A Survey of Haibun Definitions:
Introduction to Wedge of Light
The following essay was originally published as the
introduction to Wedge
of Light, an anthology of haibun that
resulted from the Woodnotes
International Haibun Contest, held in the spring and summer of 1996. I believe
this to have been the first haibun contest to be conducted in the English
language. The judges were Cor van den Heuvel and Tom Lynch, who joined me as
editors for the book Wedge of Light,
which my press, Press Here, published in May of 1999. In 2000, the book won a Merit Book Award from the Haiku Society of America as best book of haibun published in 1999. Also see the postscript
at the end, which clarifies details on the first haibun anthology in Japanese,
among other updates regarding haibun in English. See also “Haibun: Definitions of Light,” which evolved from the following essay and its postscript. And see also “Missing the Moon: Haikuless Haibun.”
Nearly three hundred years ago, in 1706, Kyoriku Morikawa published Honchō
Monzen (“Prose Collection
of Japan”), later named Fūzoku Monzen (“Anthology of Customs and Manners”). Kyoriku’s volume is
considered the first Japanese anthology of haibun (Hisamatsu, 212; Shirane,
215). Now, at the edge of the twenty-first century, Wedge of Light presents the results of what I
believe to be another first—the first
haibun contest in English. It follows Journey to the Interior: American
Versions of Haibun (Tuttle, 1998), edited by Bruce Ross, which I believe to
be the first haibun anthology in the English language.
Haibun
has naturally followed haiku in migrating from Japan to new lands and
languages, becoming increasingly popular in recent years. Elizabeth Lamb
reports in the Haiku Society of America book A Haiku Path that the first true English-language
haibun was published in 1964 by Canadian writer Jack Cain (12). In the decades
since Cain’s “Paris” haibun first appeared, many haiku writers have tested the
haibun waters, using various Japanese haibun as guides, such as Bashō’s famous Oku
no Hosomichi (translated variously
as “Narrow Road to the Interior,” “Narrow Road to the Far North,” and “Back
Roads to Far Towns”). The results of these forays into this heightened form of
prose appear regularly in most of the leading haiku journals.
In
answer to the question “What distinguishes a haibun from an ordinary essay?”
Makoto Ueda has written that “a haibun usually (though not necessarily) ends
with haiku. The implication is that a haibun is a perfect prose complement to
the haiku. . . . The word haibun means haiku prose, a prose piece written in
the spirit of haiku. The essential qualities of haiku are seen in the haibun in
their prose equivalents, as it were. A haibun has, for instance, the same sort
of brevity and conciseness as a haiku” (Matsuo
Bashō, 121). He also adds that the relationship of the prose to the
haiku in a haibun is similar to the relationship generated by the juxtaposition
used in haiku itself—the “leap”
between the two elements is left unexplained. Ueda emphasizes that “It is up to
the reader to grasp the meaning of the prose, and then of the haiku, and to go
on to discover the undercurrents of meaning common to both. Furthermore, by
ending in a haiku the whole haibun leaves the reader with a feeling of
incompleteness. . . . A haibun concluding with a haiku will expand in the reader’s
imagination after he finishes reading it. The poet, especially in the haiku,
often deliberately avoids the tone of finality that normally sounds in prose”
(122). Ueda has also said that haibun is characterized by “its dependence on
imagery” (122), noting that “A sentence impregnated with images extends the
borders of the reader’s imagination, because it is not intellectualized” (123).
An additional characteristic of haibun, Ueda has concluded, is the writer’s
detachment. He says that “No good haibun is an emotional outburst or logical
persuasion” (123). Nevertheless, Ueda explains that “Often a haiku appears in
the middle or at the end of a prose passage, without much explanation but with
perfect emotional logic” (142).
Many
other critics and translators have offered definitions of haibun and commented
on its characteristics. Earl Miner, for example, has said that “hokku mingled
with prose make a kind of writing referred to as haibun” (Japanese Linked Poetry, 93).
Nobuyuki Yuasa has defined haibun as “prose mixed with haiku” in a way that is “perfectly
amalgamated” (The Narrow Road to
the Deep North and Other Travel Sketches, 30), saying of Bashō’s
elevation of the form that his was “the first time an attempt was made to bring
prose and haiku into an organic whole” (35). Yuasa has said, too, that the art
of writing haibun is mastered when the “prose and haiku illuminate each other
like two mirrors held up facing each other” (39). And Donald Keene has noted
that at least one twentieth-century Japanese poet equated haibun to the Western
prose poem (Dawn to the West, 233).
Although
haibun is largely prose, Robert Hass has nevertheless referred to it as a “poetic
form” (The Essential Haiku, 303),
and has elsewhere said (in introducing Cid Corman’s reprinted Back Roads to
Far Towns) that haibun’s “haiku-like
prose style . . . was rapid, allusive, suggestive, and aimed at something like
the aesthetic ideal of yūgen [deep, mysterious, and graceful]” (xi). More
succinctly, Hass has defined haibun as “prose poems that end with a final leap
to haiku” (xi).
Hiroaki
Sato has defined haibun as “prose written in a haikai spirit, often incorporating hokku” (One Hundred Frogs, xiii). “At
times accentuated by verse,” Sato has also noted, “[haibun] was to be imbued
with a modest, detached, transcendental sense, the sense that even the rustic
and vulgar have poetry in them. Haibun, in short, is heightened prose shorn of
sentimentality” (Bashō’s Narrow Road,
32).
William
J. Higginson has also defined haibun simply as “haiku prose” (The Haiku
Handbook, 11), and has
offered the following observation about the nature of this prose-and-poetry
hybrid: “Like haiku, haibun begins in the everyday
events of the author’s life. These events occur as minute particulars of
object, person, place, action. The author recognizes that these events connect
with others in the fabric of time and literature, and weaves a pattern
demonstrating this connection. And if this writing is to be truly haibun, the
author does this with a striking economy of language, without any unnecessary
grammar, so that each word carries rich layers of meaning” (221).
Haruo
Shirane has proffered “haikai prose” as a basic definition of haibun, and recently
wrote about its beginnings that haibun “combined, in unprecedented fashion,
Chinese prose genres, Japanese classical prototypes, and vernacular language
and subject matter, thereby bringing together at least three major cultural
axes” (Traces of Dreams, 27).
Finally,
Bruce Ross has defined haibun as “autobiographical prose, usually accompanied
by verse” (Journey to the Interior,
14). More specifically, he has noted that “haibun is a detailed
narrative of experience while haiku is only a moment of pinpointed emotion” and
that “haibun is a narrative of an epiphany,” while haiku “offers us an epiphany”
(74). He has also observed that “Definitions of haibun by scholars of Japanese
literature are broad enough to incorporate all the directions that English-language
haibun has taken” (15).
Regardless
of the inclusiveness of many definitions, haibun is a difficult and demanding
form to master. Haibun is a broadening of haiku to embrace many—but not all—prose possibilities, yet correctly
aligning the two mirrors of prose and poetry to seek the perfect amalgamation
of haibun is fraught with subjective aesthetic challenges. The haibun form, it
would seem, offers an endless variety of possibilities.
One
might well imagine that some paths this form could take would no longer qualify
as haibun. This is not the case, I trust, with the present collection. The
examples presented in this book may be considered as wedges of light in the
greater brightness of Japan’s centuries of haibun tradition. What the preceding
definitions have explained, I hope the following haibun demonstrate. Like their
Japanese counterparts, these haibun are sometimes travel diaries, sometimes
narrative, sometimes introspective vignettes. As such, they show the range of
haibun in English, yet they do not stretch so far as to not be rooted in haiku’s
here and now.
The
haibun in this anthology are selections chosen as best from the Woodnotes International Haibun Contest held in
the spring and summer of 1996—which I
believe to have been the first-ever English-language haibun contest. Cor van
den Heuvel, one of the contest’s two judges, has edited three editions of The
Haiku Anthology (Anchor/Doubleday,
1974; Fireside/Touchstone, 1986, 1991; and W. W. Norton, 1999)
and is author of “A Boy’s Seasons” and “A Boy’s Holidays,” extended haibun
serialized primarily in Robert Spiess’s Modem Haiku. Tom Lynch, the other judge, wrote
his Ph.D. dissertation on haiku and Emersonian poetics (University of Oregon,
1989) and has published a book of his own haibun, Rain Drips from the Trees (privately published, 1992).
Together,
the judges chose Anita Virgil’s “Outer Banks” as the contest’s first-place
winner, and selected three honorable mentions, in alphabetical order by
surname: Sydney Bougy’s “Blackberry Sunday: A Haibun for Spring,” David Cobb’s “Arrival
at the Saxon Shore,” and John Stevenson’s “Night Trains.” (Cobb’s haibun has
since been published in a book, from which it was excerpted: The Spring
Journey to the Saxon Shore, Equinox,
1997.) The judges’ selections were made without their knowledge of the authors’
identities. In addition to featuring these selections, Wedge of Light includes other haibun recommended by
the judges, although final selections, arranged alphabetically by each author’s
surname, were my own.
Each
haibun entered into the contest was limited to 1,500 words for practicality’s
sake. As a result, the lengths of the haibun herein do not mean to suggest a
maximum length for English-language haibun. These haibun were chosen for their
freshness, refinement, and variety, and I believe they do well in representing
current English-language haibun, although many other writers have also explored
this form but are not represented here.
For
those interested in learning to write haibun, perhaps the examples in this book
might serve as inspiration. The opening and closing essays should also prove
helpful [“A Concise History of Haibun in English” by Cor van den Heuvel and
“Why I Write Haibun” by Rich Youmans]. I have also asked each contributor to
share his or her thoughts on haibun; their comments appear with short
biographical sketches at the end of the book.
I am
grateful to all the poets who entered the contest and to the judges for their
consideration and deliberation of so many entries. Congratulations to the
winners, and to all whose work is included. Special thanks to Cor van den
Heuvel for his essay that commences this volume, to Tom Lynch for sharing one
of his haibun, “On the Fishing Fly,” and to Rich Youmans, whose essay on
writing haibun concludes this volume.
In all,
I consider these haibun to be wedges of light, indications of a bright future
for English-language haibun.
Michael
Dylan Welch
References
Cobb, David. The Spring Journey to the Saxon Shore. Shalford, Essex, England: Equinox,
1997.
Corman, Cid, and Kamaike Susumu, translators. Back Roads to Far Towns (Matsuo Bashō). Hopewell, New
Jersey: The Ecco Press, 1968, 1996.
Haiku Society of America Twentieth Anniversary Book Committee. A Haiku Path. New York: Haiku Society of America,
1994.
Hass, Robert. The Essential Haiku: Versions of Bashō, Buson, and Issa. Hopewell, New Jersey: The Ecco
Press, 1994.
Higginson, William J., with Penny Harter. The Haiku Handbook How to Write,
Share, and Teach Haiku. New
York: McGraw-Hill, 1985; Tokyo: Kodansha, 1989.
Hisamatsu, Sen’ichi. Biographical Dictionary of Japanese Literature. Tokyo: Kodansha, 1976.
Keene, Donald. Dawn to the West: Japanese Literature in the Modern Era. New York: Holt, 1984.
Lynch, Tom. Rain Drips from the Trees: Haibun Along the Trans-Canadian Highway. Privately published, 1992.
Miner, Earl. Japanese Linked Poetry. Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1979.
Ross, Bruce. Journey to the Interior: American Versions of Haibun. Boston: Charles E. Tuttle, 1998.
Sato, Hiroaki. One Hundred Frogs: From Renga to Haiku to English. New York: Weatherhill, 1983.
———. Bashō’s Narrow Road:
Spring and Autumn Passages. Berkeley:
Stone
Bridge Press, 1996.
Shirane, Haruo. Traces of Dreams: Landscape, Cultural Memory, and the Poetry
of Bashō. Stanford,
California: Stanford University Press, 1998.
Ueda, Makoto. Matsuo Bashō. Tokyo:
Kodansha, 1970, 1982.
van den Heuvel, Cor. The Haiku Anthology. New York: Anchor/Doubleday, 1974; New York:
Fireside/Touchstone, 1986, 1991; New York: Norton, 1999.
Yuasa, Nobuyuki, translator. The Narrow Road to the Deep North and Other Travel
Sketches (Matsuo Bashō).
London: Penguin, 1966, 1987.
Postscript, 2014: Fifty Years of Haibun
Since the preceding essay was written and published in 1999, haibun has
deepened in popularity, with an increasing number of journals publishing haibun
online, such as Contemporary Haibun
Online and Haibun Today. Red Moon
Press’s long-running annual Contemporary
Haibun journal made a significant impact in promoting the genre, as
have printed collections from other publishers, books of haibun by individual
authors, Angelee Deodhar’s more recent annual haibun anthology, Journeys, and annual contests such as the Central
Valley Haiku Club’s Kilbride Memorial Haibun Contest (in Sacramento) and the
Haiku Society of America’s haibun awards. Haibun has also begun to catch a
wider interest in mainstream poetry journals, and finds echoes in flash fiction
and prose poetry.
At the start of my essay, I cited Kyoriku Morikawa’s publication, in 1706, of Honchō
Monzen (“Prose Collection
of Japan”), later named Fūzoku Monzen (“Anthology of Customs and Manners”). I referred to this book
as “the first Japanese anthology of haibun.” On closer inspection of Haruo
Shirane’s Traces of Dreams, however,
I now believe this statement to be inaccurate—or at least a little misleading.
A closer reading of Shirane’s text shows that he referred to Morikawa’s
collection as “the first anthology of the new
haibun” (215; emphasis added). I misunderstood the reference to “new” as
referring to haibun in general, as if the genre itself was new. However,
Shirane means that this anthology was the first to represent a new kind of haibun—haibun written in Bashō’s
elevated and perfected style. Morikawa writes (in Shirane’s translation) that
“There is not a single word [of classical Japanese literature] that offers a
model for haikai prose [meaning what we would call haibun]. Bashō, my late
teacher, was the first to create such a model and breathe elegance and life
into it” (215). Thus, Bashō’s Oku no Hosomichi
and other travel diaries/haibun marked a radical departure from the traditions
of classical poetry and classical linked verse. I am uncertain which anthology
might have been the very first to collect haibun in Japanese, but Shirane says
that “Haibun in the broad sense existed before Bashō in the form of prefaces,
headnotes to hokku, and short essays written by haikai masters” and then says
that “Prominent early examples include Kigin’s Mountain Well (1648), a haikai seasonal almanac, and Genrin’s . . .
Treasure Storehouse (Takaragura; 1671), a haibun anthology,
but the prose style of these works often resembles that of classical prose”
(213). These two examples came several decades before Morikawa’s, and perhaps other
haibun collections were published earlier yet.
However, perhaps Morikawa’s
anthology was the first haibun anthology after all, because it seems to be the
first collection of haibun as we have come to know it today. As Shirane explains,
“Bashō’s new notion of haibun, by contrast [to the old classical style], was
characterized by the prominent inclusion of haikai words (haigon), particularly a combination of vernacular Japanese (zokugo) and Chinese words (kango)” (213–215). Shirane then highlights
the distinction by quoting from the preface to Prose Mirror of Japan (Honchō
bunkan; 1717), a haibun anthology edited by Shikō, one of Bashō’s disciples
(215):
From long ago, there have been four poetic genres: Chinese poetry, classical
poetry, renga, and haikai. If Chinese poetry and classical poetry have prose,
so too should renga and haikai. . . . But an appropriate style for renga has
yet to be established. Instead, renga has been consumed by the house of
classical poetry, and its prose is marked by the slipperiness of The Tale of Genji or The Tale of Sagoromo. Renga has yet to
create a graceful prose style. Thanks to Bashō’s brush, however, the principles
of haikai prose [or haibun, as we know it today] have been created for the
first time.
Shirane adds that “Bashō gave haikai an
autonomy and stature that classical renga never attained” (215). It is in these
footsteps that Wedge of Light
follows, ever so humbly, but I do believe that the contest that produced the haibun
collected in the book was indeed the first-ever haibun contest in the English
language. I hope that my introduction, which serves as an overview of notable haibun
definitions, provides much inspiration for the directions that haibun writers
can take English-language haibun—and have already been taking it since Jack
Cain published the very first English-language haibun fifty years ago, in 1964.
—18 November 2014, 12 July 2017
|