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Haiku Is Not
5, 7, 5 syllables is not haiku. Brilliant ideas are not haiku. Waxing poetical is not haiku. What then is haiku?
Haiku is very simply, and most difficultly, a record of what is happening at this very moment,
and only this moment, right in front of and in the midst of your senses. It is the moment when
what your senses are telling you pulls you totally under, so that you disappear and all that
is left is the seeing, hearing, smelling, touching and tasting of the moment. Haiku, at its best,
is therefore a small satori. As Basho admonishes, there should not be even a hair's breadth between
the writer and his/her subject. Anything less can be interesting reading, and, if bordering on senryu,
can make you smile, but a real haiku makes you gasp and the hairs, wherever you may have them, stand up.
In haiku literature it is called the "Aha" moment both for the haijin (haiku writer) and for the haiku reader,
for both reading and writing haiku find the reader and writer spun out of themselves and tossed to the far ends
of the universe by three small lines, and often, these days, fewer. For a haiku records a moment that contains
everything that comes before it and everything that is to come after it, and if your brain suddenly being introduced
to such a moment doesn't shatter all its concepts, then the haiku under consideration can only be a half-baked
haiku gesture.
D.T.Suzuki describes this flash of sudden awareness as a mental catastrophe - a tumbling of an edifice to the ground,
"when, behold, a new heaven is open to full survey." His "behold" is the "Aha!" moment of haiku.
Now how can such a simple haiku image such as Basho's
"on a bare branch
a crow has settled...
autumn evening"
offer the enormous experience I have promised. At first on reading this haiku,
one can only gasp for that has to be the reaction to such simple words being able
to twist one in such a strange way. Later a reader can try and analyze what has been said.
Basho is describing a transition time, a moving from daylight to nighttime and, as we all know,
transition times are times when we can slip through realities. By the use of 3 strong nouns, 'branch,'
'crow' and 'evening' Basho, as I say in my poem "On Reading Diane Ackerman" can transform us:
...
"and yet his "crow," his "bare branch,
his "sunset" are enough to tell me
all I need to know about
time passing, sadness, austerity
and the ways of the world
in autumn."
Here are a couple of my favorite haiku, and yes, there are some in the haiku world,
where many opinions can be found, that would deny them haiku status, yet still, for me,
they hold the essential qualities I demand of a haiku. As an aside, Alan Pizzarelli, the
writer of the second haiku below, explains that "If it is the man within the world, it is haiku.
If it is the world within the man, it is senryu." As they both seem very much the same position to me,
I prefer to ignore the hair-splitting that goes on in the haiku world about senryu/haiku and stay with the moment.
The first haiku is by Ruth Yarrow,
"after the garden party... the garden"
the second by Alan Pizzarelli says all that needs to be said about the universe and things in it, I'm afraid.
"buzzZ
slaP
buzzZ"
As to 5,7,5 syllables, well that is the form for haiku in Japanese. The Japanese syllable is much shorter
than the English one, anywhere from 1-3 letters e.g. 'chi' and 'n'. Therefore to stick to the Japanese form
often gives cumbersome lines and really has little relevance for haiku in English where the "essence of the moment"
is the key.
Well now I've covered a little haiku-ground, I'll let you know in more detail
How to Write a Haiku
Details confuse me,
So when I see a rose,
Although I do not know
Its pedigree, I write down `rose'.
And when I cut it,
I do not know whether
I should cut it on a slant
Or straight, or under water twice,
So I write down `cut'.
And when I put it in a vase,
I do not know whether it is raku
Or glaze or, perhaps, good plastic,
So I write down `vase'.
And when I see two red leaves
On the earth beside the rose bush,
I do not know from which tree
They have fallen,
So I write down `red leaves'.
And as I set the vase
And the leaves on the table,
I write down
rose just cut
beside the vase
two red leaves
And although I do not know
The details of what I have just done,
The sadness of it all
Cracks my heart open.*
"But, if haiku write you, how can you write a haiku?" you may well ask. "By being truly in the moment,"
I will reply, "you can give the haiku a slot to slip through." That's it!
*My poem 'How to Write a Haiku' is in "Segues" (Wolsak and Wynn, Toronto, 2005)
'On Reading Diane Ackerman' is in "Writing" (Pacific Edge Publishing, 2006)
Naomi Wakan: Born in London, England. Graduated with a degree in Social Work
from Birmingham University. Emigrated to Canada and brought her family (Beverly Deutsch,
a graphic artist and Adam Deutsch, a computer systems analyst) up in Toronto. Worked as
a psychotherapist specializing in early childhood traumas. Remarried to the sculptor, Elias Wakan,
and travelled extensively including living two years in Japan.
With Elias had a small publishing house, Pacific-Rim Publishers, that published
educational books which Naomi wrote and illustrated. She and her husband moved to Gabriola
in 1996 and opened a studio, Drumbeg House Studio, where Elias makes wood sculpture and Naomi paints,
writes and does fabric art. During this period Naomi has moved from writing books geared to children
to books for an adult market. her essays and poetry have appeared in Resurgence, Geist, Room of One's Own,
Kansai Time Out, Far East Journal and many other magazines and web-sites. She has read her writings on CBC
and in poetry venues. She is also a member of Haiku Canada, The League of Canadian Poets and is on the board
of Poetry Gabriola.
Recent Works
Segues, a book of poetry, Wolsak and Wynn, Spring, 2005.
Writing, a book of poetry focused on reading and writing Naomi Wakan, Spring, 2005.
Late Bloomer - on writing later in life, Wolsak and Wynn, Fall, 2006.
Naomi Wakan's Site
Email: Naomi Wakan
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