One Hundred Haijin

WHR August 2014

Painting by Susumu Takiguchi

ONE HUNDRED HAIJIN AFTER SHIKI

By

Susumu Takiguchi

PART ONE

Masaoka Shiki (1867-1902) famously predicted that haiku could become extinct by the end of the Meiji Era (1868-1912). How wrong he was! And how delighted we are that he was wrong, without being unkind to him! This is indeed a cause for celebration.

One way of celebrating it could be to choose at random one hundred Japanese haiku poets who have helped to prove him wrong. If we chose one hundred best the case would be strong. But if we chose randomly, and not necessarily the best, one hundred from among, say, about five hundred who have been leading figures in the modern history of haiku in Japan, the case would be even stronger.

With this in mind, I would like to serialise my narratives in World Haiku Review about the one hundred Japanese haijin whom I shall choose at random and talk about. There is no particular reason why the number should be one hundred. It could be two hundred or fifty. Just over one hundred years have passed since the end of the Meiji Era, and a little bit longer since Shiki died. So, the number one hundred would not be bad. To write about more than one hundred haijin could be exhausting. If the number was fifty, the endeavour could be unsatisfactory and frustrating as more would surely be desired to be introduced. One thing which is certain is that it is not really intended to follow the fashion to use the number one hundred in haiku books, originally emanating from the ancient waka anthology Hyaku-Nin-Isshu (one poem each by one hundred poets). Being a heso-magari (contrarian) I would in fact have liked to avoid this cliché.

* * * * * * *

Ikeda Sumiko (1936~)

Be it as it may, the haijin I wish to talk about first happens to be Ikeda (surname) Sumiko (given name) who has written interesting haiku concerning war.

前ヘススメ前ヘススミテ還ラザル

mae e susume mae e susumite kaerazaru

forward --- march!

marching on forward

never to return

When the military situation in WWII was turning seriously against Japan in 1943 after the disaster of the Battle of Midway a year previously, the Japanese leaders decided to mobilise students of higher education who had thus far been exempted from national service, in order to replenish a diminishing number of eligible men. A big send-off ceremony was organised with pomp and circumstance at the Meiji Shrine Athletic Stadium in Tokyo on 21 October of that year. The author of the haiku was inspired by this event.

Ikeda Sumiko was only five at the time of Pearl Harbour and seven when the students’ mobilisation ceremony was held. Whether or not she was actually there watching the students march, I don’t know. She might have learnt of it later in her life. Autumn rain was falling incessantly on that day and some 70, 000 students in university uniforms and with university caps on took part in it with unaccustomed heavy rifles on their shoulder amid the cheers and concealed tears of their families and friends. Hideki Tojo, the Prime Minister cum Army Minister presided over the ceremony with his Education Minister beside him. It was a dramatic but tragic thing to happen as these students and many who soon followed them in different parts of Japan were meant to demonstrate their willingness to serve the country, “never expecting to return alive”. Many of them actually never came home.

There are features in the original haiku in Japanese which are lost in translation. First and foremost, it is written inkatakana, one of the two Japanese alphabet systems. Katakana is normally used in the contemporary Japanese for foreign words or scientific terminology. However, before the end of the War it was used in the elementary textbooks, for example. The haiku is based on a page of one such textbook where it carried a passage, “susume, susume, heitai, susume” (march, march, troops, march!). Ikeda was an elementary schoolgirl and must have learnt this passage. So, the haiku has an added significance: If a nation is brainwashed from the infant age into militarism and a political ideology such as fascism people can become like lemmings.

The original haiku also has four principals playing at. Firstly, the government or the military HQ creating political and military policies. Secondly, a superior officer or unit giving march orders. Thirdly, a soldier or troops actually doing the march and making the final sacrifice. Fourthly, the family and/or friends who are left behind as their loved one gets killed in the war. The haiku is referring to all of them.

The shogo (the first five on-ji) shows how march order was actually voiced by an officer, adding to the realism and authenticity of what was going on, which might also just be conveyed in the translation. Because of this, it creates after it caesura effectively, which makes the haiku structurally very effective.

What is interesting is the fact that the haiku appeared for the first time in the year 2000 in a magazine called Haiku. Ikeda was 64 years old then. When she actually wrote this haiku, I cannot tell. She belongs to the generation of those who cannot easily cast off the trauma the nation had to go through. She may have watched a war documentary and the scene of the student-soldiers marching at the aforementioned ceremony. She might have been making what must have been a repeated attempt at making sense of the Pacific War, or the Great East Asia War, or the Second World War, or 15 Years’ War, or all wars.

***************

Ikeda is not a traditionalist of the Takahama Kyoshi’s ilk. She started to write haiku rather late for such a prominent figure and more or less by accident. Her teacher, or the person she adored, was Abe Kanichi (1928-2009) who was famed for a kind of avant-garde haiku which he learnt from Kaneko Tota, among others. Ikeda had already begun to write haiku in a very conventional way with acquaintances living nearby but it was some of Abe’s haiku which she chanced to read one day in a haiku magazine that kindled new interest in haiku in her, which changed her haiku completely. She was already in her 30s. Much later on, she encountered Mitsuhashi Toshio (1920~2001), around 1983, and became his student. Mitsuhashi was a champion of non-traditional and muki (no season word) haiku movement. She was awarded the prestigious Gendai Haiku Kyokai Award in 1989, which made her famous.

Ikeda’s haiku contains irony and humour which can be observed in ordinary, day-to-day events and people but are seldom picked up by others. Also, she used kogo (colloquial modern Japanese) often, which was still new in haiku-writing in Japan. Ikeda, a friendly and good-looking woman, has written many love haiku and haiku about female sexuality, too.

She was born in Kamakura in 1936 but moved to Murakami City, Niigata Prefecture when her father went to war. It is the town where he originally came from. She was brought up there until she moved to Niigata City, the capital of the county, in 1947 where she lived until she got married.

* * * * * *

Here are other examples of her haiku.

水無月の当て無き櫂の雫かな

minatsuki no ate naki kai no shizuku kana

june…

these drops of the oar, oblivious to

where it wants the boat to go

One of the most well-known haiku of hers, this work still stirs controversy as to what the author really intended to mean. Minatsuki is an old Japanese word to mean June of the old Lunar Calendar. It originally meant a month of water, as it coincided with the rainy season. Later on, it came to be written in three kanji, or Chinese characters, that means “a month without water”. Ikeda did not learn haiku along the line of the Hototogisu School initiated by Kyoshi Takahama unlike most of the Japanese haiku poets. Thus she has been unhindered by all the rules and regulations this School lay down on individuals. In other words, under the tutelage of Abe and Mitsuhashi, she has been free in her haiku-writing. This included using a lot of humour in her haiku. She looks at life with detachment, sense of humour and irony. All of these are the important components of haiku when it was originally conceived out of the tradition of waka (modern tanka). One could argue that Ikeda’s is the authentic way of haiku. In this haiku, “water” is the common denominator and her sense of humour runs from the month (or even moon) with or without water, a boat in the river or sea and the oar which is supposed to steer the boat in the right direction and therefore to know where it is going. She might have compared herself to this no-seeing, no-knowing oar, drifting in life. The drops from the oar are even more insignificant. One could also say that this is a cynical haiku. However, Ikeda laughs away such cynicism and laughs at herself, saying “Ouch!”

雁や父は海越えそれっきり

karigane ya chichi wa umi koe sorekkiri

flying goose…

my father has gone over the sea, and

that was that

As was mentioned before, Ikeda’ father went to war when she was a child. The old memory never left her.

じゃんけんで負けて蛍に生まれたの

janken de makete hotaru ni umareta no

having lost

the game of janken, I came

to be born a firefly

This is arguably the most well-known haiku by Ikeda. It is certainly the most liked. Janken is a mora à la japonaise using a hand, whereby “gu”(fist=stone) cannot be cut by “choki”(scissors) which can however cut “par” (palm=paper) which in turn can wrap up “gu”, the stone. Each of the players must show one of these three possibilities simultaneously. It is like tossing a coin. So, the author lost such a toss and as a result was born as a firefly. Nobody knows what she means by this strange haiku and that has added to its popularity. For parents a child is the consequence of their love-making (provided it’s their own sperm and egg) even if what sort of child they are going to have is beyond them and is therefore a kind of chance or lottery. For a child, on the other hand, its birth is completely an accident, chance and something which it has not given its consent and has nothing to do with its will. It has never existed before its birth and all of a sudden brought to this world from nothing (with a ten-month probation period). Ikeda may be teasing us with this sacred act of ours.

ピーマン切って中を明るくしてあげた

piiman kitten aka wo akaruku shite ageta

cutting

a Spanish paprika, I offered to make

its inside bright

Another mysterious but nonetheless popular haiku. No one knows what she is getting at but we somehow instinctively understand this feeling. When we cut peppers or paprikas we feel a bit uncertain as they are bouncy, softish and wobbly, which makes us afraid of letting the knife slip and cut ourselves. Once cut, their inside is hollow with a number of “compartment” and seeds. Where the author differs from us is that she has the sensibility to sympathise with them so much so that she feels that their inside is dark just like a prison. So, chopping them is not just an act of kitchen activity but bringing light into them in order to liberate them.

閉経までに散る萩の花何匁

heikei made ni chiru hagi no hana nan monme

how many ounces

of bush clover flowers fall until

I reach the menopause?

This is an extraordinary haiku. Gynaecological and/or anatomical description is a taboo in ordinary haiku. Besides, women do not normally talk about this subject in Japan, not in public anyway. They may do so among themselves. Menstruation and bush clover do not sit well together. It seems that these are precisely the reasons why Ikeda ventured to write this haiku and have it published. Violating taboos is a form of revolution, liberation and relief. It does give one the kind of thrill one may feel by taking part in a political revolution. Ikeda has brought fresh air of freedom into the haiku literature. It is not as if she wanted to shock but this haiku sounds as if it came most naturally to her and therefore to write and publish it must have been for her the most natural thing to do. She is a spiritually liberated woman and that adds to her charm.

She has written not a few haiku on love, sex and womanhood. For example, むかし初潮にほっとしたっけ梨の花mukashi shocho ni hotto shitakke nashi no hana (long ago/relieved as I had the first menstruation/the pear blossom) This haiku, with the one about her menopause, completes the womanhood in her. Another example: 薄氷に雨降るよわが排卵日 usurai ni ame furu yo waga hairanbi (thin ice/the rain falling on it/my ovulation day ) And another: 天井や股間にぬくき羊水や tenjo ya kokan ni nukuki yosui ya (the ceiling…/warm between my legs/water breaks) It is becoming just a bit like sex education.

セーターにもぐり出られぬかもしれぬ

sehtah ni moguri derarenu kamo shirenu

diving into

my sweater, I might not be able

to come out of it

I am sure that many people have had this feeling, especially with a tight and bulky pull-over. When we are trying to pull it on over the head the world disappears momentarily (i.e. we cannot see anything) and it becomes dark, then we are slightly panic-stricken as we feel a bit suffocated and may not be able to be freed from that state. However, we have never thought of putting it on paper in a haiku form. This is typical of Ikeda. She notices some details of our daily life which are nothing to speak of at first sight but on reflection are surprising, funny or ironical. These are turned into many of her haiku with irony and sense of humour. We may notice them too but they are quickly buried in our seemingly busy life and forgotten.

どっちみち梅雨の道へ出る地下道

dochi michi tsuyu no michi e deru chikado

the underpass..

even if it is used, it will end up in

joining the road of summer rain

The translation is rather like an “explanation” but the original is a good haiku. It can be regarded as a bit cynical. We tend to take refuge from any disasters or misfortunes even though it will only be temporary. We do the same in minor incidents of inconvenience, unpleasantness or harm as well. Being temporary, the let-up will soon come to an end and the bad thing will resume in no time at all. So, some may well ask, what is the point? Back to the haiku, the summer rain is not a shower but the “notorious” tsuyu, which is like monsoon in India but hot, sticky and continues almost eternally. If it is a shower it is well worth taking shelter until it stops or goes elsewhere. Let us ask then a few not-pointless questions in the same fashion? What is the point of cleaning a pair of shoes if they will again get covered with mud tomorrow? What is the point of washing your shirt if you will wear it again and make it dirty and smelly? What is the point of mowing the lawn if the grass will soon become tall again? What is the point of having a ceasefire if it will only be violated and the fighting will resume as quickly as the ceasefire was repeated. What is the point of having chemotherapy it the patient will die soon enough? What is the point of going to the university if there will be no job available at the end of it? What is the point of us being born if we are going to die anyway? What is the point of protecting environment if the global warming will kill us all?

山法師捻挫と恋は長引くぞ

yamaboushi nenza to koi wa nagabiku zo

cornus kousa flowers…

the sprain and love affair will not be

cured any time soon

Though Ikeda is not a traditionalist she makes the most of kigo when she wants to. Sometimes it comes naturally. Other times it is used for some effect. In this instance there apparently is no connection between the kigo (cornus kousa) and the sprain or love affair. This could be just her teasing or amusing. It could be intended as toriawase (mixture) though to my mind it is not a good one if it is meant to be one. It could be play on words. There are a number of different ways to write yamaboushi in kanji and she used the one to mean in literal sense a medieval soldier-monk of the Enryaku-ji Temple of Hiei-zan, near Kyoto. These soldier-monks were subjected to harsh discipline and training and therefore vulnerable to injuries, including sprain, which takes a long time to heal and lingers on and on. In association, she takes up a love affair. It may be based on her own experience. It may be her wishful thinking. It may still be lost love, rather than in love, healing from which will take a long time.

いつか死ぬ必ず春が来るように

itsuka shinu kanarazu haru ga kuru yo ni

one day dead…

just like the spring will come

without fail

As a characteristic of the Japanese language, it is not clear whose death Ikeda is talking about, the death of herself, of someone she knows, or of us all human beings? Let us assume it is her own death. Anyone will die someday. So, that is not the main interest here in itself. What is curious is to what does one compare the inevitability of death. To tax, or debt? If it is season, most of us compare death to winter. It is typical of Ikeda, a contrarian, to compare the coming of death to the arrival of spring. Is it that she wants to compare her death to something nice and pleasant, and most importantly something full of life also? That could only be spring. She may wish to die smiling, rather than having death throes.

(End of Part One)