Japanese Traditional Haiku School Lesson 1

Traditional Japanese School

WHCschools
Susumu Takiguchi, Instructor

LESSON 1: Japanese Kukai Style

1 Kigo: snow;

2 Form: 3 lines or variations thereof, 5-7-5 or shorter, either by syllables or by other counters;

3 Rhythm, stress, sound, flow etc. are more important than the syllable count;

4 Submission up to 3 haiku poems per person.

As I write this sen-pyo (selection comments), it has started to snow again here in the Oxfordshire countryside, England. What an appropriate timing!

flurries of snow
falling silently down,
calming me down

Japanese kukai typically last about an hour. The size ranges from a small kukai of half a dozen people to a gigantic one of, say, 500 participants. Often, they are combined with ginko (haiku walk, or journey) during which there would be kukai which could be one session or many sessions depending. Ginko could be just a small stroll in a public part, or a bit bigger one such as a two-week trip to Australia or the Lake District in Britain.

Participants select their favourites anonymously ranging from 3 to 10 haiku and these are read out loudly by yomibito (haiku reader) as authors have to reply loudly if their poems are read out in order to reveal their identity. These are tense and thrilling moments.

After this, the shusai (master, or leader, or editor) of the kukai will read out his/her selections, normally 15 of them (some choose as many as 25), and give general comments as well as comments on each haiku. Usually, the shusai gives tokusen (special merit) to the best haiku.

Even based on traditional Japanese school, haiku in English cannot be but different. I accept three lines as they reflect the three segments in a Japanese haiku and also lines are an essential feature of Western poems (verse => Latin versus=line, furrow, row and vertere=to turn (page, line) However, some haiku are better in two lines or four lines in terms of rhythm, flow, contents and "look". One liners are slightly a different proposition and need more time to develop.

My idea is let each haiku determine the length, choice of words, rhythm etc. etc.

Now, our own kukai. On the whole, I am pleasantly surprised that the standard and quality of the submitted works are higher from the viewpoint of this School than those of general postings to the haikuforum.

Setsu-getsu-ka is a phrase which is used to describe the symbol of Japanese aesthetics closely related to nature. Setsu is snow, getsu moon and ka cherry blossom.

Snow has been liked by the Japanese for centuries so much so that there are numerous nouns and phrases to express all kinds of snow under different conditions, hence many kigo relating to snow. The lack of variety in your description of snow is one of the things which struck me as different. Snow is snow and that's that, is just about all.

Traditional Japanese School, with its restrictions such as kigo, teikei (5-7-5), kireji and lots of other conventions including limiting the subject matter, tends to encourage convergence, conformity and standardisation, which in turn often lead to stereo-typed and hackneyed haiku without newness, originality and innovation. Little wonder that Basho stressed the importance of fueki-ryuko (unchanging poetical values and newness).

From this, two things stem: -

(1) Acceptance of certain haiku which are written and appreciated within these limitations (such as the beauty of snow on the Mr. Fuji);

(2) Exceptional haiku which fall into these limitations and yet showing newness, originality and innovation (surprisingly these are possible);

It is wrong to dismiss (1) as worthless. It is all a question of expectation. If one expects more than (1) can offer, of course one feels dissatisfied and frustrated and judges these haiku under (1) by saying, So what? or These are incapable of answering important issues of society or human affairs. However, if one's expectations are conservative, haiku is still a pleasant pastime. If we want more from haiku, then we must expand the strait-jacket without destroying traditional values unduly (more on this in other lessons)

So, let us look at our own haiku then. In so doing, for obvious reasons we would wish to aim at (2) but it is a very difficult target indeed. Out of 54 works submitted, I have chosen seven.

Kukai results and commentaries may be viewed in the online message archives and files of WHCschools

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