Haiku Thoughts (January)

Fragments & phrases

This is the first haiku in my little sequence about a hiking trip to Lorne, a small town on the Great Ocean Road. As it turns out, I think it’s a good haiku to kick off my year of thinking about haiku (see my intro for the full sequence).

Some terminology

First, some notes on terminology. I don’t want to completely rehash introductory ideas, and will simply link to much of it, but some clarification will help get us started. Similarly, while definitions of haiku might come up later, and this whole series is an exploration of the form, I’m going to jump right over that and dive into structure.

As Seán Wright¹ noted in the thread that prompted this series, in grammatical terms, most commonly haiku are a combination of phrase/phrase, phrase/fragment, and phrase/sentence. But not always:

That’s noun phrase, sentence, sentence. And my haiku above, again speaking grammatically, consists entirely of phrases. A well-known approach to haiku writing is Jane Reichhold’s ‘fragment’ and ‘phrase’ theory. It’s useful as a starting point, since I think the magic of many haiku does come from the spark created by the juxtaposition of two distinct parts. Another analogy I like is the attraction of two magnets held slightly apart: too close or too far and there’s no magic. (I love the work ‘about’ and the exclamation mark are doing in Hass’s translation above: it wouldn’t be the same without them.)

In the case of my haiku above, the first two lines, being continuous, are Reichhold’s ‘phrase’, and the last line is the stand-alone ‘fragment’, with the dash separating the two parts. In Issa’s haiku, the fragment’s also the last line, and it’s the exclamation that marks the break. I think I’ll mostly avoid using the terms fragment and phrase if possible, and just refer to lines—the English teacher in me finds them confusing—but as I say the theory behind it is well-known and a useful start. I probably also won’t bother with kireji, Japanese words used for emphasis, as I don’t think the term’s needed in English haiku.²

Punctuation

Kireji are often replaced completely by punctuation in English, and rereading Reichhold’s article, I immediately agree with her point about punctuation; it’s often unnecessary. I also began writing haiku with capitals, full stops, dashes, ellipses, and gradually dropped them. Not sure why I defaulted back to dashes for this sequence, but I think my haiku is better without it.³

In this case, the dash doesn’t really clarify anything. It also feels slightly forced, as if disguising that the haiku’s almost a sentence: “On the tent the first morning was a cicada shell.” Along with the lack of a verb, the essentially prose syntax is probably what makes the haiku feel a little inert to me.

Seasonality

But what do I like about it? Well, it’s certainly clear: we immediately know someone is camping (who & where), we know this is the first morning of a camping trip (when & activity), we know that the cicada shell is on the tent (focus), and we know that the cicada emerged on the first night (the past, implied but definitely there). It’s a clear visual, even without any specificity.

The ‘cicada shell’ gives us a seasonal reference, in Japanese the kigo. One thing I didn’t realise at first about the Japanese haiku I read in translation was how much was being alluded to, including well-known haiku and all the other haiku that use that specific kigo.

In Japanese ‘cicada’ is a late summer kigo. Presumably cicadas are most active in late summer in Japan, and they evoke summer for me in Australia too. But kigo are highly codified. Cherry blossoms are spring kigo, but so are frogs, skylarks, a doll festival, and the word ‘warm’. The moon signifies autumn. The more cultural knowledge you have, the more they make sense, but even within Japan kigo can be fairly arcane. They seem countless—I’ve seen a reference book of kigo with thousands of entries for early/mid/late seasons in specific regions (here’s a short list). I think that kind of obscurity was part of what modern Japanese reformers were reacting against, though I’m hazy on the history. Apparently Shiki supported kigo—perhaps someone can jump in with a comment or two on haiku reform?

The seasons are obviously different in different places, which makes it harder to appreciate seasonal indicators from other parts of the world. But our own disconnect from land and seasonal rhythms can make it difficult even within our own country or region; until quite recently I wouldn’t have associated the reddening of kangaroo apples with Melbourne summer, as the Wurundjeri people traditionally did in their own calendar. The introductory essay in Where the River Goes: The Nature Tradition in English-Language Haiku notes that there has been a significant decline within English language haiku journals in the number of haiku focused solely on the natural world, as opposed to solely on the human world, or a mixture of both—the latter is by far the most common.

Without a seasonal reference (or the break), haiku are technically really senryu, but personally I think the distinction between haiku and senryu is insignificant in English, though some haiku poets would vehemently disagree. At the very least, I would say the “haiku moment” is more important than the (deeply problematic) human/nature dichotomy, and that there aren’t sufficiently clear boundaries between haiku and senryu in contemporary English language poetry for them to count as separate forms. Perhaps it's a little harsh, but I think the distinction often comes down to snobbery.⁴⁵

It’s certainly fruitful to think about kigo specific to Western or Indigenous seasons and localities, perhaps as a way to reconnect to seasonal rhythms, to work with creative constraints, or to explore climate change and solastalgia, the deranging of place. I just don’t think kigo are essential.⁶

A contemporary Australian spring haiku:⁷

I don’t count syllables much, but ‘cicada shell’ is 3-4-4, which is very close to the 3-5-3 that’s said to be roughly equivalent in information content to 5-7-5 in Japanese. The length (11 syllables) feels right; I can’t think of any adjectives that would add anything to the first or third lines. Hetherington’s is even shorter (9), and illustrates what I think is usually the best solution to a haiku that doesn’t quite work in three lines but still needs a break.

Incidentally, here’s my favourite short haiku:

Isn’t it astonishing? The contrast’s said to come from the empty page the word sits in, but there’s also a contrast with the form of haiku itself—all those fragments and phrases. No, the poem says: just this. It makes me think of Cage’s 4’33 or Duchamp’s Fountain in its claim for ground zero of the form; without an appreciation of the form, it’s simply a word.

To come back for one last look at ‘cicada shell’: one of the skills I’ve learned from haiku is cutting words, especially little ones like articles (a, an, & the). We need ‘the’ on lines 1 and 2, but not ‘a’ on the last line, so I Ieft it out. It gives a tiny lift, helps maintain a pleasing shape. Despite recognising that haiku lines don’t need to be of any particular visual length, I do still have a preference for short-long-short when it comes to three-line haiku.

While a complete phrase, the first two lines don’t really stand alone, like in Issa’s ‘New Year’s Day’ haiku; we know what is in blossom, but not what is on the tent. I guess that introduces a bit of mystery, and the lack of a verb suggests stillness.⁸ The morning’s a new beginning, for both hiker and cicada—the appearance of the shell is a small synchronicity. But the implicit metaphor that the hiker is the cicada, which has departed, also suggests the possibility the hiker is not there either, making the tent itself a shell.

I didn’t quite see that at first. The hiker is emerging from normal life into the outdoors, but also emerging from sleep into waking, and a shelter into daylight. Maybe that’s part of the magic—who is watching, if the hiker isn’t there? Is the speaker someone else? In which case, the first morning after what?

Perhaps the poem could emphasise those ideas a little more, for example by cutting the first word, ‘on’:

Dunno. I don’t like the visual repetition of ‘the’ here, though sometimes it works.⁹ Is it better overall? Perhaps—I like the image of the tent as a literal shell, and that’s buried in the original, but it feels like it's pushing a little hard.

Maybe the issue’s that although in real life the cicada shell was on the tent its location isn’t essential. Making it a one-liner would avoid the visual rhyme, too. So we could change it to:

What do you think?

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I found this one flicking through Haiku in English, and coincidentally just discovered that it was one of the first one-liners taken seriously—by Higginson no less.

To return to Issa’s ‘New Year’s Day’: despite what I said, I don’t mind the punctuation in Hass’s version. And it arguably has three parts, yet works just fine. One of the things I love about the classic Japanese haiku poets is that they frequently break the rules we’re taught in English. Beginners often try to stuff too much in, resulting in three parts that feel laboured. So fragment and phrase is sound advice. But ultimately it’s just a useful, forgiving structure, a way to frame the more essential break.

What is a break, anyway? Another question for later: Is the break another useful, forgiving structure to frame something more essential?

English haiku is often more conservative than Japanese haiku, in the way that colonies often retain accents and customs longer than the imperial centre. It’s easy to forget that freestyle haiku originated in Japan. The more important international journals in particular feel quite conservative to me, though I’ve only dipped into them. I think old or old-fashioned translation of Japanese classics is partly to blame, as well as the fact that the allusions are often shorn off when translating into another language and culture, making Japanese haiku seem more serious or at least less formally playful.

A lot of contemporary Japanese haiku isn’t available in translation, unfortunately, so it’s hard for a non-Japanese speaker to get a good sense of Japanese haiku being cutting edge, the way that Basho’s famous ‘old pond’ haiku was.¹⁰ Perhaps the perceived seriousness of classic Japanese haiku is what makes a lot of English language haiku feel soporific, imitation Zen—even though Bashō, Issa, Buson were anything but self-serious, as is (strangely) immediately obvious to anyone who reads them.

I think that air is why students sometimes tell me they find translated haiku, and haiku in general, boring. It feels old-fashioned, lacks apparent drama, often (but by no means always) lacks juicy words. And to be fair, haiku will probably always be more for poets of a somewhat Zen Buddhist bent—though the Beats were hardly monks!

Sometimes tanka are a better introduction to haikai. I find students most enjoy haiku when workshops include a walk outside to gather sense impressions, a beach or park near people (the meeting of the human and natural worlds does seem the easiest to write about). And when they’re shown a range of haiku styles and themes, including the humorous and strange ones.¹¹ Even this hoary old meme is an explicable haiku, I feel, if not a great one. Don’t you think?

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Well, that was rather digressive! Interested in your thoughts, so please jump in below. I’d love to see what alternative versions you might offer of my haiku, and to read haiku you’ve written or read with similar themes, content, or structures.

To finish, a few more haiku to add to the mix.¹²

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      Stillness—

The cicada’s cry

       drills into the rocks.

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       A cicada shell;

It sang itself

       utterly away.

Basho (trans. Robert Hass)

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       Butterfly

sleeping

       on the temple bell.

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       Sleeping late—

stuck to the soles of his sandals,

       cherry blossoms.

Buson (trans. R.H.)

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Don’t worry, spiders,

I keep house

casually

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On a branch

floating downriver

a cricket, singing.

Issa (trans. R.H. & Jane Hirshfield, respectively)

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pregnant again…

the fluttering of moths

against the window

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foetus kicks

the sky to the east

brilliant

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tiny coffin

the long winter

’s passing

Janice Bostok

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New Year’s parade—

beneath the dancing dragon

the feet of men

Patricia Neubauer

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lily:

out of the water

out of itself

Nick Virgilio

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1. Check out Seán Wright’s haiku project, also on Substack. Our projects are coincidentally parallel; hopefully a conversation emerges!

2. See Seán’s post as well as the footnotes for more on terminology.

3. A colon might also have done the job of the dash, but I generally find colons too abrupt in haiku.

4. See this fantastic critique of contemporary English language haiku by Haruo Shirane, Beyond the Haiku Moment, which makes much the same point about senryu while also criticising the prescription of limiting haiku to direct personal experience. I’d like to return to that point later—I don’t think the haiku moment is quite the same as the present moment, but I have some more thinking to do.

5. See also a slight prejudice against southern hemisphere seasonal references.

6. Hopefully by the end of the year I’ll have a better idea of what is!

7. From For instance / Matt Hetherington.

8. Who was it who said that haiku is a poetry of nouns? I’ll come back to verbs in later posts.

9. See a fantastic example over on These Haiku of where this kind of repetition works.

10. This short essay series by Keiji Minato in Cordite, Notes on Modern Haiku (1-4), is a good overview of more recent developments in Japan and includes translations of some avant-garde haiku.

11. Renga parties are also a fun way to write haiku, by the way, though that’s probably mostly just the wine and the other poets. Sadly, I’ve only been to a couple—and hosted one of them! Perhaps an online one?

12. All Basho and Issa haiku in this post are from The Essential Haiku: Versions of Bashō, Buson, & Issa, with the exception of Jane Hirshfield’s ‘a cricket, singing’. Hōsai’s haiku is from right under the big sky I don’t wear a hat. Rolf Nelson’s ‘Refrigerator’ is from the Internet. All other haiku are from Haiku in English: The First Hundred Years, which can be borrowed electronically.