Rectifying haiku's distorted identity
Many justifiably criticize much of the haiku written today. It seems there is no disagreement in regards to the dearth of kigo if not kireji, in much of the haiku published today. Why is this occurring, and how do we rectify it?
Well “The essence of haiku is in its natural imagery, not in a metaphoric presentation of symbolic poetic language”. (Bruce Ross “Haiku Mainstream” in Modern Haiku).
Unless we poets find novel ways to re-engage with nature how can we be expected to speak to or of nature, when we know nothing of it, relative to those like Basho who lived not just in nature, but as a part of it. We often speak and write to what we know of, our human experience, "Symbolic, metaphoric representations" of manmade life, in essence mukigo/senryu act as the fraternal twin to kigo's/haiku's natural imagery. It is not that metaphor cannot be used in haiku; it is what is being symbolically represented by the metaphor, nature or man, kigo or mukigo. It is not that one generation of poets is greater or lesser than the poets of another era, it is simply that most all poets tend to speak to their life experience. If Basho were born and raised today, in say Tokyo, NYC, or London he too would likely employ mukigo and write satirical senryu to a much greater extent.
So we have to ask ourselves wouldn't today’s Basho write of his life experience using mukigo, while still writing with what he characterized as karumi in his life? Isn't, wasn't, Basho's conclusion in his hut to get out of it, and cease isolating himself, to speak to life around him regardless of where he was?
When living in a city I frequently leave society to become immersed in, and unified with nature. I do so through a firsthand experience of its natural imagery, its kigo. Then once in this natural environment haiku inevitably, for a time effortlessly flows from me. Other forms of poetry like senryu can do the same for us, when we are in an environment dominated instead by the senryu poets subject matter, humanity.
It seems senryu and haiku have reached a point where they are almost undistinguishable to most. So how do we begin to differentiate them? Well how is haiku defined by scholars, experts, critics, publishers, and those who write it?
As Makota Ueda put it in his translation of "The Path of Flowering Thorn; The Life and Poetry of Yuson Buson", Stanford University Press, 1998.
"... haiku ... has sunk into an abyss of ... inadequate study ... unable to agree on what is and isn't haiku, in Japan and in the Anglo-West ... Japanese aesthetics were replaced by Anglo-Western aesthetic concepts ... the concept of kigo was reinvented to accommodate an Anglophile mindset far removed from Taoist ... Shamanic animism Buddhist Doctrine ... Confucian Group ideas ... and Shinto adaptation of animism ... haiku suffers from an identity crisis people have yet to cure ... Today's haiku ... is ... this homogenization of cultures ... kigo, meter, and aesthetic styles ... There is no East or West. Haiku has become an Anglo-Western poetic genre. Definitions for haiku are obscure with most publications admitting that haiku is in limbo, definition wise". (Makota Ueda)
Here in the west most struggle with how to interact with nature. Although well intentioned, Fuller and Emerson's concepts of transcendentalism are still derived from examples of Abrahamic and Greek historicism, which struggles to reconcile these accommodating anglophile mindsets. This culturally specific and self conflicted A-W mindset just can’t be universally applied to all other cultures. Just as concepts of Hinduism, Buddhism, Taoism, Shinto or Confucianism cannot be expected to be universally applicable throughout the A-W world.
Attempting to Identify or define haiku as I've been doing in this essay is akin to doing much the same with Buddhism or it's concept of emptiness. Some things, some concepts, can't be quantifiably or qualitatively measured, defined, analyzed, or classified, especially in words. Some art forms are more intangible than tangible in nature. It would be like trying to definitively write of a ballerina's' pirouette or a martial artists tobi ukemi. As if you could literally capture the essence of their physical and or spiritual presence and movements, by scribbling ink across a page. Still for the part of me that is influenced by the A-W world, I'm aware that I’m contradicting myself, by attempting to define haiku into words.
I'd define haiku as a poem whose essence is personified by nature. It's nature is personified through kigo. Kigo speaks to the elusiveness of nature's minutia. This minutia, this kigo, is superficially defined as a seasonal reference; a reference that can ideally be processed with zoka, with which we can create haiku. Kigo in haiku acts as the literary personification of nature's yugen essence. Nature's essence, it's yugen is what haiku abstractly embodies. This in part is why haiku is so hard to literally define.
From a more technical A-W perspective, traditional haiku should also include ya or kana style Kireji or toriawase; reinterpreted into English, which is expressed through punctuation, words, space, or an abrupt change of subject matter. Most all haiku should follow a short long short format. Although I do believe that jimari and jitarazu are occasionally acceptable. There is also kaeru which Basho periodically employed. kaeru references the rare swapping of the short long short format for long-short-short or short-short-long. I believe on extremely rare occasions this too is acceptable. One line haiku are also acceptable. To me it's akin to jazz improvisation. Still as a poet I think you have to demonstrate that you've written extensively in the more traditional format, before re-interpretively writing haiku with jimari, jitarazu, or kaeru . Haiku of course includes what can be defined as subjects. I think that subjectivity is also acceptable (on par with jimari, jitarazu, and kaeru), when used sparingly, although I know many do not. Most definitively I believe that including kigo/kidai from saijiki to be the essential ingredient in traditional/classical haiku; and again you can still have haiku that is more contemporary as opposed to traditional/classical which doesn’t containing kigo/kidai from saijiki.
I have heard it said that haiku should be more activity based. For instance, reading some of Mr. Wilson's other online essays he described "object based haiku" as "falling flat", or as being "mush melon". I'd say I prefer more action or movement based haiku as well. Though I do think there is a place for more static/passive based haiku, on occasion. I've chosen a few of my more passive based haiku that have a different feel as examples. Still I believe these haiku are as effective as the activity based ones contrasting them.
passive mush melon, or object based movement, action based
Northwest Cathedral rapedseeds
mossy knotted gnarled sap STUMPED! husks swept about by brooms
Old Growth AVATAR sprawled naked grains
a weathered season moonlit mountain winds
the age of fall unfolding shrieking thru valley nostrils
browned ferns fall buds abstruse treetop breeze
cherry petals draw
A visual eulogy
falling past their prime
From a more artistic perspective this is how I define haiku.
"Haiku are meant to evoke an emotional response from the reader ... to light the spark that triggers creative rumination ... They act as literary manifestations ... visions of nature’s seasonal modulations ... They're emotionally tinged words, barely perceptible sensory flickers ... literary etchings of lucid visions transposed into the minds of its readers ... They're meant to act as sensory catalysts ... like the passing of a penciled baton laid out upon a piece of paper that a reader might grasp for in their mind's eye ... all of which prompts the reader to continue exploring the sensory experience elicited from the writers pen ... This is how the literary sketching of poets are intended to function ... as creative muses with which readers can draw from and viscerally apply to their own artistic idioms ... from that lucid space within their heads ... where their minds eye can spark their own creative visions"
Bukusai Ashagawa, 2013
(Ashagawa, Bukusai, from the 6th edition of the book JIKU)
So how do you think haiku should be defined? Do you think it can or should be defined? What about kireji? How many kireji in a haiku are appropriate? What style of kireji do you prefer? How many kireji if any at all actually exist, before the poet creates their own? How do you feel about subjectivity or active versus passive haiku? How do you feel about jimari, jitarazu, and kaeru? We need to come to some sort of consensus on these issues in order to clarify the meaning and purpose of haiku. We don’t need to agree on everything, but we do need to acknowledge others that write and define haiku differently then we do. We need to find common literary ground to unify and move haiku forward. Maybe we can all endorse different styles or schools of haiku. Styles and schools that have varied and unique focuses, yet also share common characteristics. In doing so I believe we can unify the way haiku is characterized, without making it uniform or static in nature. Our reluctance to constructively yet critically engage in these types of discussions is in part why “haiku suffers from an identity crisis people have yet to cure” (Makota Ueda)
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