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The Haiku and the Poetry Almanac:
can this formula be transposed elsewhere?

Alain Kevern
France

 

I - Poetry almanacs

In the neo-classical tradition, as it stands today, the main principle of the haiku is, above all, seasonal emotion as defined by Inahata Teiko, the grand-daughter of Takahama Kyoshi (1874-1959) who was one of the craftsmen of the modern haiku.

The presence of an allusion to the seasons in a work of art or literature reminds us of a basic fact of Japanese culture: the feelings aroused by nature are the reference for all cultural activity.

Composing a haiku complying with the seasonal circumstances therefore becomes a guarantee of the authenticity of the poem. Integrating nature or a season into a poem is a way of recognizing that man belongs to the universe. It is no longer a question of singing nature in an external way, but through each poetic composition, of creating an event in which poetic expression, writing, human life and the cosmos merge together. Although man is one of the elements in the universe, the poetic experience represented by the haiku reveals tremendous potential, as the reason for our existence is no longer separable from the cycle of the tides, the migration of birds and the death of stars.

Thus, nature in Japan is not perceived as the antithesis of civilization, but on the contrary, as the path toward it. Thus, everyday, Japanese culture continues to build its idea of nature, and nature continues to irrigate and update it. For in Japan, nature is completely reshaped by its culture, and culture in its turn marks the perception the Japanese have of nature.

Thus, nature is thus socially and culturally codified, and the example of the haiku shows the degree of refinement by which the Japanese people have reached in their imaginary reconstruction of the universe and the world surrounding them. For each season word, each theme and each seasonal allusion, there is a precise moment within the seasons which corresponds.  Before the haiku, and before composing any poem, the Japanese thus classified the different moments of each season and the emotional relationship with each of those moments. This process occurred with passing experience with an extraordinary meticulousness, and it is the accumulation of these detailed observations that encouraged the creation of poetry almanacs. But what is a poetry almanac?

It is an encyclopedia-like document listing "season-evoking words" which correspond to precise events: the weather, animal activities, changes in the plant world, and religious ceremonies which occur during a particular season. In these saijiki, haiku have their place as illustrations of the skill and talent with which famous composers make use of such references. The flora, fauna, astronomy, regional customs, festivals and traditions afford existential consistency to the poems and give them legitimacy as poems. In an almost pre-scientific way, almanacs systematically list the vocabulary particular to each of those seasonal events. They propose a codification in terms of keywords considered appropriate for transmitting the atmosphere peculiar to each season, illustrating their use via poems by great masters of the genre.

As far back as 1563, the poet, Sôgi proposed a correspondence between a theme broached in a poem, and the seasonal circumstances of this act of creation. He took a calendar framework from China and added the correspondences that he noticed between the time of year and its characteristic signs:

• first month: frost, willow, nightingale, skylark

• second month: ploughing the rice fields, east  wind

• third month: ploughing the rice fields and on the third day: peach trees

• fourth month: change of clothes on the first day of the month

• fifth month: iris on the fifth day of the month

Whereas in Europe, "books of hours" and pastoral types of calendars flourished: "The book of hours of the Duc de Berry", "Compost and the great calendar of the Shepherd's", by Pierre le Rouge in 1497, and much later, "The Rhine almanac of the friend of the house", by Johann Peter Hebel, 1811. In Japan, the listing of these seasonal signs evolved in a more and more technical fashion. In 1636, a poetry almanac, "Hanabigusa", contained 650 seasonal terms. In 1648, Kitamura Kigin, Basho's master, created an almanac called "Yamamo I, containing 1050 season words. In 1803, the poet, Bakin, presided over the first "Haïkaï-Haïkaï-Sïjïki", containing 3600 expressions connected with the seasons. In 1920, the "Shinko-Haïkaï-Sïjïki"" listed 5300. The well-know rise in the number of season words and expressions compiled in these almanacs encouraged a finer and finer perception of reality, for the increase in the number of season words considerable enriched the nuances brought to seasonal correspondences.

From a practical point of view, the poetry almanac fulfills several social functions and is directed at several types of audience.

• First, it is a technical manual for novice poets learning to write haiku. For each season word, they can find a commentary and examples of poems illustrating the use of such-and-such a season word. It is also an anthology of the best haiku.
  

• For the public at large, usually city-dwellers who have lost contact with life in the country, it is a complete, rich panorama of their own culture. it is a veritable Japanese re-creation of the world as revealed through the sensibility particular to this people.
  

• For foreigners, the poetry almanac is an invaluable way of better getting to know the Japanese people and their perception of reality and the universe.

In Western countries, the poetry almanac might seem to be the very negation of the artistic process, insofar as, in Europe, it is individuality that is often associated with creative genius. However, these enormous glossaries are the poetic grammar of a nation, which everyone uses in an ever-renewed relationship with nature. These glossaries also prove the extreme socialization of poetry in Japan, which is one way among others of celebrating their deep attachment to the rhythms of the cosmos, in a style where the individual and the collective meet.

This is what a page of an almanac looks like:

"Natsugasumi: Summer fog. The evocation of fog suggest that of spring, for "Kasumi" originally was not very different from "Kin", mist, which is generally a season word linked to the renewal of nature and any soaring of the emotions. "Kin" is tainted with melancholy, for it qualifies an autumnal atmosphere with its succession of obligatory poetic themes: departure, separation from one's loved one, melancholic wandering, exile, heartbreak and so on. However, according to the poet, Aoyagi Shigeki (b. 1929), it is very difficult to try and capture the nuances which sometimes exist between "kin" and "kasumi", "mist and "fog" -- which were once hardly distinguishable one from the other. What separates a summer fog from a vaporous autumn mist often depends much on not so  different feelings of a vibration or an intensity.

shiranamino shiraki hamirinu natsugasumi

Beside the precipice
a chain of mountains hangs on -
summer fog clings

Nomura Hakuigetsu

zeppekini kakaru kusanya natsugasumi

The white swell
drowned in the whiteness
summer fog

Kasaï Teruo"

(in: "La Tisserande et le Bouvier", Grand almanach poétique japnonaise; Livre III, L'été. Edition "Folle Avoine", 1991)

II - Haiku and evolving Japanese society

Japanese society is evolving, and its relationship with the world, also. At the beginning of the century, cultural and social upheaval caused by the westernization of the archipelago did not spare literary traditions, considered to be old-fashioned and dated, compared with the prestige of the West. The haiku itself suffered the repercussions of this opening up to foreigners, and Masaoka Shiki (1862-1902) played an important role in the emergence of a haiku adapted to the sensibility of the time.

In the Japan of the beginning of the century, undergoing very rapid, irreversible social and economic changes, Shiki observed that, with the evolution of public taste due to progress in compulsory education, artistic and literary expression would undergo parallel metamorphoses. So also, he thought, would the haiku, a genre bound to evolve and transform with the new generations. For, from the waka of ancient times to the renga of the classical period, then from the renga to the haiku, and from the haikai to the haiku of the Meiji period, a new poetic genre was formed each time in a melting pot from which foreign influences were never absent. The contemporary haiku could not escape this movement.

But beyond a multi-secular tradition with its rules and codes, can the poetry almanac and the haiku at each period say everything, recount everything and see everything in the world? Forty years after the development of Masaoka Shiki's concept of an "on-the-spot sketch", his disciple, Takahama Kyoshi asked whether the traditional poetry almanac could be adopted in non-Japanese climates.

"The haiku", he wrote in a Tokyo daily newspaper on 14 and 15 April 1936, "is a literary genre which was born on Japanese soil. The season themes recorded in poetry almanacs are immutable, even though some adjustments are possible. But, if the time has come for season themes to completely disappear from poetry, then the death of the haiku is also nigh".

In spite of this somewhat rigid attitude, Kyoshi then suggested answering the question concerning which season themes could be used to express the atmosphere of a foreign country or region where, for example, it was hot all year long. He thus suggested integrating a sub-chapter called "Tropics" into the list of expressions associated with summer in the traditional almanac classification system. With in this sub-chapter could be found expressions relating to meteorological phenomena, with names of places, animals, plants and religious feast days, all bearers of emotions particular to tropical countries. For example, under the heading, "meteorological phenomena", could be found, "Singapore", "Johore", "Gulf of Bengal", "Indian Ocean", etc.

At this time, with the evolution of a society opening up more and more to the outside world, the basic principles of the poetry almanac were maintained, in return for some adaptations and modifications.

In comparison with this period, today's Japanese socio-cultural and economic environment is being submitted to profound changes. Today, it is the world at large which is invading the most intimate aspects of daily life. As Katô Shûson (1905-1993), one of the great figures of the contemporary haiku remarked, children in front of a greengrocers stall no longer differentiate between recently imported and traditional foodstuffs. The outside world is no longer on the other side of the world, but has become an important source of our everyday environment.

III - The contemporary haiku

The haiku could not escape this fate. The same poet, Katô Shûson, wondered whether a non-Japanese reality could inspire as "Japanese" a poetic form as the haiku. How could the haiku, whilst respecting its own rules, reconstruct this reality?

Starting from the principle that today, in Japan, it is no longer possible to withdraw into oneself in poetry, Katô Shûson, via a series of trips to China, the Gobi desert, Siberia, India, Pakistan and the Middle East, attempted to express the realities and emotions which are not Japanese. That is where the difficulties and questions began. Katô Shûson noted that the very spirit of the haiku may, in fact, be questioned as the result of this internationalization:

"The haiku's particular scansion gives it an entrancing tonality which forms its originality; but it is to be feared", he said, "that the sensations aroused by an exotic environment might slightly affect the domain specific to Japanese emotions. The structure of the haiku forms one body with a whole range of expressions particular to our archipelago. But the evolution today is such that new emotions, coming from poetic experiences felt abroad, may gradually be added to the very spirit of the haiku".

There are several ways of dealing with this situation. For Katô Shûson:

 "The first thing to do, in the case of strong emotion spring from an exotic context, is to have the rhythm attached to the emotion which has been created in a foreign land compete with the Japanese sensibility within the framework of a fixed form, before the latter can stifle a unique poetic experience. That is the challenge," he said, "when one tries to renew this short-form poem."

Elsewhere, Katô Shûson thought that the season theme might even work like a trap, keeping the haiku captive and acting as a brake on the evolution of the genre. Other poets and other movements are today thinking about the evolution of a poetic tool to capture reality -- all of reality and man in his entirety.

These days, as the haiku widens its scope and dilates to fit the dimensions of the whole world, it is undergoing new developments which the great innovators of the past, like Basho or Shiki, could have never imagined. Although the contemporary haiku still exhibits works of value which skillfully use "season words", there are also "muki haiku", that is to say, haiku without "season words" which open up particularly new possibilities for expression. To illustrate these new tendencies, let us quote this famous poem by Takaya Sôshû (b. 1910):

atama no nakade.....shiroi natsuto.....natte iru

In my head
the completely white fields
of summer

Although this poet has used a completely orthodox season word (summer field), he has succeeded in find an audacious rhythm of 7-7-5 syllables for the free-form haiku. Begun by Ogiwara Seisensui (1884-1976), then followed by Santôka (1882-1940) and Ozaki Hôsai (1885-1926), it is already anchored in a certain tradition in Japan. We could cite the very famous short poem by Ozaki Hôsai:

sekiwo shitemo hirtori

Even when coughing
always alone

Closer to us in time, great poets like Natsuishi Ban'ya (b. 1955), haiku's leading star, have proffered the idea of "keywords", which would no longer be "season words", linked to the cultural and climatic context of Japan, but words capable of expressing natural realities like the sea, rocks, the sky and mountains; or father, mother child; or parts of the body like head, hands or feet. Thus, the contemporary haiku would no longer be limited only to themes of nature, expressed in the form of "season words" solely relating to Japan. The use of "keywords" without any seasonal reference would open wide the door to the expression of natural phenomena which are not solely Japanese. This evolution would from no on concern physical and psychological realities, and social or cosmic phenomena, in  a word, the preoccupations of all mankind. This poetic impulse is thus tending toward globalization, a kind of generosity tuned in to the whole earth, enabling haiku composers throughout the world to exchange ideas and read each others' poetry on a common ground. This movement in no way prevents one form enriching one's own culture and continuing to explore the possibilities of one's own traditions.

Some contemporary poets, like Mitsuhashi Toshi (b. 1920), do not hesitate to step boldly onto the road of the universal haiku, whose references and "keywords" are those of a reality common to all cultures:

tetsuwo kuu...tetsu bakuteria...tetsu no naka

Devouring iron
bacteria of iron
within iron

The author of this poem does not use any "season word" of the poetic calendar. It is the keyword, "iron", that forms the nucleus around which the poetic imagination crystallizes. This composition illustrates a particular feature of our times: a tendency to popularize realities brought to the fore by scientific research.

hida no....yamata no....kangaesugi no.....mikoto kana

At Hida
at the doors to the  mountain
a thinking cypress
how divine

Takayanagi Shigenobu (1923-1983)

The author transports us to the animist atmosphere of early Japan, at a period when the sacred was obvious for people used to its presence in nature. Here again, there is no "season word" in the poem. It is the word, "sugi" (Japanese cypress), so rich in strong connotations in the Japanese imagination that is the "keyword". Similarly, with the same tonality, the poet, Natsuishi Ban'ya proclaims his faith in the future:

mirai yori taki no fukiwaru kaze kitaru

From the future
a wind arrives
that blows the waterfall apart

The hero of this poem is none other than "the future", a keyword expressing time and space, which transcend human understanding.

Another haiku, composed by the historic leader of the "avant-gard haiku", Kaneko Tôta (b. 1919), shows that this sort of short poem can express different facets of human psychology:

gekiron tsukushi...machi yuki...ootobai to kasu

Heated discussion
I go out into the street
and become a motorbike

 

IV- A decisive conference

All artistic creation is the reflection of society. If the latter evolves, its expression in terms of art changes, too. The haiku, a poetic form linked to Japanese history, saw the light of day in feudal society and developed, thanks to the peace imposed by the Tokugawa, then towns growing rich and encouraging the circulation, throughout the archipelago, of merchandise men, ideas and poetry; thanks especially to Bashô. Once, in the Meiji era, the haiku was adapted by Masaoka Shiki to a society undergoing profound upheaval. A century later, globalization propelled Japan, which had become a considerable economic power, to the forefront of world business.

It was, therefore, quite logical for the haiku, a very popular poetic form in Japan, and now abroad, to accompany this sociological evolution. An international conference on the contemporary haiku, held in Tokyo on 11 July 1999, established this poetic form, which has become a genre with an international vocation, freeing it form the Japanese tradition, but not rejecting it, in order to become a universal means of expression. During this conference, a few simple rules were put forward which could make the haiku adaptable to all cultures:

• In the haiku, the seasonal allusion specific to the Japanese seasons may be replaced by a keyword of a universal nature (ex: "mother", "tree", "iron", future", etc.)
  

• The musicality and rhythm associated with each language in which the haiku is composed will determine the structure of the poem, according to the different cultures (ex: three lines, or four, rhythm linked to four, six or three syllables in Western languages.)
  

• At a time when the haiku is becoming international, translation is of great importance. A successful translation will reproduce the poetic emotion felt by a reader of the original language when reading the original poem.
  

• Whatever the language used when composing, the shortness of this poetic form will enhance the treasures particular to that language and its specificity (ex: the tendency to abstraction and cold musicality of the French language, enhancing the very concrete nature and imagery of the Breton language; making the most of the stress and rhythm of the English language, etc.)

In conclusion, this conference was a great hope for foreign composers of haiku because their efforts to tune this very Japanese poetic form to their own sensibilities were thus recognized and encouraged. The haiku can now, in every language and in every culture, reveal the beauty specific to each.

 

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