Breaking the Haiku Mould, or Breeding to a Bloodline
The article below by Janice M. Bostok first appeared
on members.dodo.com.au. It relates her experiences with discovering and
developing haiku as a pioneer of the form in Australia. (Lyn Reeves)
In the latter half of the 60s I was newly married and had begun to have my
family. I was isolated, living in the north-eastern corner of Gippsland, in
Victoria. I had always been interested in writing, so decided that now would be
a good time to begin by writing readers stories for the Australian Womens
Weekly.
I was quite successful and because I contributed a number of stories on a
regular basis I actually developed some fans who wrote to me each time I was
published. One of my fans thought she was doing me a favour by placing my
name in an American pen friend magazine. Well, you can imagine! In one week
I received over five hundred letters. I sorted them out by choosing those who
said they were also trying to become writers. That left about twenty women
whom I began to write to regularly.
After a time one woman said she thought I should be able to write haiku,
because of the way I described my home in the bush. By this time my husband
and I had moved to the northern rivers area of New South Wales (where I was
born and where I felt more at home). I had to sheepishly write and ask the
women what haiku was. As way of explanation she sent me the small Peter
Pauper book of classic translations in English. I fell in love with haiku. I had
never read poetry quite like it. There was no posturing, no pretence, no ego
waving! This was real life. This I could relate to. For example Bashō's
midday nap /
placing my feet against the wall
/ how cool it is
But no one I knew had heard of haiku. Not even the local school teacher at the
one teacher school where my children attended. So I began to read and study
by buying books from America, where they seemed to know something about
it. A couple of the women I wrote to had actually had haiku published. I was
sure I could do that, too! The first haiku I wrote was accepted for publication in
the USA by a small magazine.
In 1971 I was being published overseas. Still no one that I knew had heard of
haiku. I remember attending a mothers club meeting at the local school. To
break the ice we were asked what our hobbies were. When it came my turn I
thought that there was no point in saying haiku, so I said poetry instead.
Simple enough, I thought. There was dead silence. Then a voice from up the
back of the room said: That's breeding chooks, isnt it?
At the time I was breeding corgi dogs for show. So I understood bloodlines.
And, I knew that POULTRY was the breeding of chooks. However, it did give me
an idea. If I looked at the writing of haiku like breeding animals, I could have
my own bloodline.
So what is my bloodline? Beginning with Bashō- (the greatest Japanese stud),
then Shiki, the modern haiku poet who rejuvenated and saved the Japanese
haiku from extinction, then I follow with Hekigodo and Ippekiro (two of Shiki's
followers). Next I bring in the English language haiku poets. My first and
greatest influence came from the American writers Michael McClintock and
Marlene Mountain. Marlene Mountain leading me to the one lined haiku.
In breeding terms this showed me how to breed a shorter, sharper, smarter
type of haiku.
insects rattling in dry grass
At that time in Australia I began reading Robert Gray's work. His short poems,
if not always haiku, were definitely haiku-like and seemingly influenced by the
Japanese form. I was fortunate to meet Robert Gray in Sydney in 1976. His
work has also made a lasting impression on me.
Later I learned that a number of writers in Australia were interested in haiku:
Norman Talbot, who was born in England; Norman Stokes, an Australian who
travelled to Japan on business trips; the American Bob Jones; and from Perth,
John Turner, who was also born in England. More recently I have had contact
with Adelaide Shaw who was being published in Modern Haiku in the USA, as I
was, in the 80s. And, of course, we have Andrew Landsdown. But few of these
poets have been known as haiku writers. Very few of them have been
published in specialist haiku magazines. I set out from the beginning to
become a haiku writer.
In 1972, knowing nothing about editing and publishing, I decided to edit and
publish a haiku magazine from my home in Dungay, northern New South
Wales. I called it TWEED and advertised for haiku poems. I received lots of
haiku submissions from America, and England, but no haiku from Australia.
What interest there was, was sadly bad haiku-like verse, or mainstream poems
from those who had hoped TWEED would become another general poetry
market. A bad example!
natures teardrops fall /
watering flowers with love /
raindrops from above
Most of the so called haiku were in strict 5-7-5 syllable pattern and rhymed.
They were top-heavy with simile and metaphor and personification. This was
not what I had been learning from the then modern pioneering haiku writers
overseas.
The Victorian influence still clung to haiku in the 1970s. Every second haiku (sic)
I received had one line which said: Harbinger of Spring! It began to drive me
crazy. If I could have found that harbinger of spring I would have shot the little
begger!
It may surprise some to learn that TWEED published the work of many well-
known poets: Dorothy Porter, Robert Gray, Larry Buttrose, Andrew Taylor, Les
Wicks, Lyndon Walker, Rae Desmond Jones, Dane Thwaites, Chris Mansell, and
many more.
Because haiku had been discovered by diplomats and merchants, towards the
end of the nineteenth century, the English language translations were naturally
influenced by the poetry style of the day. It is thought that William N.
Porter gave us the three lined haiku in rigid 5-7-5 English language syllables
when he first translated haiku into English. It was thought that occidentals
needed to have a translation which closely resembled their own style of poetry,
which at that time was Victorian rhyming verse.
The Japanese haiku is written in one line, down the page. There are three
sections which can be seen in 5-7-5 Japanese sound symbols. But these
sections or phrases are not written in lines as we write poetry in lines. They
were placed in lines so we, the foreigners could more easily understand that
such a short line was a poem!
This tradition was then carried on by other translators such as Kenneth Yasuda,
Harold G. Henderson, R.H. Blyth and Harold Stewart. The Australian Harold
Stewart actually translated many traditional Japanese haiku into rhyming
couplets. Was our haiku-translating Harold Stewart really Ern Malley?
Bashō's old pond poem:
Old pond / A frog jumps in / Water sound
He translated as:
The old green pond is silent, here the hop / Of a frog plumbs the evening
stillness: plop!
I personally resent the idea that I would not understand a simple image in one
line. In other words, these translators thought we westerners were too stupid
to understand a succinct image. I think it a cheek that someone made that
decision for me, years before I was born!
For breeding to a standard this form would probably be put-down at birth
and not let breed on!
The Japanese translator, Kenneth Ikeda believed that translations of Japanese
haiku should merely be rendered in free verse, of no more than four lines. This
method would certainly give a closer, more faithful translation of the original.
But it would not, however, provide the basic structure for the haiku to develop
into a regular form in the English language.
In breeding terms this one would probably have turned out to be the heinz
variety of mongrel.
Shiki, one of the pillars of Japanese Haiku Literature is believed to have saved
haiku from extinction. At that time in history the western free verse poem was
so popular in Japan that haiku was in fear of becoming extinct. By modernising
it and freeing it from traditional conventions, Shiki saved it, to let it live for
many more years. His idea was to write as the impressionist painters painted.
To go out and write haiku in a sketching method. This captured the moment as
it was happening.
Another writer, Seisensui, believed because haiku has the one pause within it,
a haiku should be written in two lines. Ippekiro brought free-metre haiku to its
pinnacle. This meant that free-metre haiku did not have to strictly adhere to
the 5-7-5 pattern. Gyomindo, who was the haiku editor for the magazine Shikai
believed that haiku should simply be a one lined poem. And, more recently
Nakagawa who founded Poetry Nippon, also believed that haiku should be a
one lined poem in English.
An example of a modern Japanese poem written by Hosai 1885-1926:
coughing, even: alone
Marlene Mountain is an American minimalist artist. She was married to John
Wills, a very well-known haiku poet. She became interested in haiku and the
rest is history, as they say. I met her on a trip to the US and stayed with her in
the mountains of Tennessee. Her ideas, and her work, have influenced me
greatly.
Most modern writers, of English language haiku agree that the English syllables
are longer than the Japanese onji or sound symbols. Most Japanese sound
symbols consist of one or two letters. An English syllable such as through is
very long. Therefore, to get the immediacy and impact of haiku imagery in
English it was soon realised that haiku should be shorter in English. Therefore,
it is reasonable to say that haiku in English should consist of seventeen
syllables or less. The stress being placed on less.
A number of successful writers now write in one line. Marlene Mountain
decided to do so very early on in her career. I believe, whether one likes or
hates Marlene Mountains work, (because she is a well-known feminist and her
work is often political) she is the only English language haiku poet who has
developed the mirrored, or classic translation of Japanese haiku in English, on
further. Most English language haiku writers are still writing mirrored
reflections of Japanese haiku as we have been given them in translation.
For example a very early one of Marlenes:
the old man mends the fence his father strung
When some event or cultural tradition is adopted into another nations psyche,
it is necessary to internalise the original tradition and make it ones own. This
takes time, and change. It has to adapt to current local conditions, be able to
be assimilated into previous traditions, with some credibility and sincerity, and
be accepted by new generations in any ongoing conditioning.
The persistence in continuing to mirror Japanese haiku can be clearly seen
when writers stubbornly use cherry blossoms and Buddhist temples in their
Australian haiku. We live in the best country on earth. We have wonderful
imagery everywhere. The English language is a beautiful language. We should
be using it in exciting and modern ways. We write haiku about kookaburras,
kangaroos, rotary clothes hoists, holdens, akubras, and the mountains and
terrain of our own country.
We do not claim to write Japanese haiku.
For those who think that the western writer has tainted the Japanese haiku
and spoilt it. Let me tell you about a young Japanese woman, Madoka
Mayuzumi, who reads her haiku on Japanese tv, to the backdrop of surreal
video images. She writes in one line: fair enough, but to be different she writes
her one line HORIZONTALLY as we do in the west. Her work is considered so
radical it was thought that she would be expelled from a conventional
Japanese Haiku Club. So dont let anyone tell you that we in the west have
muddied the waters for Japanese haiku. There have been many developments
since the nineteenth century in haiku, in Japan.
The classic, traditional three lined haiku poem which we see translated into
English was taken from the seventeen century in Japan, and dropped into the
twentieth century in the west. We owe it to our own culture and literature to
develop this wonderful poem into an English language poem, with the spirit of
the ancient Japanese haiku. We have come a long way from the 5-7-5 mould.
In the right royal fashion I say:
THE HAIKU IS DEAD LONG LIVE THE HAIKU !
This article is the record of a talk given at the Queensland Poetry Festival in
2002. It was picked up by Billy Marshall Stoneking and posted to his website in
2003.
References:
The Four Seasons, Japanese Haiku translations by Peter Beilenson. The Peter
pauper Press: New York, 1958.
Article on Madoka Mayuzumi: The Australian newspaper Magazine, May 25-26
1997. By Robert Garran.
Editor, Hiroaki Sato, ONE HUNDRED FROGS. A Collection of translation of
Bashō "old pond" haiku.
Thistle Brilliant Morning, translation from the Japanese by William J. Higginson.
Byways Publications, England.
The Old Tin Roof, Marlene Mountain. Haiku, Senryu and Dadaku, 1976.
