English Haiku: A Composite View

by David Cobb
 

Haiku originated in Japan, but latterly it has become popular in an increasing number of languages and countries. Yet virtually
everywhere where haiku has established itself – and that includes Japan itself – you will find people hallmark it differently. Some
see haiku mainly as a kind of poetry, a literary phenomenon. For others, it is a source of philosophical inspiration and in some way
helpful to their chosen life style, possibly inspired by Zen. For others still, it is the specific genius of Japanese art that attracts.
Readers/writers of haiku often share something of all three viewpoints.

Followers of haiku also debate whether the Japanese haiku experience (defined in socio-cultural, literary, linguistic and
environmental terms) is too exotic to be assimilated by the West, and they argue about the validity of supposed Japanese ‘rules’ on
how to make haiku – even though there has never been unanimity in Japan itself about such principles, and the view of haiku
available to most people in the West is one clouded by translation and the mind-sets of those who did the translating.

These are the reasons why it is unlikely, either now or at any time in the future, that there will ever be an absolute consensus of
what haiku means to the informed person..

This lack of a consensus has not deterred Western writers, though. They have used such knowledge as they had and their own
artistic intuitions, so that after 40 years one may talk of Western traditions and Western styles which have a certain validity
independent of Japanese haiku. Some might wish to make a case for the relevance to haiku of the ‘six common principles’ of the
Imagist poetry school (see Appendix).

In the West, the following attributes are looked for to recognise and judge haiku, but they will vary in their significance according to
the person’s standpoint and interests:

(A) spirit,
(B) ‘presence’,
(C) accepted writing conventions,
(D) choice of appropriate subject matter,
(E) poetic taste, sense of proportion, structure.

(A) Spirit
The argument about what makes a haiku has shifted largely from form to spirit. But there is still much discussion about what that
‘spirit’ is.

The more traditional view is that the haiku poet, by an act of surrender, becomes aware of things impacting on his consciousness
and is enabled to present them with heightened, selective objectivity. These observations occur in the course of actual, ordinary life
and are recorded with an effort to efface the self.

People (particularly those who follow Zen) are prone to interpret these observations as ‘moments’ of satori (that is, enlightenment,
when the observer recognises life for what it is.) The corollary of this, for the Zennist, is that only actual experiences qualify as
matter for haiku, and these should not be modified to serve artistic ends.

Dee Evetts articulates a different view: “For many years I held the view that a haiku poet was in some way cheating if he/she wrote
poems drawing upon the writer’s imagination or fantasy rather than from real life. At first glance this looks like a clear enough
distinction, yet what about the role of memory, of literature, the media? How about the combining of two separate moments, or
allowing one event to suggest another – or even using imagination to modify or build upon an actual experience? My view today is
that what really matters isn’t the source material or inspiration, but the degree to which the poem comes from a place of genuine
feeling, not from tinkering around with ideas or ideals. This is related to the Japanese concept of makoto, often translated as
‘sincerity’, but for our purposes more usefully expressed as ‘the truth of the poet’s heart’.” In fact, some of the most inspirational
Japanese haiku were imagined, e.g. Buson’s (1716-1784)

this piercing cold –

in the bedroom, I have stepped
on my dead wife’s comb
 

tr. Makoto Ueda

 

Today, there are actually ‘fringe’ groups that promote fantastic, surreal and sci-fi haiku:

This Autumn midnight

Orion’s at my window
shouting for his dog.
 

Carol A. Coiffait
 

Representatives of modern/avant-garde haiku in Japan are on record as saying that there is no such thing as ‘haiku spirit’, only the
spirit, or intuition, of individual poets who have steeped themselves in haiku.There is a blanket rejection, however, of aphoristic,
didactic or judgmental verses. Although the haiku form has been used to write adages and epigrams, these offend against the
principle of “Show, don’t tell” which most writers of haiku adhere to, with or without modification.

(B) Presence
When the present tense is used in haiku, as it generally is, it signifies a single observation or occurrence, not a habitual one or a
generalisation; but it may nevertheless seem to have some representative quality. Some feel the present tense lends a sense of
immediacy and the poet “actually being there”, even if he/she isn’t actually mentioned in the poem (as in Buson’s poem above).

Those ‘close to the consensus’ come across generalisations in Japanese haiku poetry, and don’t much like them, e.g.

the Flower Festival –

a mother’s womb is only for
temporary lodging
 

Buson tr. Makoto Ueda

 

A very few writers take the extreme view that haiku are ideally created in situ and should not be retouched; those with a strong
conception of themselves as poets tend to agree that reconsideration and too much retouching can destroy the raw charm of a
haiku; but in order to enhance the literary effect, a more or less indefinite process of reworking is acceptable (as it was to Bashõ)
providing the poet clings to the original perception.

The aim is to offer readers, drawing on their own schemata of experience, the chance to ‘feel themselves into’ the recorded
observation, and (without any explicit statement of feelings by the poet) to share an emotional experience resembling that of the
poet.

The desire for ‘presence’ does not preclude allusion. One of haiku’s achievements is to relate present and past (as represented by
literature, legend, history), hinting at the transience of the former and the enduring quality of the latter, so that our living
experience fuses in a constant paradox.

even here a child

looking for four-leaf clovers
on Culloden Moor
 

David Cobb
 

For some writers, ‘presence’ can be achieved at second-hand, via media such as TV (see Lenard D Moore’s haiku, quoted in section
(D), as a probable example.)

(C) Accepted Writing Conventions

Concrete images, not abstract words, carry the meaning and create the emotional tension and atmosphere in haiku. Two (not so
often, more) images juxtaposed in the space of a few short lines, freely associated, without any positive syntactical link, allow a
possibility of comparison which can be stronger than simile.

To create or enhance such juxtaposition, the Japanese language provides the poet with an array of words (kireji) which ‘cut’ the
haiku into opposing sections – 12 syllables matched with 5, usually. These words are like ‘verbalised punctuation’, generally with a
hint of emotion or of attitude. “Haiku is grasped with all five senses, not by logic … in order to jump over the gap between logic and
the senses, unique Japanese rhetorical techniques such as kireji and kigo (‘season word’) were invented.” (The Matsuyama
Declaration, 2000.) One is reminded a little of Keats’s “negative capability” and his rejection of “irritable reaching out after fact and
reason.”

Juxtaposition and ‘cutting’ are of fundamental importance, and some would go so far as to argue that the ‘cut’ haiku is almost
inevitably superior to one that reads like a sentence. To achieve a caesura, poets writing in English use punctuation marks (the dash
is popular) or simple line-breaks without punctuation.

Ambiguity has always been a prized feature of haiku.

sound of dance music —

the last fishing boat
throbs into place
 

George Marsh
 

Using juxtaposition instead of conjunctions (such as because) opens up the possibility of different interpretations, and allows the
poet to escape from imposing his own.

Adjectives are used sparingly in haiku. Any choice of attributes is more or less subjective and felt to be a bid to get the reader to
agree with the writer. It ‘closes’ the transaction between poet and reader/auditor. ‘Open-endedness’ (‘the half-said thing’) is a
cherished characteristic of haiku. Many of the best haiku have an unexpected ‘twist’ in the tail, ranging from outright shock to a
satisfying surprise at the discovery of something one “knew all the time, but did not know one knew.” (R H Blyth)

shipping oars
I hold my breath to hear
snow on the water
 

David Steele

(D) Subject Matter

Traditionally, Japanese haiku have been intimately bound up with almost ritual celebration of the endless cycle of the natural
seasons, specifically as they occur in Japan. This has led to a widespread belief that haiku is ‘a kind of nature poetry’, but with
populations becoming more and more urbanised, industrialised and cosmopolitan, this is not a description of haiku that most
practitioners of the art would now be happy with.

after the crash

the doll’s eyes
jammed open
 

Michael Gunton
 

For the Japanophile, the rather circumscribed traditional subject matter may have enduring appeal; but modern haiku has
broadened out to encompass any subject in daily life, e.g. war and sex. At their best, both set their sights above ‘mere’ description
to some engagement between the external world of things and the internal world of the haiku poet’s mind. The dominance of the
human condition in Western literature no doubt urges us further in that direction.

caught in a storm
wearing nothing waterproof
except mascara
 

Janice Fixter
 

midday heat
soldiers on both sides
roll up their sleeves
 

Lenard D Moore
 

It is nevertheless important not to project human viewpoints and values onto things – effectively, to patronise them. For this
reason, the English haiku poet is keen (even more keen, it seems, than his Japanese counterpart!) to minimise personification and
anthropomorphism.

Japanese poets, in line with ancient convention, still typically include an acceptable ‘season word’ (kigo), taken from a respected
almanac (saijiki), as the key image in each haiku they write. By drawing on a fund of common associations, the poet places his/her
current observation in the continuous flow of Nature and Time, thus evoking a great deal that there would be no need to say
explicitly, even if there were space. Recently, numerous freethinking poets in Japan have relaxed the stranglehold of the saijiki by
advocating the use of ‘topic’ words or ‘keywords’ with a more vague ‘seasonal feeling’, or indeed, drawn from human affairs, with no
such feeling at all. Nowadays there are many ‘seasonless haiku’ written in Japan.

In the West, opinion about the need for seasonal reference is sharply divided. There are poems with strong reference to particular
moments in the natural year, some with fainter reference, and some with none at all.

(E) Poetic Taste, Sense of Proportion, Structure

Some of the matters that influence the way a haiku poet writes, or sets a haiku down on paper, are merely taste. The Orientalist
may have notions of taste which are exotic. Taste is influenced also by the house styles of various publications. Haiku is subject to
‘fashion’ as are other arts.

This is therefore an area of ‘each for their own’. Notwithstanding this, there is broad agreement among people of all viewpoints that
haiku should be ‘light’ and not ostentatiously poetic. (‘Lightness’ is a reference to the last stage in the development of Bashõ’s
aesthetic, when he set great store by karumi. It does not mean that haiku aspires to be ‘light verse’, flippant; rather, that the haiku
poet should be able to present all aspects of life, both joyous and tragic (even his own death!), in a sober, interesting, but
disinterested way.) It has come in the West to also mean that the appreciation of haiku should not be demanding intellectually, but
produce an instant meaning and impact on one or more of the senses.

Everyday words that come to mind naturally are favoured in haiku; anything at all ornamental risks distraction and prejudices
directness. At the same time, we need to avoid clich. Onomatopoeic words are prized. Word order is straightforward, syntax is
frequently incomplete. Brevity is essential.

on the teacher’s apple —

small teeth marks
 

Frank Dullaghan
 

But brevity isn’t everything; it does not in itself make a haiku.

Those who approach haiku primarily as poetry will feel that various common techniques of English poetry (alliteration, assonance,
enjambment, rhythm, melody) have a part to play, though none of these should attract too much attention to itself. Even rhyme
may occasionally be used without detriment to taste, but it tends to glare. These are matters each poet is entitled to settle for
him/herself, using personal taste in a pragmatic way. Titles as such are avoided – they may compromise the open-endedness and
brevity, narrowing the context whilst lengthening the poem. However, ‘headnotes’ which establish little more than time and place of
composition, or explain some esoteric background point, are considered acceptable, though not much used at the present time.

The use of similes is frequently questioned, but implied similes are not uncommon. Haiku poets can expect criticism and the need to
plead a special case if they use like or as … as. They must be prepared to put their hands on their hearts and say, sincerely, that
there was no other way of recording the perception/experience truthfully, i.e. use of the simile had nothing to do with the poet’s
vanity.
The less punctuation, the better, seems to be a general view. Experiments with lay-out are justified, but like other things, current
taste rules out anything too ostentatious.

Structure is important in haiku, but in a stress-timed language like English it cannot be reduced to a simple matter of counting
syllables. (In Japanese, long vowels count as two and the letter n on its own as one.)

Some regard the form of 17 syllables (divided 5-7-5) as sacrosanct, as if it had some indefinable poetic or spiritual justification, or
was ordained by literary history. The fact is, the form derives from nothing more mysterious than inbred Japanese phrasing, found in
statements as unpoetic as police notices and TV commercials. In Japanese, the 5-7-5 pattern is inherently mellifluous and
consequently easy to remember. But even in Japan there is a growing proportion of haiku written in other than 17 syllables (usually
less). For example, Santõka’s teppatsu no naka e mo arare, rendered in English by John Stevens as: hailstones, too / enter my
begging bowl, counts as twelve.

Poets writing in English have to find an equivalent that suits the natural cadences of their own tongue. (This may, on occasion, turn
out to be 5-7-5 syllables.)

The majority of those who write haiku in English have come to feel that a haiku length of less than 17 syllables, with something like
6 or 7 beats overall, typically in three phrases with the middle line a little longer than the other two (i.e. with extra syllables and
possibly an extra beat) sounds ‘natural’, ‘right’, ‘light’ and ‘enough for our purpose.’ To insist on 17 syllables, willy-nilly, may result
in the ‘half-said thing’ becoming the ‘too-much-said thing’.

On the other hand, some haiku poets choose to write 5-7-5 as a discipline and a challenge to do so spontaneously, whilst
maintaining ‘lightness’.

Senryu
Senryu are superficially similar to haiku, but do not employ season words or aim at seasonal feeling. They don’t make use of
‘cutting’ in the way haiku do. The tendency is towards a single observation rather than juxtaposition, and an avoidance of
ambiguity. Senryu is also more detached than haiku; for this reason, use of first person is far less common.

The focus of senryu is on human behaviour – actions, rather than things. Without generalising in an overt way, they pinpoint our
foibles and fallibilities in an ironic or satirical sort of way. We are shown how absurd we are all liable to be. (Blyth, quoted earlier
as saying that haiku ‘tell us what we always knew but didn’t know we knew’, said that ‘senryu touch all our most sensitive spots
and tell us the very things we do not wish to know.’) Although haiku may be gently humorous, senryu are characterised by a
sharpness of wit that haiku avoids.

Shut up the house carefully

before you go to bed
he repeats, going off to burgle.
 

Jap. anon.
 

The fortune teller

At the fête this year
Offers therapy.
 

Cicely Hill
 

For most Japanese there is, for cultural-historical reasons, an almost unbridgeable gap between haiku and senryu. Because of our
traditions in the West, this kind of compartmentalisation is unsustainable. The majority of Western writers produce haiku and
senryu indiscriminately. Some would admit to finding senryu much more interesting than haiku; others might feel haiku go far
deeper than senryu. The West has also taken the lead in producing a kind of hybrid – a senryu that gets under the skin, and may
even, as in the following example, include the kind of seasonal reference we associate with haiku:

custody battle
a bodyguard lifts the child
to see the snow
 

Dee Evetts
 

We may say, then, that senryu and haiku enjoy equal esteem in the West and are not always clearly distinguishable.

In conclusion, ever since Bashõ, who encouraged it, haiku poets have felt the need to serve an apprenticeship and, when
established, perhaps then contribute to the liveliness of haiku by developing and broadening its scope, without compromising its
essential characteristics, attributes and qualities. Haiku is not a fossil. It is also not a toy.

© British Haiku Society, 2002

Appendix: A selection from the six ‘common principles’ of the Imagist poetry school
1. To use the language of common speech …………
2. To create new rhythms – as the expression of new moods – and not to copy old rhythms, which merely echo old moods …………
3. To allow absolute freedom in the choice of subject …………
4. To present an image ………… We are not a school of painters, but we believe that poetry should render particulars exactly and
not deal in vague generalities …………
5. To produce poetry that is hard and clear, never blurred nor indefinite.
6. ………… concentration is of the very essence of poetry.

(from the Preface to Some Imagist Poets, 1915)