Writing & Reading Haiku
Introduction
Course Introduction
Catching Fireflies: Reading and Writing Haiku
Haiku has exploded as an art form over the last 20 years or so. It has been adopted by many countries as a poetical form that can inspire as well as entertain, both in its reading and its writing. But where exactly did it come from, what are its aims and how do you squeeze as much information as possible into just 17 syllables? This course attempts to answer these questions and many more.
I have to admit before we start, though, that I have rather lied in the title of this course. The phrase “Catching Fireflies”, conjures up in the imagination a slight, ethereal poetry that is easily broken: one sneeze and it is gone. That is only part of the story with haiku. Haiku, or at least Japanese haiku, can be slight, ethereal and waspish -- for instance Matsuo Basho’s:
Spring:
A hill without a name
Veiled in morning mist. (trans Geoffrey Bownas and Anthony Thwaite)
Or Yosa Buson’s:
Whether I go South,
Whether I go North,
Plum trees near and far.(trans. Paul Elliott)
But they can also be solid, rigid, full of meaning, open to close examination and containing a world of insight, wisdom and information, like Sugiyama Sampu’s:
Cherries, cuckoo,
Moon, snow – soon
The year’s vanished.! (trans Geoffrey Bownas and Anthony Thwaite)
This verse would make haiku a very large and intense firefly indeed!
So, to basics, what is a haiku? Where does it come from? What does it do? Where is it going? It is a Japanese (although not exclusively) verse form, originally of 17 syllables (although not necessarily), arranged 5-7-5, containing a “kigo” or seasonal word (although nowadays very rarely). That’s about it, some people define it further by suggesting that it must concern itself with nature, or that it must be in three lines, or even that it must come out of Zen meditation. Haiku needn’t be any of these. Haiku is like a person - it doesn’t have to be anything.
The first lesson will be given over to historical concerns. We will look at the antecedents of the haiku, the waka, the Chinese poets, examining the ways in which haiku developed, through the patronage of Matsuo Basho, into the delicate and noble verse form we have today.
Secondly we will look at the four main haiku poets of the Japanese cannon: Matsuo Basho, Kobayashi Issa, Yosa Buson and Masaoka Shiki, defining the ways in which they differ in their use of the haiku.
Next, we will study the ways in which Zen and other Japanese arts have inspired and altered haiku. What, for instance is the connection between the Japanese Tea ceremony and haiku? What is Wabisabi? How is haiku similar to Bonsai? To get a full understanding of haiku it is important to answer these questions, especially when we come to the ideas of Japanese poetics. Inspired by Zen concepts, Japanese art is very rarely treated in the same manner as Western art. Rather than straight-forward interpretation, we treat haiku as a collection of qualities - mystery, sadness, loneliness etc. - and these hold for all of the other Japanese arts as well, from growing Bonsai trees, to painting, to the Tea ceremony.
We will move on from this to look at the ways in which the haiku has been adopted and adapted in the west, first through the modernist poets such as Ezra Pound and Amy Lowell, who translated and adapted haiku, then in terms of the western haiku, paying particular attention to the translator R.H. Blyth.
It was Blyth who first defined the ideals of the Western haiku, and this has come to represent, for most people, what a haiku is. It was Blyth who first popularised the three-line stanza for instance; it was Blyth who first gave us the notion of the single thought haiku - the clear picture of a moment frozen in time; and it was Blyth who went on to become the haiku’s most ardent supporter. We will look at not only what Blyth contributed to the study of haiku but also the extent to which we still rely on his influence today, discussing whether this is a welcome state of affairs or not.
Inherent in this is the idea of translation. What do we lose in translation? Is the Japanese haiku different from the Western one?
At the end of each lesson there will a brief section on the writing of haiku, discussion about some of the more technical aspects, suggested ways in which you can put this knowledge into practise by writing a haiku of your own.
So, fireflies? It is perhaps an imperfect image. Like them, haiku are beautiful, tiny, difficult to pin down. They are both simple and complex, existing as pure expression, pure poetry. Grasping haiku is a little like catching fireflies - it is a difficult task that seems easy at first. We see them, we reach out, thinking we have them, only to find upon opening our hand that they have eluded us.
This course aims to introduce the beginner to the wider world of haiku. We will see them for what they are: some full of meaning, some less so; some concerned with nature, some concerned with the city; some traditional, some modern; some good, some bad; some Japanese, some Western; some pointing up at the sky, some pointing down to the earth. To critique haiku as one does any other literary form, for instance the sonnet, is wrong – the haiku goes beyond the mere words on the page. To view them as a mystical pseudo-religious art form is also wrong, for haiku can be as robust and as irreverent as a limerick. It all depends on the poet.
More than anything, this course is designed to help you discover the beauty of haiku for yourself, to give you the net to catch your own fireflies and allow you to create some poetry of your own.
Lessons
Click here to see course syllabus
