For many of us, our introduction to haiku
was through such masterpieces as Basho's frog pond or Issa's fly rubbing
his forelegs and back legs in a comic plea for mercy. These were light
poems, pleasing, uplifting and enjoyable. Consequently when we began writing
haiku, we chose the same subjects and strived to achieve the same emotions.
Based on this limited, one-sided view, we gained a certain although limited
expertise. However, we have overlooked another and equally important aspect
of haiku.
First and foremost, haiku are intended to depict
our life and our
interaction with the world around us. As well as the natural beauty so
often written of -- and which is mistakenly assumed to be the only appropriate
subject, haiku must include the unpleasant, the harsh and downright ugly.
There needs to be an acknowledgment of the world as it is, not as we would
like it to be or as we think we remember it to have been. In other words,
a more open and more balanced approach.
Taoism speaks of yin and yang and the constant shifting between the two as we try to find the balance of the two poles. Psychologist C. G. Jung makes much of the two facets of our personality, the light and the dark. He discusses the tension between the two and the need to acknowledge and to know both sides if we are to know ourselves. Likewise, the world around us has two facets and it is best to acknowledge and know them both. It is here we live, it is here we should write, presenting both aspects - the bright and beautiful and the dark and ugly.
No one is continually surrounded by beauty. Television and newspapers very frequently show the sensational, the lurid, the violent side of the world. Often we also see car accidents and their aftermath, or we experience pollution, such as smog, or simply the neighbor's dog barking or howling in the middle of the night or a stereo blaring loudly. These too are valid subjects for haiku.
From a reading of Basho, Issa and other haiku poets in Japan and elsewhere, it is clear that they had moments of heightened awareness that included excrement and urine and wrote of them:
Fleas, lice,
The horse pissing
Near my pillow
Basho [trans. R.H. Blyth]
*
Ah! The uguisu
Pooped on the rice-cakes
On the verandah
Basho [trans. R.H. Blyth]
*
after pissing
rinsing the hands...
hard winter rain
Issa [trans. David G. Lanoue]
*
evening-
wiping horse shit off his hand
with a mum
Issa [trans. David G. Lanoue]
*
A stray cat
Excreting
In the winter garden
Shiki [trans R.H. Blyth]
More recent examples include haiku by the Balkan
haiku poets who depict
their world in wartime:
the waiting
for the bombers
prolongs our night
Dragan J. Ristic
*
smoke and fire --
near the destroyed home
cherries still in blossom
Vid Vukasovic (Belgrade, Yugoslavia)
*
way to shelter --
someone's phone is ringing
and ringing...
Milenko D. Cirovic-Ljuticki (Belgrade,Yugoslavia)
*
too early for sunrise
the horizon glows with the red
of burning villages
Ruzica Mokos (Croatia)
Takashi Nonin has described his own experiences in World War II:
dead quiet...
no signs of bombers -
going out for food
*
scorching ground -
running to safety
naked and barefoot
The world around us and our life in that world
contains things and
people which we see as bothersome, irritating, upsetting, terrifying and
worse. Since these have been haiku moments for others, all of these can
be the same for us:
roadkill
the wake of passing cars
ruffles its fur
*
cut-off
to the abandoned death camp
its rails still shiny
*
mum just dead
the neighbor's stereo
blaring
*
muggy afternoon
the stink of garbage
put out for pick-up
all above four by Peter Brady
In all of the haiku cited above, the images elicit anger, outrage,
pathos, tears -- a wider range of emotions than joy or calm or a nod of
recognition at some pleasant memory. Again, both the pleasant and the
painful emotions should be explored and written about; if we do not want
to share these haiku with others, that is our choice. However, what unpleasant
emotions we experience should be written down. If we are to leave an accurate
record of our world, these moments must be written down.
Often, through exploring the darker facet we expand our viewpoint and ultimately our vocabulary. This will expand our ability to write and in the end will influence how we write all our haiku. We will see more, we will feel more, and most important end we will write more profound and perhaps better haiku.
As when exploring anything new, there is the
danger of being overly
enthusiastic. We embrace our new experience wholeheartedly and run the
risk of exaggerating or overstating. This is the reverse of what makes
a haiku. An extreme example of this can be seen in many films which include
gratuitous violence or sex or surfeit of computer graphics which do nothing
to advance the story line.
The key to haiku is understatement when describing our experiences. The animals, things, and people depict the moment and provoke the reader to respond. Haiku touch each reader differently and the less bias in each haiku opens it to a greater interpretation. By the choice of details the reader is led in a certain direction; but nothing more.
This is so different to most Western poetry where the tradition is to bare one's emotions, to hold back little, and to control the reader's reaction through a plethora of words. Haiku, regardless of subject, do the opposite. By maintaining an understated tone we can present the uglier side of the world without praising or condemning it. This will move a reader far more deeply than a lengthy ode venting all our emotions.
As mentioned earlier, Taoism preaches finding and maintaining the balance in our lives. Though seldom found or maintained, it makes life a continual effort to experience it. This striving allows us to find the harmony between the two extremes and experience the full range, the sweet, the bitter, the happy, the sad - all that comprises life. If we write of the same topics, we have a tool to explore the greater