Interview
by Robert Wilson
First published in Simply Haiku 1:6, December
2003. Answers first written in
October of 2003. +
You say, “Haiku is the world and her
people.” You also say, “Haiku is a window into ourselves.” These are two very
different statements. Or are they? Please explain.
I’d say they’re not that different. Perhaps they are two different parts of the
same elephant. Haiku is about nature and human nature, so it’s about all of us,
and our surroundings (including so-called “man-made” surroundings, for a house
is not really any more “unnatural” than a bird’s nest is). Haiku is also about
ourselves, in the way it can imply feelings in reaction to the sensory
experiences we all have. Haiku is a poetic means of conveying experience, and
if we feel and life deeply, and capture that living in our poems, we can share
it with others. Likewise, haiku poets can feel and experience the lives of
others through their poems. While haiku isn’t a way of life for all haiku
poets, it is for many, and this way of life is a way of seeing everything more
closely, including the world around us and inside ourselves. A good haiku,
though, should not be about our thoughts or feelings, but should be about what caused those thoughts or feelings. By
leaving out that reaction, we enable the objective haiku poem to imply that
reaction, and that key haiku technique is what makes haiku so rewarding to read
as well as write.
What is it about haiku that draws you to
it?
I like to think of haiku as an approach to infinity. As a young child (around
age six or seven), during naptime at school, when we had to lay our heads on
our desks for a period of time, I used to hold my finger about an inch above
the desk’s shiny surface. Then I would try to cut that distance in half, and
then in half again, and then again. I figured, if I could hold my finger
steadily enough, and divide each distance in half accurately enough, I would
never touch the desk. That was my first approach to infinity (the infinitely small).
And there’s echoes of this relativism in Dr. Seuss’s Horton Hears a Who, which I also remember from my childhood. And in
the graphic art of M. C. Escher and the stories of Jorge Luis Borges.
The connection to haiku is that
the poem typically seeks to capture a moment of time, the infinite now. Some
people, such as many Japanese haiku poets, do not see haiku as specifically
aiming at the so-called “haiku moment” (this is generally a Western conception
of haiku, largely influenced by Kenneth Yasuda, R. H. Blyth, and other
Zen-influenced haiku enthusiasts, such as the Beat poets). However, I do think
the moment plays a chief role in identifying most haiku (Japanese and
otherwise), and I value this transcendent aspect of the genre, something that
has clear spiritual overtones, at least for me. On the other hand, I hasten to
clarify that I don’t think of haiku as a particular spiritual or Zen sort of
poetry, though it can be that for some people. Again, in Japan, most Japanese
poets are puzzled when they hear Westerners refer to haiku as a Zen art or as a
spiritual poetry, though of course it did have some Buddhist influences.
What draws me to haiku, beyond the
abstract notion of approaching infinity through the poem is the way haiku can
capture emotion and suchness in such a clear and immediate way. It’s wonderful
to read a poem, and to make the leap that the writer has set up for the reader.
And it’s wonderful to write poems that way as well, and see the moment of
realization in the reader or hearer of the poem that matches your own
realization that inspired the poem in the first place. Haiku, too, is a largely
social sort of poetry, in that it requires a reader to finish it, filling in
the parts that are intentionally left blank or unsaid. I am also drawn to haiku
because it is a worldwide phenomenon. It’s a pastime, a hobby, a form of poetry
and literature, a sort of meditation, a means of making you more keenly aware
of everything around you, the same way a photographer is always seeing pictures
in the landscape, framed in his or her head the way they are seen through a
camera lens. And like photography, there’s a level of objectivity to the poem
that should be honoured, yet also subjectivity in that you choose to focus on
certain things rather than others. Haiku has introduced me to many wonderful
people, and that’s perhaps the best accidental benefit of all!
You’ve edited several publications
showcasing haiku. What criteria do you look for when selecting haiku?
I think I need a whole book to answer this question! It’s a synthesis of an
objective depiction of an authentic moment (something that comes across to the
reader as authentic, regardless of how “true” the poem may be to whatever might
have happened or not). A good haiku typically has two parts, one part often
juxtaposed with the other to produce what Harold Henderson called “internal
comparison.” (Don’t just aim for juxtaposition, aim for the effects that
effective juxtaposition can produce.) The poem should always leave something
out, letting it be implied, and the reader’s figuring out at least that
something is what gives the poem its emotional power. Haiku is intuitive, in
that you intuit its “meaning,” even while it doesn’t try to “mean” anything but
make you feel something. The writer’s burden is to capture a feeling without
stating what the feeling is, and the effective haiku will communicate that
feeling while controlling ambiguity (not necessarily limiting it). A good haiku
will make an image or a moment come alive in the reader’s mind or heart, and
the reader will be able to see, hear, smell, touch, or taste nearly as well as
the poet originally did.
In selecting haiku for journals
such as Woodnotes, which I edited
from 1989 to 1997, and Tundra, which
I have edited since then, and the numerous haiku books and anthologies I’ve
published with my press, Press Here, and other publications, I look for
authenticity, effective capturing of the suchness of the moment, originality
and freshness (being aware of the literature of haiku is the editor’s burden),
and avoidance of contrivance. In addition I consider matters of craft, such as
using present tense, avoiding titles and rhyme and overt metaphor and simile,
using good punctuation or alternatives such as indents, creating clarity of
meaning, and other techniques. It all adds up, but overall the poem has to
somehow “click,” which is a wonderful thing. Everyone’s tastes for haiku will
be different, and I value that difference, but I think as different poets and
editors make their contributions to the genre (I consider haiku a genre, not a
form), the best work will tend to rise to the top.
You’ve said, “I prefer haiku that are
sharply imagistic, focus on the here and now, and are objective, yet intuitive.”
Could you elucidate?
I think I’ve already answered much of this question, but to me a good haiku
boils down to how it handles or controls objective versus subjective elements.
T. S. Eliot wrote of what he called the “objective correlative,” meaning that
objects naturally convey or correlate to different emotions, and that poetry
can rely on these correlations to carry meaning and emotive power in the poem.
This is especially true for haiku.
As for focus, if I write about the
all the furniture in a house, that’s not nearly as immediate and powerful as
writing, say, of one piece of furniture:
home
for Christmas:
my
childhood desk drawer
empty
However, sometimes the plural is what you need to focus on, as something’s
plurality is its essence:
tulip
festival—
the
colours of all the cars
in
the parking lot
If a poem is written in the past or future tense, it’s not as immediate as a “now”
poem:
meteor
shower . . .
a
gentle wave
wets
our sandals +
And as I’ve said, a good haiku leaves something out, so it can be figured out
by the reader. For example, what is my subject in the following poem?
an
old woolen sweater
taken yarn by yarn
from the snowbank
Though I don’t mention a bird building a nest, the perceptive reader quickly
realizes that this is my subject. And how old is the person depicted in the
following poem?
spring
breeze—
the
pull of her hand
as
we near the pet store
Many people see a child, which is fine, though the poem doesn’t actually say
that. Yet the details of spring, breeze, and the puppies and kittens we
associate with a pet store do suggest childhood, don’t they? And I’m glad they
do, because this experience actually happened in the autumn, on a windy
evening, near a coffee shop, with an adult, but I think the poem as I crafted
it is a superior poem.
Underlying most good haiku, I
believe, is a careful use of objective images. It’s not “the eager pull of her
hand”—that would kill the very eagerness of youth that I’m trying to convey. By
relying on objective details, the poem can produce a setting, focus, and
ultimately a feeling that the reader figures out, intuitively. Haiku is not an
intellectual poem (except when one is talking about its theory), but an
intuitive one. You feel haiku, intuitively leaping to an understanding of them,
rather than intellectually figuring them out. That’s the beauty of haiku.
Where these objective details come
from, of course, is our five senses. A good haiku is about what we see, hear,
smell, taste, and touch. This is how experience enters our bodies, and this is
what a good haiku typically focuses on in the present moment of experience. In
fact, I’ve recently come across an idea that really appeals to me. It’s that
the future can be thought of as being outside
the body, and the past can be thought of as inside
the body. How time moves from being outside to inside the body is through the
five senses, at the moment of now. This is what haiku seeks to capture—the
electric moment of the infinite now as it moves from the future to the past,
doing so in the conduit into our bodies of our five senses.
You’ve emceed public haiku readings for
a long time in San Francisco. How are they received? Are the haiku performed or
just read?
I now also lead a reading series, called “Haiku Garden,” in Seattle, where I
moved in 2002. Previous to that I led a long-running series in San Francisco
called “Haiku City.” These and other readings have mostly been for other haiku
poets, which is an audience educated to appreciate haiku, and thus highly
receptive to this poetry. It’s quite another thing to make haiku work for a
nonhaiku audience. Senryu is easy, because the audience can laugh at the humour
or satire or irony. But sharing haiku is more difficult. I think it’s good for
haiku poets to read for nonhaiku audiences with some regularity. As my friend
Dana Gioia has written in his influential essay “Can Poetry Matter?,” it’s
worthwhile to present the poems of other poets at poetry readings, to celebrate
the canon of the best poetry, and the same is true for haiku, too.
As for “performing” haiku, that
strikes me as a bit of a crutch. Sure, haiku can be “performed,” but then it’s
the performance that’s going to matter more than the haiku itself. That’s why I
think it can be problematic to pair haiku with music or dance. It must be done
carefully so that one isn’t merely entertained by one art or the other, and so
that each art (or at least the haiku) stands on its own merits. Some people
read haiku twice, which can be fine. But I also think, if the reader knows how
to control his audience’s attention, reading each haiku just once is perfectly
fine. I dislike the automatic assumption that haiku should always be read twice
in public. What’s at issue is getting the audience’s attention, and a good
reader will know how to do that with just a single careful reading of each
haiku. (Though it’s fine to read a haiku again if an espresso machine starts
snorting, or an ambulance sirens by.)
Which of the haiku masters have
influenced you the most and why?
I think I would have to say Shiki, because the revolutionary thought that he
promoted a hundred years ago is central to the revitalization of haiku as we
know it even today. His notion of “shasei” (sketching from life) haiku is akin
to the objective approach to haiku. Yet haiku is not simply bald “so what”
descriptions, which Shiki realized. Sketching from life should be selective, in
the same way that a camera is “objective” (like a “shasei” haiku), yet there
are clear elements of subjectivity in that the photographer aims his or her camera
here rather than there, at this height or angle rather than some other way, at
a certain time of day, and perhaps at a certain moment of action. This is how
haiku, even the seemingly “objective” or “shasei” poems, can become subjective,
especially when the poet is carefully selective in choosing his or her subjects
and how they are depicted. I value Shiki’s reforms of haiku, yet also value the
giants that passed before him, especially Bashō. We have much to learn from all
of the haiku masters of Japan, as well as the best haiku writers writing in
English. What’s important, too, is not to think of the “masters” of haiku being
only in the past in some distant country behind a mysterious and exotic
cultural veil, but to realize that haiku is an ongoing dialog today that each
poet can participate in. Whether the notion of “master” is appropriate or not
for today’s English-language haiku, an attitude of humility towards the poems
we read, if we want to improve our craft, can help us find our steps along the
path.
In 1996, Jerry Kilbride, Garry Gay,
California State Librarian, Kevin Starr, and yourself cofounded the American
Haiku Archives in Sacramento. What is the purpose of the Archive? Is it
accessible to the public?
Others were involved too, and the archives couldn’t have come about without the
blessings of Elizabeth Searle Lamb, one of the key initial donors, and the
Haiku Society of America, which pledged the HSA archives to be part of the
American Haiku Archives. I’m very proud of helping to set up this archives,
because I believe it will be of permanent benefit to all haiku poets. There is
much work to be done, such as making a website that could more thoroughly
explain the use and benefit of the archives [this was done in 2008], but the American Haiku
Archives advisory board, chaired by Garry Gay, has begun to accomplish this.
For example, we have a set of photographs that show the process of archiving
each book (sometimes rebinding them, and often putting books in special
acid-free containers). The archives seeks to preserve everything it can related
to haiku in English, as well as the lives of the poets associated with it,
including letters, ephemera, and books and journals. The original goal was that
the archives would be a valuable repository for all haiku materials in
perpetuity, for the study and enjoyment of future generations of haiku poets
and scholars. The California State Library is open five days a week, and anyone
is welcome to request materials through the rare book section, and materials
will be brought to you in a climate-controlled room where you aren’t allowed to
use pens. We are very fortunate to have the services of the California State
Library, thanks to Dr. Kevin Starr, in preserving the history and achievements
of haiku through the American Haiku Archives, and if haiku poets wish to have a
tour of the haiku archives while visiting Sacramento, California, it can easily
be arranged by contacting Jerry Kilbride, Garry Gay, or the office of Kevin
Starr.
Any pearls of haiku wisdom you’d like to
share with our readers?
To me, haiku is a valuable gift. It’s a means of communication, and so we
should best use it by communicating clearly, without opaque or overly personal
messages or images. If I could boil haiku aesthetics down to one piece of
advice, I think it would be to say, don’t write about your thoughts or
feelings, write about what caused
those thoughts or feelings. Understanding the difference is vital to haiku.
Let me conclude with three of my
favourite haiku, so that poetry has the last word:
Valentine’s
Day—
she
reminds me
to
fasten my seatbelt
a
few pines
tagged
with ribbons . . .
winter
stillness
spring
breeze—
the
oars fed
into
the oarlocks