Japan’s most celebrated poetic export, the familiar three-lined stanza, with each line made up of five, seven and five syllables respectively,
can be traced back to the 12th century, although it was not until the late 19th century that the term haiku was actually coined.
This form of poetry is notably distinct from anything indigenous to the West, and it is a mode of expression which, I feel, is particularly
well-suited to the condensation of our experiences as foreigners in Japan.
A portrait of Basho, arguably the greatest Haiku poet of them all.
This print is by world-renown woodcut artist, Hokusai. |
Shimane-ken’s own gaijin darling, Lafcadio Hearn, described the haiku as the use of three short lines to compose a ‘complete sensation picture’.
But writing haiku is not an imaginative exercise: in the great Zen tradition, it is designed to be a reflection on and a reflection of the poet’s
real-world surroundings. I consider haiku similar to photographs. Just as the strengths of photography are its facility and (especially with the
advent of digital cameras) cheapness, haiku should be scribbled down spontaneously and frequently. The less successful efforts can be discarded
without any sense of loss, whilst the more effective sketches can be refined and perfected.
However, regardless of any subsequent refinement, a haiku remains ultimately inseparable from the circumstance of its conception.
This defining characteristic is at least partially explicable as a product of the Japanese linguistic mindset. As the social historian Shuichi Kato
explains, all Japanese speech is inextricably tied to the situation of its utterance. For example, the verb form is not conjugated according to the
subject of the sentence (as English), but changed according to the required level of politeness. This reflects the actual relationship between
speaker and listener at the moment of conversation. Furthermore, there is a frequent omission of subject, which is to be inferred instead from
context. ‘Compared with Western or Chinese languages,’ Kato writes, ‘Japanese is extremely limited in its capacity to transcend certain
concrete situations.’ And as Kato stresses, Japanese literature closely resembles everyday speech. As the haiku canon demonstrates, Japanese
writers have therefore excelled at succinct descriptions of isolated objects, places or thoughts.
Of course, any language is fundamentally incapable of conveying the complete sensory experience of being physically in the midst of a striking
environment. To achieve a ‘complete sensation picture’, therefore, the reader must fill in the gaps from imagination and personal experience.
A poet can assist the reader in this task through the deliberate cultivation of ambiguity. Ambiguity allows greater scope for the reader to impose
his or her own experiences, and thus connect with the poem. The skill of haiku composition, therefore, lies not only in the poet’s choice of
which details to include, but also in which to exclude. And in the cultivation of ambiguity, the Japanese language again seems well-suited. For
example, Japanese has no distinction between singular and plural. It is apt for compression. And if the subject of a sentence is omitted, there is
no grammatical need to give any clues about the subject’s identity through conjugation of the verb.
But this is not to say that haiku composition offers nothing to us Anglophones. Being encompassed by an alien (and beautiful) landscape and
strange experiences, I am often visited by momentary observations or impressions which apparently have little significance beyond their
manifestation. I now use these as the foundation for my own haiku, and the experience is extremely rewarding. I use Jack Kerouac’s words as a
guide: ‘A “Western Haiku” need not concern itself with the seventeen syllables since Western languages cannot adapt themselves to the fluid
syllabillic Japanese. I propose that the “Western Haiku” simply say a lot in three short lines.’
I reproduce some of my efforts here for your scrutiny. And I would encourage anyone remotely interested to give it a try! It could make a
valuable record of your time in Japan.
gaijin-foreigner
Clarity of vision, crispness
of sound, meandering
beauty of thought.
＊
Pretty girl with yellow teeth.
Resurgent sun accentuates
our imperfections.
＊
Wind across the water
opens like a butterfly
beneath the sun.
＊
Triangle of nudity
between the
black & white.
(the nape of a geisha’s neck)
＊
Subliminal perception,
easily forgotten. Sound of white
compression underfoot.
＊
The flowers I forgot
to photograph are
past their best
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