Challenges
for World Haiku in the 21st Century
The
World Haiku and the Haiku World
Challenge
One: Back to Basics
An Old
Argument and A New Frontier of Haiku: "Is Haiku Poetry?"
Susumu Takiguchi
Oxford, UK
Introduction
Basho’s
"fueki ryuko" is a far more dynamic and progressive haikai tenet
than is generally recognised. The usual explanation that permanence
and change are both needed for haikai fails to convey the creative
momentum and incessant quest for inspiration contained in it.
Rather, "fueki ryuko" is really talking about changes, and
suggesting that eternal essence of haikai should be found in these
changes. In this sense, it is talking about the same thing as
Basho’s other teaching of "atarashimi" (newness) which
is the lifeblood of haikai.
The
reason why Basho added "fueki" (eternal essence) is that
changes needed in haikai should not be just any changes, or changes
for the sake of changes, but those changes which seek eternal
values. In other words, he tried to make these vital changes a
difficult but worthwhile target to attain, thus paving the way for
haikai to develop along the right and ever-improving path. To put it
in the modern context, the lesson we should learn from "fueki
ryuko" in our haiku composition and in the haiku movement is that
we should be constantly seeking changes which are likely to realise
permanent poetic values. This seemingly contradictory nature of
"fueki ryuko" is the creative tension which Basho was
developing for himself and for his followers.
Our
Challenges
Any
human activity will become sterile without the injection of fresh
air, new blood or progressive innovation. However, it is common that
such an activity becomes readily "institutionalised" and
resists changes. Haiku is no exception. Therefore it is important
for anyone involved in haiku to stop from time to time to reflect
upon oneself, making sure that rot has not set in. It is a good
practice to do so in order to rid oneself of complacency, arrogance
and narrow-mindedness in any event.
One
of the most effective ways of exercising such a review is to
challenge what seems to be doing well. Any critical reappraisal
levelled against a matter can logically apply more profoundly to lesser
endeavours. As Descartes proposed to doubt everything that he could
manage to doubt ("Cartesian doubt"), so we can propose to
challenge everything we can manage to challenge. The more
well-established and unassailable a target seems to be, the more
worthwhile the challenge would become.
It
was for this reason that the process was started last August at the
WHF2000 London-Oxford Conference to look at everything in the haiku
community critically, and to give it a thorough re-examination and
reappraisal. It is hoped that through such review we may find right
paths along which world haiku can develop in the future. The
initiative was taken under the two slogans, "Challenging
Conventions" and "Charting Our Future". It is now
being followed up by WHF Mark II which started on 1 January 2001.
The two slogans require that we should conduct our discussion in as
"critical, new, original, positive, constructive, creative,
inspiring and thought-provoking" a way as possible. It is
certainly not an easy task. On the contrary, it is a tough exercise
which needs a great deal of intellectual input, creative energy,
courage, open mind, honesty, freedom of thought and expression-- and
above all, quite a lot of time to be completed.
Under
"Challenging Conventions", we basically challenge just
about everything. At the WHF2000 London-Oxford Conference, there
were 15 to 20 of the more important challenges, depending on how one
categorises them. All of these will now be followed up at under
"Mark II"
Challenge
One: Back to Basics
An Old Argument and A New Frontier of Haiku: "Is Haiku
Poetry?"
If
you ask a Japanese, "Is haiku poetry?", he or she would
either think you are mad or would feel deeply insulted. As far as
the Japanese are concerned, haiku and its cousin, tanka, are
quintessentially Japanese poetry. There are other forms of Japanese
poetry, which are using modern Japanese ("gendai-go") or
forms and styles influenced by foreign poems, mainly Western. Also,
there is another important form of poetry based on "kan-shi"
(Chinese poetry), though it is no longer widely written. None
of the poets of these other forms excludes haiku as non-poetry. Why
then, are we asking this strange question?
Two
serious reasons must be mentioned. Firstly, as haiku in Japan
becomes more and more versatile and "progressive", the traditional definition of haiku is no longer sufficient to sustain
and vindicate that which has deviated from that tradition. A new
poetic value system is needed for "gendai" haiku. If one
seeks this new poetic value system in the Japanese tradition itself,
going as far back as one could reasonably go, one would end up in
having a row with the traditional school of thought, because one is
essentially introducing a re-interpretation of history. This is
basically what has been happening in Japan since at least the days
of Masaoka Shiki (1867-1902), and particularly fiercely since the
end of the World War Two.
If,
on the other hand, one seeks such a system in modern Japan and/or in
non-Japanese tradition, one cannot possibly escape the fundamental
question of what poetry is in the contemporary Japan, in the French
tradition, in India, in Scandinavia, in Arabic cultures, in
Anglo-Saxon tradition or in Africa. Some universal poetic values
which make poems poems and not prose or any other forms of human
literary expressions are required to support what has gone beyond
the realm of traditional Japanese haiku.
The
second serious reason is that, at least in the West, one hears this
curious assertion that haiku is not poetry. This comes from two
different sources, or more precisely from the opposite ends of the
same source. One source is what the Western haiku poets sometimes
call slightly obsequiously and subserviently "the
mainstream" poets, as though those outside them are
second-class citizens. I find the term distasteful. According to
these haiku poets, "the mainstream" poets do not regard
haiku as part of the family of proper poetry, or any poetry at all.
Having not given any legitimacy, these haiku poets have turned their
back on "the mainstream" and, rather than carrying on
demanding to be called proper poets (which has been pursued by some,
such as James W. Hackett and Jane Reichhold), started to assert that
haiku is not poetry but something so special that it should not be
mixed up with the usual kind of poems. (I have detected many
"cross-purpose" talking and the muddle caused by sloppy
use of important terms and concepts. These should be dealt with in
the debate that will follow my piece)
The
other source is the main body of Western haiku poets themselves who
claim that haiku is again a special thing altogether and therefore
should not be diluted by features of Western poetic tradition and
prosody, which would presumably make haiku less of haiku (or no
haiku at all) and more of a mere part (presumably an unimportant
part) of Western poems. According to this position (and quite a
rigid one at that), rhymes, metaphors, anthropomorphosis or
personification and many other tools of trade are all unacceptable
in haiku (though curiously some of them are taboos in Western poetry
as well, which makes one wonder). These poets tend to elevate haiku
into idolatry.
Either
way, both the Japanese camp and the Western camp need to ask a more
fundamental question, i.e. what is poetry? If haiku is not poetry,
then what is it (especially when the Japanese have never thought
that it isn’t or even asked such a question at all)? Without
knowing what poetry is, how could one decide that haiku is or is not
poetry? Supposing haiku is not poetry, then what makes haiku haiku?
Who is the arbiter of all this anyway? One smells an all-out case of
talking cross-purposes here. There is a good chance that Western
haiku poets are merely talking about the tradition of Romantic poems
only, which is merely a small part of their poetic heritage.
What
is clear is that by separating haiku from the Western poetic
tradition, the Western haiku poets may have created something
resembling to haiku, which is to their credit, but at the same time
they have suppressed other possibilities from Western poetic
tradition to emerge. We should investigate if it’s really too late
to liberate these other possibilities and give them the chance to be
resuscitated. As Professor Shirane points out, the Western poets
(poets, what poets?) may have narrowed the scope of haiku
composition.
The
Japanese camp, on the other hand, should study the essence of
poetics in the West and in other major poetic traditions in order to
establish a sound foundation which would underpin the development of
non-traditional haiku. Even the traditional school of thought would
benefit if they study non-Japanese poetic tradition to bring in
"atarashimi" into their world.
(There
were two key-note speeches at the WHF2000 London-Oxford Conference,
dealing with this particular topic, one by a popular British poet,
Tobias Hill, and the other by the celebrated international
poet/artist from Romania, Ion Codrescu. They will be introduced to
you at an appropriate time in this debate)
Next:
A Few More Words About Renku, by Werner Reichhold
