One Hundred Haijin - Kyoshi

WHR December 2019

ONE HUNDRED HAIJIN AFTER SHIKI

Susumu Takiguchi

PART EIGHT

Takahama Kyoshi (1874-1959)

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.

Takahama Kyoshi (1874-1959)

A GIANT OF MODERN HAIKU

Takahama (surname) Kyoshi (given name)*

22 February 1874 ~ 8 April 1959

*Following the academic convention of Japanese studies, Japanese full names are written in the order of the country’s practice, i.e. surname followed by given name.

People are slaves to conventions. Thus, four Japanese haiku masters have been named by convention as the greatest wherever and whenever haiku is talked about outside Japan – Basho, Buson, Issa and Shiki. The reason why they have come to be called such is well-known. However, blind adherence to this convention is neither inspiring nor intellectual. It is surprising that so far few seem to have addressed this issue at all. At the very least, one more name should have been added to the list. That name is Takahama Kyoshi (1874-1959).

Kyoshi presided over the Japanese haiku world for the best part of his long life and, more importantly, for the best part of the development of modern Japanese haiku since Shiki. Even after his death, his unrivalled influence has never ceased to be dominant across Japan to this day, namely sixty years on. It is therefore puzzling, to say the least, that his name has not been found in the pantheon of the haiku greats. The omission is almost criminal negligence and needs to be rectified as soon as possible.

桐一葉日当たりながら落ちにけり

kiri hitoha hiatari nagara ochinikeri

A single leaf

of paulownia has fallen,

catching the sun

as it went down.

This is my free version which I did a long time ago to one of the most well-known haiku poems by Kyoshi (1). I use the term free version to distinguish it from translation, which is a different art altogether. Paulownia is part of Japanese culture as its timber is used to make best furniture, especially chests of drawers for storing kimono, small boxes to put things in like ceramics or special gifts, ancient lute, and most popularly geta clogs. The wood is light, easy to work on, beautiful to look at and strong (it lasts forever). A paulownia tree has huge leaves which fall one at a time and land on the ground with a “thud”.

Some readers may be familiar with a famous print by Hiroshige, called ‘Akasaka Kiribatake’ (Paulownia Field at Akasaka), one look at which is one of the best ways to understand how and why the Japanese people have come to love this tree. Kenyan citizens know this print very well as its image has been used for the design of their postal stamp to commemorate the 200th anniversary of Hiroshige’s death.

Having said all that, I fear that this haiku may not appeal much to non-Japanese, especially to North Americans. Some of them may even dismiss it as a ‘So what haiku’. If one of the most celebrated haiku poems in Japan such as this would pass unnoticed or un-appreciated outside Japan, there would be something very wrong somewhere. Let’s just do some factual analysis to begin with.

There is a possibility that unlike oak or redwood, paulownia itself may not be as well-known or popular in the West as in Japan, China or Korea. If familiarity breeds contempt, unfamiliarity breeds indifference, coldness and hosts of other negative feelings (fear, prejudice, misunderstanding, racism and even xenophobia). Paulownia tomentosa, I believe, originated in China. Popularly, it is known as princess tree, empress tree or karri tree, and planted in the East America. There was actually a beautiful princess in Tsarist Russia called Anna Paulovna (1795-1865) who later became the Queen of Holland. While a princess in the Romanov family, she was wooed by Emperor Napoleon I, no less, but her mother delayed the answer for so long that he lost interest. And there was of course the great Russian prima ballerina of the same name.

What is the kigo of this haiku? It is not the paulownia tree itself. It is the one leaf of it (kiri hitoha). In a similar way, ichiyo (one leaf) and hitoha otsu (one leaf falls) are kigo of its ilk. It was derived from the old Chinese classic ‘Enanji’ in which the famous phrase was used: “A leaf falls and one knows that between heaven and earth it’s autumn.” The Japanese are exceedingly sensitive to changing seasons. Any signs of, say, autumn or spring arriving get spotted by them. If they see a single paulownia leaf falling, they are unaccountably moved, especially the scene is reinforced by the Chinese classic. It is a realisation emotionally moving, intellectually exciting and poetically inspiring. If all this is non-existent outside Japan, little wonder non-Japanese people should be left cold by this haiku. This is a good example for us all to reconfirm the incredible power of kigo used in haiku and thereby how and why it is an important component in haiku writing. If the kigo is not appreciated, then the haiku itself cannot possibly be appreciated.

We don’t need Newton to observe how long it takes for a single Paulownia leaf to fall from the twig to which it is attached down to the ground. The feeling that Japanese haiku poets get is that it is like looking at it in slow motion and that they are experiencing everything which the Paulownia leaf is going through. The feeling is that keen.

At this point, let me show you without my comments some more examples of Kyoshi’s haiku poems which have been widely regarded as his finest so that you may see for yourself whether they speak to you just as well as they do to the Japanese, or else they mean nothing to you:

toh yama ni hi no ataritaru kareno kana

beyond the withered field

are distant mountains

lit by the sun

ametsuchi no aida ni horo to shigure kana

between Heaven and Earth

begin to fall

a drop, or two,

of winter rain

nagareyuku daikon no ha no hayasa kana

what speed,

the radish leaves being carried

down the stream!

sode ni kite asobi kiyuru ya haru no yuki

spring snow…

landing on my sleeve and playing,

vanishes

hakubotan to iuto iedomo koh honoka

talk of white peonies…

do I not see a tinge of

pink as well?

inazuma wo fumite hadashi no onna kana

a woman

treading on the lightning

with bare feet

yama no yuki kofun wo tatakitsukeshi goto

snow on the mountains…

looking like women’s powder

hurriedly put on

fumite sugu daisy no hana okiagaru

no sooner I tread on it

than the daisy

springs back

koganemushi nageutsu yami no fukasa kana

what depth

of darkness into which I throw

a May beetle

yorokobi ni tsuke uki ni tsuke kami arau

whether happy or melancholy

she washes her hair

anyway

chushu ya tsuki akiraka ni hito oishi

mid-autumn…

bright is the harvest moon

old is the man

jinsei wa chinpu naru kana somato

banal

is my life;

kaleidoscope

Kyoshi was born on 22 February 1874 in Matsuyama City, Ehime, which is one of the four prefectures of the Island of Shikoku. Ehime is a kind of mecca of haiku and has produced many a prominent haiku poet among whom Masaoka Shiki is the most famous. Shiki was born in the vicinity of Kyoshi’s birthplace seven years previously, a fact which was somewhat prophetic in terms of their subsequent close relationship and the enormous influence on the world of modern haiku they both exerted.

Kyoshi enjoyed a long life, especially for a person of his generation, dying on 8 April 1959 in Kamakura at the age of 85. His date of death has been designated as a kigo to honour his life and achievements. Kamakura has also become a thriving centre of haiku, largely because of him. Many of his off springs have become haiku leaders and chosen Kamakura as the place of their residence and activity.

Kyoshi’s parents were both of samurai stock of the Matsuyama Clan. His father was a good swordsman, strong swimmer and excellent calligrapher. His mother was also a good calligrapher. She was good at waka poetry and Chinese classics as well. Kyoshi was famed for his skill in calligraphy, obviously having taken after his parents. More generally, Kyoshi’s personality of being upright, principled and cultured was derived from the austere upbringing given by the parents.

Kyoshi was a bright student with good academic records but when he was eighteen his beloved father suddenly died. Kyoshi was devastated and changed fundamentally in terms of his attitude towards life, away from the pursuit of being top of the class academically to essentially indulging in literature. Shiki was a mentor and inspiration for Kyoshi’s newly boosted interest. When they met, they immediately got on very well like a house on fire.

Shiki had already left Matsuyama to study in Tokyo but every now and again he revisited his hometown in order mainly to spread haiku among young and aspiring local residents, especially in 1891 and 1892. Kyoshi was one of those who attended Shiki’s kukai enthusiastically. He submitted his early haiku poems to Shiki for correction and comments.

There was the third person in this drama under the name of Kawahigashi Hekigodo (1873-1937, Hekigoto, for some) who was a year older than Kyoshi. The two went to the same secondary school in Matsuyama and became life-long friends as well as haiku rivals. Hekigodo later became the influential leader of the Shin-Keiko (new trend movement) which was the forerunner of various free and radical haiku movements.

When the New Trend Movement gathered strength Kyoshi was alarmed because he thought haiku was being led into a wrong path by them. He abandoned his earlier ambition to be a novelist and turned his whole attention to preserve and protect, and more importantly, improve the haiku tradition which had been developed since Basho’s time. Thus began the split of modern haiku into two major schools: one, the traditional school led by Kyoshi and his followers and the other, the free and radical school led by Hekigodo and various other faction founders.

Was the split a good thing? On balance, definitely yes. Without it, haiku may not have been blessed with the reform it has achieved successfully and may well have ended up in being a minor and outdated literary form in modern time at best or in its demise at worst as Shiki had warned earlier. The flip side is that it led to the almighty confusion in terms of the most essential factors of haiku: its form (5-7-5), kigo issue, its subject matter, taboo subjects and words and most importantly what makes haiku haiku. The confusion is still seen to the present day.

In spite of the confusion, or perhaps because of it (i.e. “creative chaos”), haiku has flourished in both schools without having one beating the other. The traditional school would certainly not have experienced the great prosperity it has enjoyed if it had not been challenged by all these new haiku movements. The challenge has worked as a catalyst for concentrating the mind of the traditionalists. And vice versa, as the latter could make the most of the traditional school as their target of attack, which gave them the reason of being and a form of legitimacy reversed. So now, we have these two schools side by side the rivalry of which is giving both ever-increasing energy to grow further. Which explains the unprecedented prosperity of haiku in Japan today. This energy now extends beyond Japanese shores and has spread across the globe.

As modern haiku has enjoyed a great success in Japan, the two schools have naturally produced many excellent and influential haijin. However, Kyoshi was a giant, head and shoulder above them. His immediate circle, based on the most influential haiku magazines, the Hototogisu and the Tamamo, and supported by a glittering group of leading literary figures, such as Natsume Soseki and Akutagawa Ryunosuke, became an immensely powerful centre not only of haiku but more broadly of the top literary and cultural movements of the time. Kyoshi’s many able disciples, and their disciples in turn, started their own haiku groups and magazines up and down the country, thus creating a gigantic ripple effect whereby Kyoshi’s influence spread in time and space.

Thus it was that Kyoshi’s power showed no signs of abating and his school became bigger and bigger. Despite this, he had detractors among his followers, many of whom defected and joined the opposing school. However, the more of them rose against Kyoshi the stronger his stature seemed to become. All the haijin belonging to the other school were by definition critical of what Kyoshi represented but none of them seemed to make a dent in Kyoshi’s reputation.

Kyoshi became something of a cult figure, seemingly beyond reproach. This in fact is not a healthy thing to happen. What is now needed therefore is a critical and objective academic study of Kyoshi which would give a thorough reappraisal of this important haijin, over and above a countless number of books and articles written by his followers, praising and worshipping him, or else those written by his opponents, slinging mud at him and objecting him for the sake of it. Such reassessment of Kyoshi would certainly contribute to useful and much needed reassessment of modern haiku in Japan from Shiki to the present day.

Before his death, Shiki had requested a special meeting with Kyoshi during which he entreated Kyoshi to be his successor in the haiku reform and to complete his unfinished job after his death. Unexpectedly, Kyoshi declined his mentor’s request. I personally think that Kyoshi was more interested in writing novels rather than committing himself too deeply to haiku. However, what Kyoshi did subsequently turned out to be effectively following Shiki’s request after all, albeit on his own terms.

(Note): Little has been written about Takahama Kyoshi. Those who are interested to know more about this poet can refer to my introductory book: KYOSHI – A HAIKU MASTER, by Susumu Takiguchi, First published 1997 by Ami-Net International Press, Leys Farm, Rousham, Bicester, Oxfordshire, OX25 4RA, UK, ISBN 1 902135 00 8, British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Date, A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library, Printed and bound by Antony Rowe Ltd, UK, Now out of print, A copy can be bought through Amazon etc., or from the author at the aforementioned publisher’s address (Suggested price £50 + P&P, negotiable).