Keynote Speech 2, March 2008
PART TWO:
THE FUTURE OF WORLD HAIKU
I now turn to my reflections on world haiku and discuss its future.
This year, 2008, marks the 314th anniversary of the death of Basho. Since his birth, indeed, as many as 364 years have passed. If we take Arakida Moritake (1473-1549), the renowned haikai-no-renga master, it is 535 years since his birth. Compared with this long history of haikai, the world haiku as I understand it is only about 20 or 30 years old in a loose sense, and only 10 years old in the strict sense. Haiku was first introduced to the outside Japan earlier, about 100 years ago, but then it could hardly be called world haiku. What can be called as American haiku has a history of mere 50 years or so.
The phrase ‘world haiku’ was first used by R. H. Blyth. Takahama Kyoshi (1874-1959) was alsotalking about the future of haiku and envisaging the time when haiku would be written even in tropical zones and elsewhere. However, no one could imagine that haiku would become so popular and widespread across the world as now. Ten years ago I decided to use the same phrase ‘world haiku’ and founded the World Haiku Club to be dedicated to the development of world haiku, as I perceived that haiku by then had become what I called a genre of world literature and needed a different treatment altogether than it had been given until then.
So, what is the world haiku scene today? Until about 1900 haiku was a complete preserve of Japan, quite unheard of in the rest of the world. It is well-known that around that time the genre started to trickle out at the hands of pioneering introducers of Japanese culture, mainly to the West. However, it was only after the WWII, especially in the 1960s, that haiku began to be flowing out of Japan like streams, largely through North America.
Today, there are basically, say, four players on the haiku map of the world, according to a new classification. There is first and foremost gigantic in haiku terms but still largely closed and isolated Japan. There are many reasons for this isolation, not least the language barrier. In spite of the effort by some to improve the situation, what is happening in Japan’s haiku community is little known outside it, and vice versa. This mutual ignorance and lack of will or ability of communication remain a major obstacle to the healthy development of world haiku outside Japan.
Then, secondly, very open and ever-expanding American-led haiku nations and individual poets in the United States and across the world except for Japan. Here, I am using the term ‘American-led’ in a neutral and factual sense. This is the dominant force in today’s world haiku community. Most of the haiku poems outside Japan are written on the model and under the influence of, or even as straightforward or blind copies of this school of thought. Of course, there are subtle variations within it but the differences are slight when looked at in terms of the trend as a whole. There are a small number of poets who are trying to break the mould, which is not easy, but that is largely due to such individuals’ own efforts and talent and not assisted by the trend itself.
No doubt, this American-led haiku trend should be celebrated and congratulated for its great achievement of disseminating haiku not only within USA and other English-speaking countries but also in almost all other countries in the world save Japan and making it such a popular and treasured literary mascot. However, what is also more than obvious is that it cannot be healthy or natural that such wide world of ours with all its diversities and differences should be dominated by a single haiku movement.
The dominant position of the American-led haiku trend has been attained by a number of reasons. Firstly, it has been gained because of the passion, enthusiasm, energy and sheer love for haiku on the part of American poets and their faithful followers in other parts of the world who in turn have become leaders in each of their country or regions. Secondly, except for a small number of distinguished individuals with their own distinct views and opinions in different parts of the world, all other nations, especially non-English-speaking ones, have lagged far behind America which after all has been the only major pioneer in developing and spreading haiku outside Japan. This lack of competition or rivals has almost automatically ensured the American dominance in haiku. When others ‘discovered’ haiku it was far too late for them to do their own laborious research or to make painstaking efforts to find for themselves what haiku was all about from the primary source, which is Japan, and to resist the temptation of taking the easiest route of swallowing the American haiku trend hook, line and sinker out of the books, magazines, anthologies or any other sources coming from America because these were virtually the only source of information about haiku outside Japan. Of course, R. H. Blyth was British but it was the Americans who first recognised his worth, which was virtually unknown in Britain, and introduced his magnum opus among poets. This situation meant that the rest of the world was totally vulnerable and ready to swallow whole whatever was put on their plate.
Thirdly, on the world haiku map there are regions and nations that have not escaped the influence of the American-led haiku but are trying to make their own mark at the same time. It has become fashionable for them to call their product in their own brand name such as ‘Irish haiku’, ‘British haiku’, ‘New haiku’, or even ‘French-Canadian haiku’. Whether such a ‘logo change’ reflects real difference is another matter. However, what they are trying to achieve is highly commendable and provides some hope for the future development of world haiku.
And last but not least, in fact most importantly, there are those rare individual poets who are independent-minded enough to follow their own poetic instinct to tune in to the sound, colour, smell and vibration of true haiku but at the same time humble enough to continue to learn from other people’s experiences. These are the best category of haiku poets in today’s world, our ultimate goal and seem to present the best hope for future world haiku. The more of them, the better. In fact, all haiku poets should be like them in the first place.
Ever since haiku was unleashed out of the two stringent and fundamental shackles, namely the traditional mould of Japanese haiku and the Japanese language itself, it has quickly begun to flourish across the world. However, there is the other side of the coin. Namely, haiku has at the same time plunged into a state of flux on the verge of chaos in every way, ranging from definition questions to style or subject matter. But, like the genie out of the bottle, contemporary haiku can neither be put back into the traditional Japanese haiku bottle nor confined to the Japanese language.
That there are different varieties of haiku is not in itself a bad thing at all. What seems to be the real problem is the widespread narrow-mindedness, intolerance or even arrogance with which people condemn other poets’ works as not haiku. Once this mindset takes hold of us there is little scope for constructive interaction between and among haiku poets or for haiku itself to be developed freely. The definition of haiku, for example, is so varied and different that it has virtually become meaningless now to try to define it in the first place.
To ask what is haiku, or more precisely what is the essence of haiku is very different from defining haiku. It is productive, useful, instructive, uplifting, forward-looking, intellectually stimulating and profound. By contrast, to try to define haiku is restrictive, divisive, exclusive, limiting, backwards, shallow and intellectually very, very boring. I therefore wish to propose in deadly earnest that we should drop the preoccupation of trying to define haiku or reading different definitions of it, say, for the next ten years and just get on with writing haiku. YES, believe it or not, we can write haiku without such irksome definitions. Recently, I was walking with someone in the English countryside when he was admiring the scenery loud in a few words. And I said, ‘Oh, that’s a jolly good haiku!’ He said, ‘Oh, really? Is haiku some kind of a Japanese food?’
From the purist and somewhat fundamentalist point of view, anything which is purported to be haiku but written in languages other than Japanese is not haiku. It is a deviation from or derivative of the genuine haiku at best. (Incidentally, even those haiku written in kohgo, or modern Japanese, used to be condemned to be not haiku at all because the real haiku had always been written in bungo, or old Japanese.)
It has been proved time and again that such purist or fundamentalist position of haiku cannot provide a wholly viable literary form in the modern age and modern world. However, the majority of Japanese haiku poets think that foreigners cannot understand haiku, let alone write it. Those Japanese who think differently are either academics specialising in English or English literature, or some of the haiku poets who, for their self-serving purposes, would benefit from getting involved in international haiku movement. Language is the biggest and most formidable barrier but even more seriously there is a barrier of culturally isolationist attitude of the Japanese on the one hand and what may be termed as intellectual laziness and arrogance of non-Japanese haiku poets on the other.
The hard fact that we should face up to and accept is that in terms of the world haiku we should by now have graduated from the rudimentary stages of haiku-learning which I have just outlined and made more progress in reaching advanced and refined stages. It is not too late. However, if the present situation of world haiku continues as I have described so far, it would be difficult for anyone to move on to these advanced and refined stages because that situation is extremely limiting and will work as a hindrance to their progress.
Confused or chaotic as the world haiku may look at first sight, all the haiku poems being written in today’s world can in fact fall into three broad categories or areas without any difficulty. At the World Haiku Club we call them Neo-classical, Shintai (or new style) and Vanguard (Avant Garde), which cover the whole spectrum of all haiku imaginable. An individual haiku poet can freely write haiku either in one or two of these areas, or in all three of them, depending on his or her mood, feeling, haiku stance, circumstances or subject matter. When writing, there is not even any need for the author to be conscious of these different areas. Why classify? Why define? Just write, following your sensibility, instinct, perception or emotion. The outcome may range from dust to gold --- mostly dust, perhaps. However, when you feel you have struck gold, that would be the bliss for any haiku poet.
My prediction about the future trend of world haiku is that while some stubborn and self-serving people may cling to their dogma or creed till the end of their lives and some unsuspecting newcomers will fall in their clutches, many haiku poets will sooner or later come to realise that there is indeed no need to spend a lot of their time busying themselves in defining, classifying or interfering with other people’s haiku.
Many or at least some of truly good haiku will speak for themselves. The most effective and secure way of improving one’s haiku is to encounter as many of these gems as possible and study them in depth, rather than wasting one’s time on lesser poems. Listen to the authors of these rare works, even if they may not be vociferous as they are rather quiet and self-effacing usually, rather than to haiku politicians or self-appointed haiku leaders. If you cannot find these true haiku poets, then listen to nature instead.
I have been involved in other people’s problems of defining haiku for a long time. Nowadays, more out of despair than choice I am even being tempted to think, considering the futility of such efforts, that anything is haiku if its author says it is, which, needless to say, has nothing to do with the condemnation of ‘anything goes’. For in this case, the only question and the only question that matters is whether the poem thus written is good or bad, and not whether it is haiku or not. To put it in another way, under any definition good haiku are good and bad ones bad. We just have to be honest about it and also be humble.
What I have tried to explain above is a fundamental problem for world haiku and needs to be addressed properly. We can try to seek a solution to it, like in many other cases, by listening to some of Basho’s teachings.
Let us, then, look at Basho’s “fueki ryuko” (eternal value and fashion of the day). This is a far more dynamic and progressive haikai tenet than is generally recognised. It is an effective key to solving many problems which haiku poets outside Japan are faced with today. The usual explanation that permanence and change are both needed for haikai fails to convey the creative momentum and incessant quest for inspiration contained in it. Rather, “fueki ryuko” is really talking about changes, and suggesting that eternal essence of haikai should be found in these changes. It is like Hegelian dialectic whereby two opposing forces collide to create a new force. In this sense, it is talking about the same thing as Basho’s other teaching of “atarashimi” (newness) which is the lifeblood of haikai.
The reason why Basho added “fueki” (eternal essence) is that the change needed in haikai should not be just any change, or change for the sake of change, but those changes which seek eternal values. In other words, he tried to make these vital changes a haikai poet’s target which may be very difficult but worth attaining, thus paving the way for haikai to develop along the right and ever-improving path. To put it in the modern context, the lesson we should learn from “fueki ryuko” in our haiku composition and in haiku movement is that we should be constantly seeking changes which are likely to realise permanent poetic values. This seemingly contradictory nature of “fueki ryuko” is the creative tension which Basho was developing for himself and for his followers.
Sixteen Challenges
Any human activity will become sterile without the injection of fresh air, new blood or progressive innovation. However, it is common that such an activity becomes readily “institutionalised” and resists changes. Haiku is no exception. Therefore it is important for anyone involved in haiku to stop from time to time to reflect upon him- or herself and make sure that rot has not set in. It is a good practice to do so in order to rid oneself of complacency, arrogance and narrow-mindedness.
One of the most effective ways of exercising such a review is to challenge what seems to be doing well. For any critical reappraisal levelled against it can logically apply more profoundly to lesser endeavours. As Descartes proposed to doubt everything that he could manage to doubt (“Cartesian doubt”), so we can propose to challenge everything we can manage to challenge. The more well-established and unassailable a target seems to be, the more worthwhile the challenge would become.
It was for this reason that the process was started at the WHF2000 London-Oxford Conference to look at everything in the haiku community critically and give it a thorough re-examination and reappraisal. It is hoped that through such review we may find right paths along which world haiku can develop in the future. The initiative was taken under the two slogans, “Challenging Conventions” and “Charting Our Future”. The two slogans require that we should conduct our discussion in as “critical, new, original, positive, constructive, creative, inspiring and thought-provoking” a way as possible. It is certainly not an easy task. On the contrary it is a tough exercise which needs a great deal of intellectual input, creative energy, courage, open mind, honesty and above all quite a lot of time to be completed.
Under “Challenging Conventions”, we basically challenge just about everything. At the World Haiku Club we have been dealing with at least sixteen important challenges.
Another essential point is that haiku, or something like a primordial sensibility for haiku, is actually in every one of us, regardless of race, culture, language or religion. It is like saying that in every one of us there is Buddha, or we only do not realise that each of us has Zen essence and that we only have to remove all those things which hide it from us. Put in another way, if we compare haiku to cooking, its ingredients are to be found in every one of us. We only have to cook it. And like food, every haiku tastes different, unless, that is, one gets it from MacDonald’s. The question, then, is how to extract haiku from within ourselves. Simple, isn’t it? Or, is it?
Science provides ways in which to explore scientific truths through experiments. Philosophy provides philosophical truths through contemplation. Arts --- artistic truths through pictorial or musical language. What, then, does haiku provide? I believe that haiku provides ways in which we can explore what I call poetic truths, or truths found and expressed in the haiku language. Here I am talking about what Basho was seeking both in his writing and teaching of haikai-no-renga and hokku, namely, fuga no makoto, or poetic truths. One of Basho’s disciples, Hattori Dohoh, went so far as to say that haikai became capable of reaching truths for the first time with Basho because his haikai was not that of the old but haikai of makoto, namely truths.*
I am sure you will agree with me when I say that haiku opens up for us a very different way of looking at things around us. You probably can never forget the first time when a haiku poem hit you and suddenly you were experiencing something totally new and different. Perhaps you remember that particular haiku by heart. As you walked along the haiku path since then and were consciously or unconsciously acquiring a different outlook from your usual views, haiku must have changed you permanently even in the subtlest kind of way. The world, it seems, would not be the same again. You would not see nazuna (a shepherd’s purse) or a spider in the same way again. You would not feel the same again when you get wet with spring rain or hit by hail. You would not look up the sky in the same way again, as you would become more conscious of the Moon or the Milky Way all the time. You would not pass narcissi by without trying to find if they were bent by the first snow.
If we can put a genuine haiku experience in a few right words, then we would probably have achieved fuga no makoto, or poetic truths. There are a number of paths leading to such poetic truths.
Firstly, as I have already mentioned, there is a path for them to recognise and learn a different way of looking at things. Though things they see may be the same as those they are accustomed to, yet it is the new way in which to look at them that is different.
The second path is for them to write down what they saw in a new and different way, namely a haiku way. The haiku way of writing one’s observations is different from any other writing style they are accustomed to.
Thirdly, people can be taught to realise for themselves that the subject matter of haiku is also different from that which they are used to with their indigenous poems.
Now, the word makoto in fuga no makoto is a key word to understand one of the central tenets of Japanese spiritual values in the arts, literature, ethics or philosophy. Ma in makoto means true and koto means both ‘words’ and ‘things’, thus makoto means both true words and true things, i.e. truths in words and things. In addition, makoto when not broken up like that means an ethical, humanistic or moralistic value of honesty, sincerity and truthfulness. So, when Basho uses the phrase fuga no makoto, it means not only poetic truths but also poetic honesty and sincerity both in words and subjects. There is an element of moralistic value in Basho’s fuga no makoto, while for many other haiku poets such a moral dimension was neither important nor part of their concern.
In this connection, a teaching by someone who preceded Basho is instructive. It points out that haikai is indeed one body but that it can be divided into two parts. One is the haikai of heart. And the other is haikai of words. It puts the former above the latter. It would not be surprising if these words had been spoken by Basho himself. The teaching is that of Saito Tokumoto and can be found in his Haikai-Shogaku-Sho. This book, published in Kan-ei 18, or in 1641, three years before Basho was born, is renowned as the first book on haikai to be published in Edo (modern Tokyo). The remark is attributed to Sogi, a renga master, whom Basho respected.
Historically, there were three major values people sought to achieve in Japanese culture: shin (truth), zen (goodness) and bi (beauty). They represented philosophical, ethical and aesthetic goals respectively. Waka or tanka sought beauty first, followed by truth and some element of goodness. However, normally haiku looked into truth and beauty but seldom into goodness. Of course truth can be found in beauty and truth itself can be beautiful. And there is that famous adage: Beauty is in the eyes of the beholder. Aesthetic values can be broad or narrow according to the thinker. No one doubts the beauty of Basho’s wisteria haiku or the Milky Way haiku. But how many people would see beauty in the cicada or the roaming dream haiku?
A single haiku may not have all these values, though it is not impossible. Some haiku poems may have only one of them and still manage to be good. However, it seems to me to be essential for any haiku to have truth as a pre-requisite. This is why it is so important for us to spend some time to think about what we mean by poetic truths.
Obviously, we cannot dissect haiku into these clear-cut poetic values. Nor should we really do it if we can appreciate good haiku without such irksome and often unnecessary analysis. Even so, what is important to remember is that it is haiku’s own poetic values that provide us with ways in which we can reach fuga no makoto.
Let us, then, look at some of the points we need to explore in search of fuga no makoto.
Firstly, about the word fuga. In the broadest sense, it means arts in general. In the commonest sense it means literature, especially poetry. For Basho, it meant sometimes poetry in general but often it meant haikai itself. So, for him the terms fuga and haikai were interchangeable.
Secondly, we are not talking about truths in general terms. The truths we are dealing with are poetic truths, and especially haikai truths. Poetic truths are those arrived at through poetic perception and expressed in the poetic language. Some of them cannot be reached in any other way. Others may be the same truths but perceived and expressed as poetry.
Thirdly, as we have already seen fuga no makoto refers to broad, deep and somewhat intangible truths, having aesthetic, epistemological, ethical and humanistic dimensions. It is a poetic branch of one’s Weltanschauung and that is why I call haiku a way of life. And, significantly, it is also why haiku cannot really be taught during a very short course in the school curriculum or in a one-hour workshop.
Fourthly, fuga no makoto is not a freak phenomenon or momentary accident but holds its value over time, often forever, and becomes timeless.
Fifthly, fuga no makoto also often extends in space as well. In other words, the poetic truths thus obtained in one place can be understood, shared or repeated elsewhere in the world. This is the aspect of haiku which has universality.
Sixthly, fuga no makoto is a result or product of the dynamism of two colliding forces: fueki ryuko, which is another important teaching of Basho, as we have already seen. Fueki simply means ‘no change’ and refers to values of a permanent and enduring nature. Ryuko, on the other hand, means changing fashions of the time and refers to newness, innovation, originality or unconventional values which would break with old ways in a revolutionary manner. For instance, Beethoven created new and innovative music, ushering in a new age and setting a new trend. However, he did not do so without first having been steeped in classical music of an old tradition. Thus he had fueki ryuko and left legacy of permanent value. None of us is Beethoven but all of us can become a little Beethoven! Fueki ryuko is an abbreviation of senzai-fueki ichiji-ryuko (eternal no-change and temporary fashion). When fueki and ryuko collide and interact in a dynamic explosion of creative haiku-writing, the result could be like a newly-born baby, taking after both parents but different from both. And there is a single ultimate value which lies beyond fueki ryuko, and that is nothing but fuga no makoto.
Seventhly, haikai jiyu. This is another extremely important teaching of Basho. It refers to the freedom which haikai came to enjoy but which had been denied to other traditional genres such as waka. However, once this freedom becomes institutionalised it ceases to be new and fresh and becomes part of tradition, creating new needs for further freedom. Western haiku was fresh but has now become laden with the burden of rules and regulations. It needs to be liberated. We need to secure and preserve the maximum freedom of poetic expression and creation all the time. It is an ongoing process and there is not a single moment in time when a haiku poet is pronounced, or regards him- or herself, as accomplished. It is his or her fate to remain an eternal learner.
Eighthly, haiku is a product of interaction between nature and man, with man as part of nature. That is why haiku is a complex literature. Such practice in the West of dividing up the subject matter into nature and man and, for instance, allocating nature to haiku and man to senryu is a gross over-simplification and a bit of criminal negligence even.
Ninthly, similar to a point we have already seen, Basho taught the importance for a haikai poet of remaining a learner and not becoming complacent about his/her skills or experience. “Let small children do haikai” and “Poems by beginners are promising” are Basho’s words to express this sentiment. To put a popular saying slightly differently: Those who teach, can’t. Basho advises against haikai becoming gimmicky, contrived and boastful.
Tenthly, Basho said that there was that which could not be really taught in haikai. He is referring to what cannot be explained or theorised. Learners therefore need to learn it themselves by their intuition or sensibility. Some of them just don’t get it. That is too bad. However, many of us are born with it and some of us can acquire it so long as we go about it in the right way.
There are still many more interesting points regarding Basho’s teachings which are useful for our investigation but these ten points I have outlined would probably be enough for us to be going on with.
Let’s just recapitulate what we have seen. One of the ultimate aims of any education is to help learners find ways to reach truths. Haiku helps them to reach poetic truths, which are truths perceived and expressed through poetic sensibility and language. Haiku truths, or haikai truths, are what Basho called fuga no makoto. Fuga no makoto has a broad dimension encompassing aesthetic, epistemological, moralistic and humanistic values. To reach this ultimate goal of fuga no makoto, a haiku poet must follow certain right paths. These include: recognition that haiku is a way of life and to learn it properly one needs to be ‘brought up’ by it; implementation of the dynamic process whereby fueki (tradition, permanent values) and ryuko (fashion, newness, innovation and originality) would interact and collide in a creative way; making the most of haikai no jiyu which is freedom of poetic expression and creation in haikai; true understanding of the important point that haiku is neither about nature nor about man alone but is about the interaction and relationship between the two with man as part of nature; the importance of a haiku poet to remain an eternal learner; recognition that there is something in haiku which cannot be taught but only learnt by the learner by intuition and practice.
Does this fuga no makoto of Basho make sense to you? Does it resonate with your sensibility? Does it appeal to you as something you wish to aim for? I believe it does. If it is with you and inside you in the sense Basho mentioned, you can’t go wrong and you can then make it resonate with the sensibility of other people, including children.
Some non-Japanese haiku poets may never reach the Japanese haiku spirit but all haiku poets can expect to reach fuga no makoto and that is a wonderful possibility to celebrate. True haiku can have universality in time and space. Fuga no makoto is the catalyst for such universality and therefore is the ultimate aim of our learning haiku.
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