OBLIGATORY AND FIXED-FORM VERSES CAN STILL BE FLEXIBLE
FROM: THE TEN COMMANDMENTS OF NEOCLASSICAL HAIKU
Susumu Takiguchi

*Articles speciallywritten by Susumu Takiguchi, Chairman of the World Haiku Club for his: "Go-Schichi-Go" column of "The Daily Yomiuri" newspaper. These commandments apply only to WHChaikuneoclassical. WHC is not presenting them for all traditional haiku schools.

 

Unlike in Japan, avant-garde or radical free verse haiku have not become a force to be reckoned with in the rest of the world. Traditional lines still hold sway in mainstream haiku despite some reform measures. Within it, however, many schools of thought and countless guidelines have sprung up over the past 50 years, so much so that outside Japan haiku is in a state of flux.

As part of the effort to take world haiku to the next stage of development, especially in terms of higher standards and quality, the World Haiku Club (WHC) is pursuing excellence in three main areas: WHChaikuneoclassical (most conservative), WHCshintaihaiku (new style, which is freer) and WHCvanguard (freest and most radical).

children
comparing each other's
suntans

innocence...
children comparing each other's
suntans

the last body of the
cockle-pickers washed ashore...
frightened children

In the above "mock" haiku prepared by myself for illustrative purposes, the same scene is set in the height of summer on a beach and the three different haiku are presented in order of the above three areas. The first one of neoclassical nature has a definite kigo season word--"suntans" for summer--a stylized fixed form, subject--children--depicted as it is traditionally expected to be without any hard or serious thoughts such as cancer-causing sunburn.

The second example is freer. Though kigo is still kept, the subject is turned to some abstract thought (the question of innocence and experience), which goes against traditional haiku. Kigo could be dropped in this area. Children are shielded from such realities of life as the possibility of cancer, ugly rivalries and competitions waiting for them in human society when they become adults. The third haiku of the freest and most radical nature suddenly turns sinister. Kigo is now ignored, and the ugly and seamy side of human affairs exposed to the innocent. (Illegal immigrant Chinese cockle-pickers drowned along the north-eastern English coast)

In order for these different types of haiku to be more clearly distinguished, the WHC has begun a new project to define the most traditional end of the haiku spectrum: WHChaikuneoclassical (WHChnc). In this project, WHChnc is regarded as the core of any branches of haiku that grow from it. There has been a thorough review of WHChnc and, as a result, 10 items are highlighted as those characteristics that distinguish the most traditional haiku from the rest. They are called slightly tongue-in-cheek "The 10 Neoclassical Haiku Commandments." I wish to share them with readers in the hope that they may find them useful. They will be introduced one by one over the next few months. We start with a famous haiku by Basho.

kono michi ya
yuku hito nashi ni
aki no kure

(Matsuo Basho 1644-1694)

on this road
no one is seen to travel...
autumn's end

(translated by Susumu Takiguchi)

The First Commandment: Kigo

Kigo is a window through which culture, way of life or man's relationship with his surroundings are seen. Kigo is the soul of traditional haiku. Therefore the First Commandment is regarding kigo: Kigo words are obligatory, but flexibly applied.

The flexibility includes the use of non-Japanese kigo, the use of Japanese kigo in different or new ways, new kigo, universal kigo, local kigo of geographical, climactic, cultural or other specificity.

"Muki" (or haiku without kigo) therefore is not allowed. Simple nature words or references are not allowed in place of kigo unless they are presented as kigo by the author. "Tsu-ki" (all-year-round words) are not allowed. The concept of kigo will be developed and expanded on the Japanese model and also in association with the "world kigo" being developed in the WHCworldkigo Project directed by Gabi Greve.

foggy night
fallen leaves muffle
our footsteps

(The late Robert Gibson, US)
 

The Second Commandment: Fixed form (or "tei-kei")

They can include 5-7-5. What fixed forms should be taken will be left to the author and/or to further study and debate. (No particular form or forms are determined or recommended at this stage.) Care should be taken about such factors as sense of brevity, English equivalence to the true implications of the Japanese 5-7-5 rather than the uncritical copying of it, and the beauty of the poem's shape when printed.

In fixing the form(s), the law of equivalence, or equivalence test, should be used. This means that in English haiku, what can be identified as equivalent to the Japanese 5-7-5 beat form should be used as a fixed form, or forms. Such fixed form(s) will be discussed and determined as we go along, taking into consideration not only English syllable considerations but also any other relevant factors of English, in addition to studying in depth how the Japanese 5-7-5 has come about and what is involved in it such as a feeling of brevity, rhythm and poetic sensibility. So, the number of lines, the total length, the shape of lines (short-long-short etc.) and any other relevant prosodic factors will all be discussed in detail.

All that's brief is not gold, however. Minimalists probably have on the whole caused English haiku to be too brief as an overreaction to the discredited English 5-7-5, making anything even slightly longer look too long.

They may have caused irreparable damage to English haiku (one hopes not) by throwing the baby (indispensable elements, feelings or words, in other words haiku itself) out with the bathwater.

The results are mountains of skeleton haiku with only occasional instances of success. English is a much more wordy, lengthy and convoluted language than Japanese, needing correspondingly longer and more complicated structure and length in order to remain correct and natural.

Apart from haiku, the Japanese tend to shorten, abbreviate or omit in their ordinary conversation or writing, and often just fall silent. Thus, making short is the nature of the Japanese people and language. "Karaoke," for example, is kara (empty) orchestra. Minimalists have made English haiku unnecessarily short. The discredited English 5-7-5 should also be reviewed and given a proper place of honor as there have been too many instances of success in this form to foolishly dismiss it or abandon it altogether.

At an advanced level of English haiku, it is desirable that native speakers of English review the whole question of form in English haiku and explore all the possible fixed forms, thereby making the most of the advantages and traditions of the English language and poetry. This is a difficult and arduous task. But if native speakers of English take the initiative, they could do an enormous service to the advancement and enrichment of haiku in English. The popularity of English haiku is truly commendable but there are still gains to be made. It is only the beginning for English haiku. Bright and rich future is in store for it.

Many different experiments are recommended in terms of the number of lines (1, 2, 3 or 4), shape (box, triangle, reverse triangle, pear, tumbled mountain, river), counters (not just syllable count but other prosodic elements) to help in the advancement of haiku.
 

The Third Commandment:Use of "Kireji" (a cutting word)

We have started to look deeply into the question of what makes the most traditional haiku different from the more progressive bands in the haiku spectrum. For that purpose, we are examining "The 10 Neoclassical Haiku Commandments" that emerged from a recent study by the World Haiku Club.

In the previous installment of this column, I introduced the First (mandatory, but flexible use of kigo) and Second (fixed forms) commandments. Today, we shall continue by examining a quintessential feature of traditional Japanese haiku as embodied in THE THIRD COMMANDMENT: USE OF "KIREJI" (A CUTTING WORD).

Basic language differences make kireji a less significant issue in English than in Japanese, but the use of such words throws interesting light on the history of haiku.

Kireji are a vestige of the days when haiku were hokku, stanzas that could be "cut off" from longer poems by use of these special cutting words.

Nowadays the kireji are just as likely to provide a dramatic break, division or pause within the haiku itself, bringing a certain sense of roominess to this famously compact form. Consider the following:

natsu-kusa ya
tsuwamono domo ga
yume no ato

Matsuo Basho

The particle "ya" at the end of the first line serves a similar purpose to the more common sentence-ending particle "yo" by providing emphasis or a sense of exclamation. It gives the reader a moment's pause to let the image of summer grass ("natsu-kusa") sink in before continuing.

Compared to Japanese, English is virtually devoid of such particles, but effective use can be made of other devices, as in my translation of Basho's poem:

summer grass!
only a trace of dreams
of ancient warriors

The approximate English equivalents of kireji include punctuation (such as the exclamation mark above), line breaks, spacing, natural pauses or other caesurae.

While these can heighten a poem's artistic impact, they have no relation--at least in English--to kireji's original aim: to make a hokku (the first stanza of haikai-no-renga, or series of linked verses) stand alone in its own right.

To explain further, the well-known 5-7-5 haiku form began merely as one part of the waka form (5-7-5-7-7), which begat renga, which begat haikai-no-renga, which begat hokku, which finally begat haiku as we know it. Take any waka and remove the first 5-7-5 (kami-no-ku, or upper stanza), and you have an incomplete verse (because there is no longer the shimo-no-ku, or lower stanza, of 7-7 to complete it). In most cases this cannot stand alone because it is only a part of the whole, in other words it "does not cut."

Matsu no kaze
hiru yo hibiki-nu
hito towa-nu
yama no hokora no
ishi-uma no mimi ni

The wind in the pines
Soughs night and day
In the ears of the stone horse
At a mountain shrine
Where no man worships.

Takuboku Ishikawa, 1886-1912
(translation by Geoffrey Bownas and Anthony Thwaite)

This tanka works beautifully as a complete and indivisible piece of poetry. But add kireji to the first lines and, hey presto, the first three lines will be standing alone on their own as a fully-fledged, proper and respectable form of poetry. This presumably became more and more important as hokku began to be written and enjoyed independently of the rest of the haikai-no-renga. Changing the kami-no-ku of Takuboku's tanka slightly, we get:

aki-kaze ya
hiru yo hibiki-nu
hito towa-zu

autumn wind
soughs night and day
where no man comes

Again, the "ya" provides emphasis that brings us up short and puts us in the scene before the poem completes its image.

All this is less conspicuous in English haiku. In the above translation, for instance, it was accomplished with the line break after "autumn wind."

In fact, kireji is not strictly needed for English haiku. What a relief this ought to be for writers in English, who have one less thing to worry or fuss about.

Because original haiku composed in English are not "cut off" from a longer poem, it could therefore be argued that such things as punctuation, which are always brought up in association with kireji, can be freed to serve their own different purposes, such as emphasis; exclamation; the separation, relation or definition of phrases or clauses; poetic effects and so on.

deep in rank grass,
through a bullet-riddled helmet:
an unknown flower

Nicholas Virgilio (US)

Virgilio's deft command of punctuation places him as a master English kireji-practitioner. If kireji can sometimes enhance and refine English haiku, there is no reason why it should be abolished. Excessive, unnecessary, automatic or uncritical use of kireji, however, must be avoided.
 

The fourth commandment: the Zen Connection

Efforts should be made firstly to rectify the common mistake of equating haiku to Zen. At the same time, efforts should also be made to conduct objective and higher-level studies to understand the true relationship between haiku and Zen. Any results of these efforts should be put to the test against the rules and conventions that have emanated from this mistake.

The circus tent
all folded up:
October mist.

Eric Amann
(an advocate for Zen inspiration in haiku)

Although more and more people are recognizing the folly of connecting Zen and haiku uncritically and excessively, it still remains the undercurrent of most haiku poets. Many of them are even oblivious to the Zen-haiku equation but nonetheless observe the rules and conventions which have developed out of it. Such canons as the haiku moment, aha, present tense, here and now, suchness of things, the horror of the pronoun "I," experiential rather than imaginative renderings are but some typical examples.

Beginners almost always fall into this trap as they busily absorb what others have done before them or as others thrust such teachings down their throats. What is required, therefore, is a series of unbiased and deeper studies of the relation between Zen and haiku. Amann's haiku above is exquisite. If only he did not preach Zen in relation to haiku.

Pioneers can and do make mistakes, but they could be pardoned if their other contributions are enormous, as exemplified by the likes of R.H. Blyth and H.G. Henderson. But we today have no such excuse or luxury.

It was in this spirit that I composed the following at Tokei-ji Zen temple in Kamakura, Kanagawa Prefecture, on the occasion of visiting R.H. Blyth's tomb on Sept. 11, 2002:

aki-kaze ya
senko no keburi
yure-te ori

autumn breeze,
incense smoke coils and twists
signifying nothing

It was of course the first anniversary of the 9/11. We had an important evening public lecture by James W. Hackett, honorary president of the World Haiku Club, on haiku and Zen at the City Community Center of Kamakura in Kanagawa Prefecture. This marked the official start of the 27-day-long World Haiku Festival 2002, whic began in Kamakura, followed by the Oku-no-Hosomichi journey, a large-scale conference at Yuwa, Akita Prefecture, and completed with a finale in Kyoto.

Hackett's lecture was translated by another world-famous figure in haiku--Dorothy Britton, the translator of the Oku-no-Hosomichi by Basho. Like Basho's summer grass, the smoke from the incense at Tokei-ji temple was unconcerned with the unprecedented atrocities in New York and Washington, though we gave a solemn one-minuted silence at the public lecture.
 

The fifth commandment: Haiku Themes

We follow the Hototogisu School's practice of avoiding explicit expressions of certain themes such as war, violence, vices, wickedness, calamities, ugliness, sex, abstract notions or philosophy. These themes, in exceptional cases, should be dealt with in a mild, indirect or tangential way, and/or in refined style and good taste.

Instead, we try to concentrate on themes which are favoured and celebrated by the School and traditional Japanese haiku. While virtually anything, ranging from nature itself to man as part of her, can be addressed in haiku, let's look at some examples of suitable themes.

ta ichi-mai ichi-mai zutsu ni nokoru yuki

(Takahama Kyoshi, 1874-1959)

the sitting snow.
still there, in each and
every rice field

(translation by Susumu Takiguchi)

This haiku by Takahama, the founder of the Hototogisu School and the giant of the modern haiku, has a theme typical of the neo-classical haiku as well as being a popular topic of traditional Japanese poetry.

I once attended a Hototogisu School haiku gathering of about 500 poets held in early winter at the foot of Mt. Fuji. I noticed that morning that there was no snow on this holiest of the holy mountains in Japan and that the mountainside looked very ugly in the bright morning sun.

Most people, however, wrote haiku praising the beauty of snow-capped Mt. Fuji. I wrote a lot of haiku expressing my surprise discovery of the snowless Mt. Fuji and the incredible ugliness of its surface. Nobody was impressed with my haiku.

kiri-shigure fuji wo minu hi zo omoshiroki

Matsuo Basho
misty rain.
the day when I don't see Mt. Fuji:
most fascinating!

(translation by Susumu Takiguchi)

Basho often broke with stereotypical views, which is an essential part of the 'revolutionary' nature of his art. What did he see and enjoy in the misty Hakone during his travels? We are given here an unexpected way of showing by not showing.

Nonetheless, an unmistakable sense of beauty is there, in fact, it is actually enhanced! 'Omoshiroshi' is an adjective, but it came to become almost a term of Japanese aesthetics, depicting landscapes as being beautiful, wonderful or fascinating, or describing such things as music or garden party as enjoyable or moving. The third sense of something being 'interesting, amusing or intriguing' came later.

chuku ni tomaran to suru rakka kana

Nakamura Teijo
in mid air.
falling cherry petals look
as if stationary

(translation by Susumu Takiguchi)

'Kacho Fuei' (songs of flowers and birds) is the most famous catch phrase Kyoshi used to disseminate his teachings with great effect. It is also symbolic of all the favoured themes of the Hototogisu School, namely beautiful things in nature and human life in relation to them. Here, distasteful themes such as were mentioned at the beginning of the article have no place.

My revelation of the ugliness of Mt. Fuji's flank is not only unsuitable but sacrilegious. Let us contrast beauty in haiku to something like the following:

unblinking eyes
of a mangled body, gazing
the autumn sky

This mock haiku written by myself is about Iraq. I have seen photos and TV clips of soldiers and innocent civilians killed in this war in all grotesque forms, including this one. Not only the theme but the way I depict it here are certainly not those of neo-classical haiku.

Themes and the way they are expressed are one of the most important criteria by which to distinguish three different categories of haiku: WHChaikuneoclassical, WHCshintaihaiku and most distinctly WHCvanguard.

 

Read 'The Ten Neo-classical Haiku Commandments' of the Post-Review WHChnc 'Protocol' by Susumu Takiguchi in Volume 4, 2004, World Haiku Review

 

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