Unifying intersectional discord within english haiku idioms
How we conceptualize the world dictates how we contextualize nature, our past, our present, and our future. Just as our literary frame of reference conceptually, dictates how we contextualize English haiku idioms (ehi). We will most likely never come to a uniform consensus as to what defines haiku, although we can become unified in acknowledging some of its key components like kigo and kireji. These key components can act as the common threads that unify and personify haiku, all without dictating a uniform definition of haiku.
I've written this essay in response to Mr. Wilson's essay "The Colonization of Japanese Haiku"
(simply haiku journal.com) My purpose in doing so is to engage the haiku community worldwide in a discussion. A discussion that speaks to haiku's past, present, and future. A discussion that focuses in on some of the intersecting issues brought forth in Mr. Wilson's essay. These intersectional issues are presently hampering haiku. I will put forth solutions that might contribute to rectifying these issues. I will also speak to what has caused the decline in the quality and misconception of what defines Traditional-Classical (T-C) Haiku today. Most significantly, I will speak to what the process of elevating the quality of haiku written today might look like.
Non-linear and intersectional issues concerning haiku
I will focus on five of the many issues that I believe are hampering haiku today. The first issue
is one also addressed in Mr. Wilson's essay. This issue is the colonization which enables the Anglo-
West’s (A-W) titular reappropriation of haiku, which has somewhat gentrified haiku as an art form. The
second issue is our dysfunctional and or maladaptive perception of nature. The third issue is the inability
of many to differentiate senryu from haiku. The fourth and key issue stems from our sociocultural
discomfort in acknowledging the essential role kigo plays in defining nature in traditional haiku.
Accepting, acknowledging, and literally coexisting with, rather than merely tolerating the essence of
haiku goes beyond the three F's of western sociocultural studies, folklore, food, & fashion. The fifth and
final issue pertains to the sub vocal reading of haiku, at least initially.
I believe Mr. Wilson's essay conveys a well thought out overview of how and why haiku has been
declining since the Meiji Era. I concur entirely with the factors and issues Mr Wilson put forth in regards
to haiku's decline. His work prompted me to delve deeper into these five intersectional issues I've
addressed in this essay.
The systematic cultural reappropriation & suppression of people’s collective notions of self, nature, & haiku
Haiku, it's "a cicada shell of its former incarnation, verging on extinction in the area of
world credibility as a serious literary genre". (Robert D. Wilson's online essay "The Colonization
of Japanese Haiku" on the Simply Haiku Journal website).
So why are English Haiku Idioms (ehi) and more specifically hokku/haiku in particular suffering
from literary gentrification, while teetering on the verge of extinction? Well some publishers, scholars,
critics, poets, and Mr. Wilson suggest it's due to "the effects and depth of the colonization of the Japanese
language and cultural memory via its adoption of the German-based university system; a colonization that
would, in time, water down the depth and aesthetic integrity of hokku". (Donald Keene, "Dawn in the
West").
“Gandhi understood this ... the systematic and complete elimination or suppression of the native
... language ... of one people by another. Even though the people in question might be given material
benefits through education ... if there is systematic destruction of their ... relationship with nature.
Stripping people of their collective notion of self is a prelude to ... the process of colonization ...
(which) goes on today under the name of 'development' wherein success is measured by the criteria of
Westernization. ... Gandhi fought against this form of colonization as much as against its material and
political manifestations … Although he was not against Christianity.” (Excerpt From: Malhotra, Rajiv.
“Being Different.”iBooks.)
Of course neither Gandhi nor Malhotra were referencing Japanese Poetry, still their thoughts in
regards to colonization and its effects on native languages and material benefits via western education,
and our relationship to nature are all relevant to this discussion. Gandhi and Malhotra did so not in
opposition to Abrahamic religions, but as a part of an effort to constructively critique them, alongside
their own Dharmic belief systems. They did so in large part to prompt discussions with other interested
parties. I am using their words to do much the same with haiku. In doing so I'm not suggesting that Japan
has had its language eliminated; still it's hard to deny it hasn't been suppressed (and somewhat gentrified)
in regards to its adaptation in the literate Western World.
Much like Chinese Characters this suppression is most evident in regards to the decline of young
Chinese, Japanese, and Korean’s ability to remember the stroke order of their character based writing
systems. These systematic collateral casualties of the A-W world occur as advancements in smartphone
technology erodes and suppresses as Gandhi put it "peoples collective notion of self, their ethnic and
cultural identity". Yes I am aware you can input characters with keystrokes, and even awkwardly do so
with finger strokes. Still this process of gentrified finger stroking is prohibitively cumbersome, and
restricts the ease of use that so personifies the smartphone experience for native english users. Thus
instead of going thru numerous impedimentary steps to finger stroke in their characters in the correct
order, most give in to convenience and dictate or type in their characters. This subtle, seemingly
inconsequential change in behavior, inputting characters via a keyboard or vocally, rather than finger
stroking characters into a text is an example of what Rajiv Malhotra was referring to when he stated
"Cultural appropriation gives a false impression of equalization.” (Excerpt From: Malhotra, Rajiv. “Being
Different.” iBooks.). This cultural appropriation is also evident in how english mukigo/senryu is
becoming indistinguishable from kigo/haiku.
This is also an example of how Chinese, Japanese, and Korean peoples receive "material benefit"
via the "suppression of their native language" (Gandhi). Take this logic a step further and it becomes
intersectionally apparent that the smartphone maker Samsung might be characterized as having been
gentrified and or self colonized too. I would suggest that Samsung has been gentrified and or self
colonized in regards to how it’s been assimilated into the global financial market (“developmental
success”). As a result Samsung financially thrives (”material gain”), in exchange for contributing to the
intersectional suppression of their “native language” (Korean/Hangul). This intersectional suppression of
their "native language" becomes deceptively apparent, in regards to how Samsung coerces it's native
smartphone users to suppress their culturally unique way of stroke ordered character driven writing, in
lieu of the A-W's Android/iPhone keyboard driven writing model.
It may not seem that the suppression of this culturally unique native language on smartphones
relates to haiku, but I maintain they correlate intersectionally. They correlate in regards to the systemic
intersectional suppression of the Chinese, Japanese, and Korean Peoples "collective notion of self". This
notion of self is subtly suppressed when character based writing is culturally appropriated for keyboard
based writing on smartphones; much the same occurs when mukigo/senryu is appropriated in place of
kigo/haiku. These forms of A-W reappropriation, and native language suppression intersectionally
correlate to cause discord; discord in how people culturally identify with their unique collective notion of
self. This reappropriation and suppression also creates discord for everyone, intellectually and literally.
Whether or not the A-W world is doing so intentionally is irrelevant to this discussion. The fact that all of
these issues (colonization, gentrification, the systemic suppression and or reappropriation of native
language, our collective notions of self, cultural identity, and our relationships with nature) intersect and
correlate with one another is what needs to be understood by writers and readers alike, in order to rectify
the discord which has been occurring in regards to haiku today.
Still the issue of Japan's colonization whether self imposed by itself or externally imposed by the
A-W world, is only one of the intersecting root causes behind the discord and decline of ehi (sedoka,
kataota, katauta, renga, choka, wakka, tanka, hokku, haiku, haiga, poekuagery, etc) like haiku. In Wilson's
essay he briefly touched on the fact that haiku began its decline during the Meiji Era, prior to the arrival
of the black ships. In this essay I’ll take this hypothesis several steps further.
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