It is an irony of
history that when Blyth was being taken to Shinjuku Seiwa Hospital for the
treatment of pneumonia, he wanted to visit Hawaii to convalesce. With only a few
more days before he passed away, it was discovered that he had something much
worse: a brain tumour, which would deny him this journey, but instead gave him
an eternal journey. Today, Hackett has settled down to live in Hawaii, as if to
receive his mentor for whom it was not to be. However, with Hackett in Hawaii,
Blyth's spirit may be visiting these islands.
Hackett perused
Blyth's letters to him (and also his publications) and has found some lines in
one such which relates to the tenor of his contribution in this November 2001
issue of World Haiku Review. As you will see, his contribution is in the shape
of a part of his earlier poem which he feels shares the sentiment with the one
haiku he has personally selected for this issue. These are the lines from the
letter in which James Hackett has found a corresponding relevance:
"...a
haiku poet is born, not made, and of a 'nationality' which has nothing to do
with the ordinary conception of it."
" 'Be not
weary in well-doing.' I myself feel lonely sometimes, but remember 'the great
cloud of witnesses'."
From a letter
from Blyth to Hackett, dated 15 February 1960, while the sender was at the
Gakushuin (the university where he taught).
I have decided,
with Hackett's kind permission, to publish the entire letter in order to give
the context against which these excerpts could be read, and also to show the
extremely high esteem Blyth had for Hackett as a person and as a poet.
The letter was
composed four years before Blyth’s death. He later introduced thirty poems
written by Hackett. They were included toward the end of the second volume of A
History of Haiku, in a chapter called "World Haiku". What an apt
title this is that I could mention in this magazine! And what an apt person
Blyth treated in the chapter! He points out that these poems are...
"...in no
way mere imitations of Japanese haiku, nor literary diversions. They are (aimed
at ) the Zen experience, the realising, the making real in oneself of the
thing-in-itself, impossible to rational thought, but possible", "all
poets believe," in experience."
Blyth quotes
Hackett’s remarks from a letter by Hackett:
"I regard
‘haiku’ as fundamentally existential, rather than literary. [ ] For
haiku is ultimately more than a form (of even a kind) of poetry: it is a Way –
one of living awareness. Haiku’s real treasure is its touchstone of the
present. This, together with its rendering of the Suchness of things, gives
haiku a supra-literary mission, one of moment."
I have often
mentioned that haiku is a way of life. By this I do not necessarily mean the
same thing as Hackett does by "existential", but deep down, where the
existentialist issues are to be found, I believe we are talking the same
language.
Blyth goes even
one step farther than that. In the concluding paragraph of World Haiku, he asks
a frightening ultimate question:
"But after
all, which is more important, to write (haiku) or to live?" Life is now
seen as "an unwritten poem".
The following
words by Blyth fill me with awe and anguish combined:
"… We
must not write haiku, we must not write, we must not live, to fulfil ourselves,
or to share our experiences with others. We must not aim at immortality or even
timelessness; we must not aim. Infinity and eternity come of themselves or not
at all…"
The excerpts from
Blyth’s letter, Hackett feels, also reflect Blyth's views as expressed in his
Preface to A History of Haiku, Volume One:
"The
world, of which Japan is a part and a microcosm, has set for itself goals
totally different from those of Basho. His Way of Haiku can hardly be said to
exist now, for almost nobody walks on it. As a Way, it was in many respects
better than that of Taoism, Christianity, Confucianism, Buddhism, and so on. Its
desuetude is a monument to the stupidity, vulgarity, sentimentality, and
unpoeticality of human beings." (page vi)
Blyth's message
from these quotations seems especially pertinent considering the instability and
chaos of the present moment, which are a result of our failings to which he
refers. The time is disjointed and we need to go back to some fundamental
reflection on why Basho’s Way has fallen into desuetude, for this should also
be the Way of ourselves in our small world-haiku community.
Here is the entire
text of Blyth's letter in question (the selected lines in bold text):
The
Gakushuin
15 Feb. 1960
Dear Mr. Hackett,
I too feel troubled at the fact that
your words cannot be published at present. I myself believe in you and in your
haiku. As I have said before, I think your verses as good as, and sometimes
better than those of the highest ranks of haiku poets of the past. As far as
publication is concerned, I am going to put the best of the verses, with your
kind permission of course, at the end of my 5th volume of Haiku, which I am
working on now. I wish to include them,
not only for their intrinsic value, but to show that a haiku poet is born, not
made, and of a "nationality" which has nothing to do with the ordinary
conception of it.
As for the comments and suggestions, I
will postpone them a little, as this is my busiest time in the Year, the
examination season.
Mr. Hackett, don't feel too discouraged. I think the printing of your work is
only a question of time. "Be
not weary in well-doing." I myself feel lonely sometimes, but remember
"the great cloud of witnesses."
Yours
R H Blyth
Read:
James W. Hackett: A Personal Selection
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