Who turned the muscles in your arms so elegantly around the bone? Who sculpted the column of your neck so perfectly from marbled stone?
ALOOF
Aloof you stand amidst the crowd What hand shall touch your hand Which heart Your heart Reserved, superior, and proud Whose touch shall break this band Whose soul Which art
THE JOURNEY
The search for my face - this endless, lonesome journey - has been so brutal that I hate all the faces that I have already found.
(Waka)
“Who Made You”, “Aloof”, and “The Journey” images and poems from: Soul Collective – Poems and Paintings, by Marthe Bijman, pp. 8, 9, 10. (July 2025, 2nd Ed., Blurb Books, ISBN 979-8-31-996715-2). Paintings: Pen, acrylic, and watercolour, on board and canvas.
About the poems, and waka
These three poems depict the pros and cons of having a particularly desirable, admired appearance – which this subject most definitely has.
“The Journey” is a waka (和歌; ‘Japanese poem’). There is an historical contradiction between the definitions of classical Japanese haiku, and Western or English-language haiku: a Japanese haiku is made up of 3 lines, and 17 sounds, not syllables. The rules for the number of syllables, the number of lines, and the number of syllables per line (5-7-5) for haiku – and other Japanese poetic forms like tanka and waka, is a Western literary imposition on the form, or interpretation of the form.
What is also quintessential in haiku is that the poems depict the “unfolding” or development of narratives, usually through extended metaphors. This is quite similar to how you write the lyrics of a song – it’s an unfolding narrative. So, in “The Journey”, the narrative is about the search for identity, figuratively and literally.
The paintings
The top painting, which goes with “Who Made You”, shows only a man’s chest. I wanted it to look sensual, though behind the façade of desirability, the sitter is also just a man, flesh and blood. I had the portraits by John Singer Sargent on my mind when I did this one.
The painting with “The Journey” shows the subject wearing a baseball cap. I’d always thought he just likes wearing caps. But he’s explained that the caps, and the rest of the clothes that he usually wears – low-ride jeans, sneakers, hoodies – identify him as a House music artist. It’s a genre aesthetic: caps align the wearer with the look or vibe of a particular music scene or movement, in this case, House.
SEVEN CIRCUMSTANCES 
“Who Made You”, “Aloof”, and “The Journey” images and poems from: Soul Collective – Poems and Paintings, by Marthe Bijman, pp. 8, 9, 10. (July 2025, 2nd Ed., Blurb Books, ISBN 979-8-31-996715-2). Paintings: Pen, acrylic, and watercolour, on board and canvas.
About the poems, and waka
These three poems depict the pros and cons of having a particularly desirable, admired appearance – which this subject most definitely has.
“The Journey” is a waka (和歌; ‘Japanese poem’). There is an historical contradiction between the definitions of classical Japanese haiku, and Western or English-language haiku: a Japanese haiku is made up of 3 lines, and 17 sounds, not syllables. The rules for the number of syllables, the number of lines, and the number of syllables per line (5-7-5) for haiku – and other Japanese poetic forms like tanka and waka, is a Western literary imposition on the form, or interpretation of the form.
What is also quintessential in haiku is that the poems depict the “unfolding” or development of narratives, usually through extended metaphors. This is quite similar to how you write the lyrics of a song – it’s an unfolding narrative. So, in “The Journey”, the narrative is about the search for identity, figuratively and literally.
The paintings
The top painting, which goes with “Who Made You”, shows only a man’s chest. I wanted it to look sensual, though behind the façade of desirability, the sitter is also just a man, flesh and blood. I had the portraits by John Singer Sargent on my mind when I did this one.
The painting with “The Journey” shows the subject wearing a baseball cap. I’d always thought he just likes wearing caps. But he’s explained that the caps, and the rest of the clothes that he usually wears – low-ride jeans, sneakers, hoodies – identify him as a House music artist. It’s a genre aesthetic: caps align the wearer with the look or vibe of a particular music scene or movement, in this case, House.
About Soul Collective
Next time: An octosyllabic verse
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