One of the greatest gifts I was given in 2011 was given to me by Michael Dylan Welch. He didn’t just invite me to Haiku North America, he sent email after email pitching it to me; he worked out logistical details to make getting across the country easier for me — how could I say no?
What I found when I got to Seattle was life changing. I filled one notebook after another taking notes at the presentations.
Three line haiku works, but does it suit the demands of modern life? “Are you getting a better experience?” Jim Kacian asked while Bruce Ross talked about space having a pre-existence before feeling.
I’ve been a poet for I don’t know…25 years…? I’ve been a lit mag editor for seven or so, and I’ve never been happier than I’ve been in the last two years, since I’ve been diving deeper and deeper into haiku.
The more I’ve studied, the more I’ve found to study. Somehow this art manages to reach far back into history while simultaneously offering so much fertile territory.
But the most pleasant surprise — outside of the art itself — has been the people. Haiku poets, for some reason, are nicer, more welcoming and more likely to share and discuss the art openly than the poetry world at large.
Does this have to do with money and institutions? As magazines like Poets and Writers have explored, the po business, with its highly sought after teaching positions creates and supports careers.
The haiku world, at least in this country, is not as established. We’re all doing this whenever we can scrounge up the time or energy, stolen moments that find us hungry and reaching out.
Maybe it’s just what I’ve seen. But I also wonder if the ku world has less of the lit world neuroses because its practitioners are older. From talking to people I also think more artists come to haiku for spiritual reasons.
Does its practice require an erasing of self that’s at odds with the younger hipster mentality found in the creative writing programs at universities?
More than reveling in one’s idiosyncrasies, haiku tends to temper its flintknappers, grounds them in the lessons of their forebears.
Or am I crazy?
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“But the most pleasant surprise — outside of the art itself — has been the people. Haiku poets, for some reason, are nicer, more welcoming and more likely to share and discuss the art openly than the poetry world at large.”
I have spent long years of my life in both camps and have found no difference between either group of poets in terms of how nice, welcoming or open they are about their poetry.
I think haiku poets are still too clannish about their art relative to the rest of the poetry world. I find this to be particularly true when it comes to be willing to make or strive for some new synthesis between haiku as an eastern form and the western tradition.
Pound was reported to have said when he was incarcerated at St. Elizabeth’s that he only had admirers visit him; he saw too little of the opposition against which he could subject his views to critical scrutiny. I can’t think of a better description for most haiku poets I know and maybe that’s still true of me as well.
Most non-haiku poets and editors I know think of haiku as just another form with perhaps a bit of a quirky history. And by their reading, writing and editorial choices they certainly don’t think very much of it to date. Yes, you can flip open an issue of Rattle or the New York Quarterly and every once in a really long while you come across a haiku or two. Quite often the haiku bear little or no resemblance to what’s typically published in the major ku journals or what’s held up for high praise in haiku circles.
Go figure.
Despite what I said above, I have to say for me personally that haiku helped deepen my spiritual life over the decades and definitely helped me become more attuned to the natural world.
Maybe a better way to frame the question is: How can such a little form give back so much to one person, much less many others?
Maybe that’s good enough for one life time.
Best,
Bill Cullen
I am discovering that haiku is a journey, a discipline, an art, a practise, a state of mind. I am enjoying the haiku journey as it weaves its threads amongst the spiritual and life paths I walk daily. The practise of this art form aids in philosophical thinking, a little cleverness, helps to keep the mind sharp, and nicely balances other practises and thoughts and ways.
Well said, Pam!
I agree with Tom: haiku — and its siblings, senryu and haiga — are transformative. I appreciate your question, Gene, as to whether haiku requires its writers to be “more spiritual” — but kinda like Miriam’s perspective, I’m reluctant to claim any superiority to practitioners of any other art form. I would say for myself that I am working to cultivate a greater sense of what’s ordinarily overlooked — and I feel that I have been enriched by the level of wakefulness that haiku’s compressed form nurtures.
Wow! 10 comments! Don, I play music too! I’ve even used harmonica playing as a metaphor for haiku. And Tom, WCW is one of my big favorites! More tomorrow… Good night! and yes, Al, those ripples after all this time!I have canes with different translations on them…
Gene
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