| = Paul MacNeil comments... | Nina Shamana [31.Aug.06 03:22] |
Paul MacNeil comments: But at its essence what is haiku? The Internet resource can provide you with as many fine definitions as it has me. At a website hosted by Dhugal Lindsay, an Australian living and working in Japan, is found a fine collection of essays and wisdom. He is a member of a "school" of haiku, led in Tokyo by Yoko Sugawa. Sugawa-sensei traces her lineage from Shiki through one of his disciples/followers Kyoshi Takahama. Kyoshi was sensei to Shuoshi Mizuhara who taught Shuson Kato, sensei to Ms. Sugawa. "It is a fact but not a truth" - Shuson Kato. Lindsay adds: "He often said this of people's haiku. Don't make haiku that read like a news report. It is not enough to state a scene. It must be done in such a way that it illustrates a fundamental Truth at the same time." Lindsay's comment addresses what is and what is not haiku. It is important to emphasize what Kato and Lindsay have said. These words go a long way toward defining the essence of haiku. With many complex aspects or parts, haiku definitions in this way can lead to a philosophy, a way of haiku. Sugawa (bi-lingual, writing in English) explains some of the "HAIKU IS NOT" in the following quotations: "Photographic descriptions of nature" are not haiku. I think of this as a Kodak - a snapshot. This is not haiku. Some of his own philosophy was shared by Susumu Takiguchi-san on the WHC forum (2-16-00), excerpted from his biography of Kyoshi. He (also bi-lingual) offers a similar guideline: "Try not to report. Express it." A closely related point by Sugawa warns that: Haiku are not "simple descriptions or accounts (prose)." I often encounter on haiku internet lists, and as a haiku editor, what might be termed "shopping lists." This can take the form of a list of three separate things on three lines, or, if two things stretched over three lines, still just a listing of things. Perhaps: my mother/ wrote out a shopping list/ I went to the store - or: first rays of dawn/ dew on the brick wall/ a peeper sings. One is mundane; the other beautiful. Neither is haiku. Haiku attempts that are drawn from television or movies and described by the writer are similarly flawed. News events and such I call "CNN" haiku. Susumu Takiguchi comments in this vein: "Try to write a haiku only about what happens to you (i.e. avoid fictitious, or imaginary renderings)." "Straight facts and common knowledge devoid of emotion" are not haiku. The choice of words to describe a scene concretely and also allow connections to both an underlying symbology and the human emotions becomes crucial in terms of success as haiku. Lindsay quotes from a 1947 essay by Otsuji (Seki Osuga): "If one does not grasp something - something which does not merely touch us through our senses but contacts the life within and has the dynamic form of nature - no matter how cunningly we form our words, they will give a hollow sound. Those who compose haiku without grasping anything are merely exercising their ingenuity. The ingenious become only selectors of words and cannot create new experiences for themselves." Takiguchi puts it: "Try to write a haiku only when you have been deeply moved, strongly inspired and poetically touched by the subject matter." He goes on to add "do not fake poetic feelings." "Pieces containing too much religion or intellectualism" are not haiku. Also, haiku is not made with "Rampant metaphors springing from the intellect." It is not the role of the writer to place his process of thinking in the haiku. A haiku should lead not to obvious conclusions of what the writer emoted, believed, or interpreted, but rather set up a sharing of the experience. In this, the reader may partake and bring his or her own reactions. Susumu Takiguchi warns: "Try not to conceptualise, intellectualise, philosophise, moralise, or theorise." "Pieces hiding their lack of content through ambiguity in language" are not haiku. This is also close to the previous point of what is not haiku. Some writers use an inner language, private meanings, or hint at things only known to them. Uncommon words, or words used in unconventional meanings are a part of this type of non-haiku, or at least failed haiku attempts. The use of enigma, religious or otherwise, is not haiku. "Explanatory pieces leaving nothing for readers to discover themselves" are also not haiku. This is a haiku attempt that just tells the reader ALL about it. The relationships of the elements are spelled out. One variety is the "cause and effect" haiku when an antecedent to the observation is made plain. A haiku that has its own answer. Sometimes I think of these as "so what?" haiku. The writer has failed to consider what is it about the subject(s) that should be shared with others. A reader encounters this kind of verse and may reply "and, what about it?" We have Basho's teachings on this in several ways: "a haiku (hokku) is made by combining things." "A verse that is not cut is not a haiku (hokku)." "Those who are good at combining or bringing together two topics are superior poets." Rather than listing things or explaining all about things, haiku may better be considered in terms of the juxtaposition (I often prefer the term "apposition") of the elements or parts and then the creation of the space (the "cutting") between them. "The key to making haiku is that when something of the natural world causes one to start in surprise and revelation ... this shock caused by an encounter with a Truth is yours and yours alone. Throw away all preconceptions and predetermined ideas about the object and experience it as if you were a young child. In doing this, one is able to catch pure and fundamental Truths in nature and through this discover Truths within oneself and humankind in general." Some of this truth-finding was spoken by Basho more than three centuries ago - his admonition to "learn of the pine from the pine, learn of bamboo from bamboo." Truth is subjective always because perception is subjective. But, the truths of things in their natural world, the interrelations of these truths with each other and with humankind, are knowable. They can be shared - with haiku. | |