African American Haiku: Cultural Visions
[longer version]
The following is an expanded earlier draft of a much
shorter review first published in the “Briefly Reviewed” section of Frogpond 40:1, Winter 2017, pages 103–104.
This longer review was not published in Frogpond for space reasons.
African American
Haiku: Cultural Visions,
edited by John Zheng (2016,
University Press of Mississippi, Jackson, MS). 198 pages, 6¼×9¼˝,
hardback, 978-1-4968-0303-0. $65.00 from the University Press of Mississippi or on Amazon.
It is rare for an academic book, let alone one published by a university
press, to examine English-language haiku, and this book may well be a first—other
than the occasional dissertation and a book or two that have concentrated
purely on the haiku of Richard Wright (I also note Jeffrey Johnson’s Haiku Poetics in Twentieth-Century
Avant-Garde Poetry, which is also in the ballpark, but it does not cover
any leading haiku poets of the last fifty years). Ethnic studies and focusing
on minorities is trendy in academia, but how about a similar book that does not
dwell on race, one that recognizes literary achievement by some of the West’s
leading English-language haiku poets regardless of race? As for the poets in
this book, do they deserve more attention just because of their race? And are
some of these poets even writing haiku, or just a bastardized form of haiku?
This book raises many questions like these, and some of them are not answered.
The poets under discussion here
include Richard Wright, James Emanuel, Etheridge Knight, Sonia Sanchez, and
Lenard D. Moore, covered by two essays for each poet, except for Moore, who has
three. As for the commentators, those in the haiku community may well recognize
such names as Yoshinobu Hakutani, Toru Kiuchi, Ce Rosenow, and the book’s
editor, John Zheng, but not Sachi Nakachi, Virginia Whatley Smith, Claude
Wilkinson, Meta L. Schettler, Richard A. Iadonisi, and Sheila Smith McKoy.
Consequently, one strength of this book is how it engages critical commentary
from voices that the haiku community may not have heard of—or heard
from—before. This helps us get out of our haiku ghetto. Brief biographical
sketches at the end of the book tell us more about the book’s pedigreed
commentators. Other strengths include the assessment of haiku as effective
poetry, regardless of whether it is “haiku” or not, the exploration of jazz,
blues, and improvisation, the innovations of some of these poets as they make
haiku their own, and the adaptation of haiku to an African American vernacular.
Unfortunately, the brevity of this review precludes a fuller celebration of the
book’s rich content.
One shortfall of this book seems
to be that the analyses of the poems by some observers do not make enough of a
case for what haiku is, or whether these poets even understand the haiku genre,
but mostly use non-haiku poetics to analyze what is simply called haiku by the
authors (which is still valuable, regardless of whether the poems are haiku or
not). In Moore’s case, the poems pass muster, as do most of Wright’s haiku. But
in too many cases, especially Sanchez and Emanuel, the poems make a selfish or
hybrid use of “haiku” that some readers may feel departs too far from the
genre. This is an important book of haiku criticism, but it’s one that could
have taken a more rigorous stand on whether some of these poets are writing
haiku or merely writing in the name of haiku.
The good news about a book such as
this is that it helps us see haiku from varied and objective points of view.
Its “ethnic studies” focus may also help to open the door to future books that
discuss haiku by leading English-language poets regardless of race. But despite
its many strong points, I still wonder if books like this privilege the
minority (this question is not limited to haiku—see the 1996 New Criterion essay, “‘Diversity,’ ‘cultural studies’ & other mistakes” by Roger Kimball).
It would be worthwhile if more works of criticism could be colourblind in
assessing haiku poets—regardless of minority status. Do haiku poets who are not
minorities therefore become neglected? I’ve discussed this issue with Dana
Gioia, current poet laureate for the state of California, author of the
influential essay, “Can Poetry Matter,” and former chair of the National
Endowment for the Arts (and on the advisory board for my former publication, Tundra: The Journal of the Short Poem).
Dana also wrote an appreciative blurb for the book’s back cover. In an email
message to me, he honed in on the issue succinctly: “Diversity
represents a necessary civic value. The problem is when the political becomes a
substitute for the aesthetic.” I hope the “political” aspect of this book’s
focus on minorities (which academic presses are wont to love) has not
substituted itself for aesthetic worth, although in some poems here and there
my feeling is that it has. I invite you to read these finely written and
researched essays to decide for yourself.
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