How Many Identities Should Haiku Have?

Post date: Feb 25, 2012 1:16:27 AM

I’ve just added a brief essay to the Essays page titled “The Identity of Haiku.” Originally written as a response to questions on a blog posting for The Haiku Foundation, it may, I hope, also stand on its own. It seems dogmatic to say that haiku should have just one identity, or to imagine that there is only one “true” haiku. The elephant has many sides—even more than six. Harold G. Henderson definitely advised that we cannot take haiku too far, or it will no longer still be haiku, but he did say that haiku in English will be what the poets make it. Here’s to the various identities of haiku!