in modern history. More recently is the profound earthquake, tsunami and nuclear catastrophe at Fukushima. Nevertheless, the Japanese people continue to push forward in quiet strength, dedicated to and motivated by their culture, history, sense of humility and connection with one another.

Wabi-sabi is a philosophy based in Japan that embraces a sense of flawed beauty, the profundity in nature, and of things impermanent, humble, primitive, transient and incomplete. It celebrates the modest, rustic and unconventional. It is the organic versus synthetic, the rough-hewn and uneven over the measured and laser-edged. Loosely explained, wabi means a philosophy of imperfect, natural beauty, and sabi means the artistic expression of what’s asymmetrical, aged or unpretentious.

Daisetz Suzuki, one of the first scholars to interpret Japanese culture for Westerners, considered wabi-sabi “an active aesthetical appreciation of poverty.” Rather than a poverty of pain and a sense of desperation, it instead gives the relief of removing the weight of material concerns from our lives.

Wabi-sabi suggests the notions that nothing lasts, nothing is finished, nothing is perfect. The Persians are known for a proverb about the true beauty of rugs, “A Persian rug is perfectly imperfect, and precisely imprecise.” Although spoken from a culture different than Japan’s, such a sentiment is truly a wabi-sabi one.

Remarkably, wabi-sabi has everything to do with the spirit of the frugal poet. We exist. We go with the flow. We focus on the beautiful. We have strength in light of hardship or snags in our lives. And our poems reflect this attitude. The concept of wabi-sabi reminds me of the lyrics in Leonard Cohen’s song “Anthem,” “Ring the bells that still can ring/Forget your perfect offering/There’s a crack in everything/That’s how the light gets in.”

It is the poets and those with a frugal poet’s spirit who can see both implicit meaning and opportunity in any situation, and can find voice, or at least search for it, to express compassion and humanity even amid injustice or when in mourning. Such is wabi-sabi.

One summer, I signed up for a multi-evening workshop in the craft of handmade bookbinding at Chicago’s Hull House. Our upper floor studio itself was a wabi-sabi environment of lovingly worn benches, nicked but well-used work surfaces and natural lighting pouring in from screenless windows. We used handcrafted papers, linen thread, monster-sized needles, scads of glue, bone folders, thick slices of cardboard and stiff oilcloth in an array of colors. There, I crafted and sewed a number of hardcover blank books, Japanese side-stitched bindings and cloth-covered boxes. The best part, we all helped one another try to get the techniques down as well as share our ideas.

I openly admired one fellow student’s finished handmade book, even though the pages were a bit uneven and wavy. “The only thing perfect is God,” she said, and matter of factly continued her work. I often remember her words in the midst of struggles. I am imperfect and every act of creation carries human imperfection along with it. In the bookbinder’s imperfection lay the beauty of her handmade book.

Flawed fictional characters, for example, are more interesting, textured, memorable and beautiful than perfect, static ones. What would Cyrano de Bergerac be without his big nose, The Little Match Girl without her poverty, or even Star Trek’s Mr. Spock without his lack of emotions?

Below, I attempt to pin down concrete examples of what wabi-sabi may be and what wabi-sabi may not be. You may disagree with some of the entries. You might like to try the same exercise and see where your own concepts surrounding wabi-sabi may lie.

Musings as to what wabi-sabi can stand for:

·      ~ The haunted mansion versus the McMansion.

·     ~  The vase off to one side instead of the center of the table.

·      ~ A piece of driftwood carved by water instead of a diamond faceted by human hands.

·      ~ A simple one-pot, home-cooked meal versus a block-long Las Vegas table buffet.

·      ~ A weekend of solitude versus a month of whirlwind travel with a dozen destinations.

·      ~ The hand-polished wood floor, simple room-divider screen and rolled-up futon versus a football-field-sized bedroom with wall-to-wall carpeting, big screen TV and thick brocade drapes.

·      ~ Browns, greens, grays and off-whites of nature versus neon, day-glow bright pinks and electric blues.

·      ~ Rock, leather, wood, candles and copper instead of steel, LED lights, vinyl, mirrors and glass.

·      ~ A coffee-stained, hand-illustrated journal filled with random thoughts instead of the word-perfect, crisply printed scholarly treatise.

·      ~ A wind-blown scattering of fall leaves on a neatly raked Zen garden.

·      ~ The changing nature of paper and cloth as they fade, fray and tear.

·      ~ Floors cleanly swept, laundry folded and beds made without regard to the type of flooring, price of clothing and thread count of bed sheets.

·      ~ A few handpicked flowers in a bud vase versus a formal English garden.

·      ~ The patina versus the polish.

·      ~ The flea market filled with surprises versus the big box store of generic goods.

·      ~ The used and cared for versus the new, flimsy and garish.

·      ~ Living happily in simplicity instead of sadly in luxury.

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The above is an excerpt from my reference, memoir and creativity guide Frugal Poets' Guide to Life: How to Live a Poetic Life, Even If You Aren't a Poet.

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What is wabi-sabi? How might it define the life of a frugal poet?