Who says my poems are poems?

My poems are not poems.

After you know my poems are not poems,

Then we can begin to discuss poetry!

— RYOKAN

Introduction

Anyone who creates three to five haiku in a lifetime is a haiku poet.

Anyone who creates ten is a master.

— BASHO

A poem does not mean.

A poem makes you feel.

—SHIKI

Perhaps more than any other art form, haiku poetry can be said to be “Buddhist” in nature. In fact, Haiku was developed primarily by Japanese Zen Buddhist monks seeking to express their dharma understanding and refined awareness of the world. As the Eastern cultural scholar R.H. Blyth writes, “Haiku is a kind of satori, or enlightenment, in which we see into the life of things.” Emerging from the Japanese Buddhist cultural tradition, where beauty and simplicity are nearly synonymous, haiku became the ultimate expression of that ideal, the concentrated essence of poetry.

Simply trust:

Do not the petals flutter down,

just like that?

—ISSA

Traditional haiku focuses on a single image or scene, often taken from nature, and frequently referring to one of the four seasons. The poem also usually contains two contrasting or complimentary elements, or what Basho, the father of haiku, calls “internal comparison” or “surprising comparison.” There is a pause or a break at the end of the first or the second line of the poem, and the two elements are then juxtaposed to bring about a special insight or feeling. As Basho says, “the mind goes, and then it comes back again.”

—Clouds come from time to time—

and bring to men a chance to rest

from looking at the moon.

—BASHO

Like the sparse brush strokes of a Japanese or Chinese landscape painting, a haiku will use just a few words to create an entire picture or evoke a special mood. What is left out of a haiku poem is as important as what is included. Sometimes the reader will be able to participate and fill in the perceptual and emotional detail, and sometimes there is nothing more to be said. The best haiku are full of overtones. They will resonate and echo in the mind long after they have been read.

—the world of dew is only a world of dew

and yet—

and yet—

— ISSA

You Too Can Write Haiku

This past summer I codirected several workshops with my friend, satirist and author Paul Krassner, on the subject of spiritual humor. The workshops were titled “What’s So Funny? or, How To Find Your Comic Perspective,” and in each workshop we devoted one session to the practice of writing haiku. Working with haiku is an exercise of playful creativity as well as a practice in awareness.

During one haiku session we were trying to decide whether or not to adhere to the traditional haiku form of seventeen syllables in three lines, when we discovered that the rules for syllable placement in a traditional haiku can, in fact, be expressed in a traditional haiku:

In the first line five,

in the second line seven.

Five in the last line.

Even the great Japanese haiku poets sometimes broke these rules of composition, and at first I advocated flexibility for the workshop participants. I wanted them to focus on their perceptions and poetic expression and let the syllables fall where they may. Paul, however, was convinced that we should stick to the form, and he argued his case by writing this haiku:

Tradition is all.

Five syllables, seven, five.

I’ll have Classic Coke.

The scholars and experts say that the seventeen-syllable form is more cumbersome in English than in Japanese, and may not be the best for English haiku. Nonetheless, we found that sticking to the form requires the kind of tight editing necessary for the flavor of haiku and also brings the mind into a kind of rhythmic precision. In the end, following the form produces better haiku than free form or no form at all.

Finally, here are two of my own haiku, the first one offering a silly pun, and the second being much too cosmic and cerebral to be acceptable to a traditional Japanese haiku master:

The clear winter moon.

In my house the tea is warm.

Haiku, very much.

I sit in wonder

at this delusion of self

and the endless stars.

Now for some real inspiration, read on. Here are the masters and some of their classic haiku poetry.

Haiku Poems

The following haiku poems have been selected from three books: Haiku, Volume One, Eastern Culture, by R.H. Blyth, published by The Hokuseido Press. Tokyo; Snow Fall From a Bamboo Leaf by Hiag Akmahjian, published by Capra Press, Santa Barbara; and One Robe, One Bowl, The Zen Poetry of Ryokan, translated by John Stevens, published by John Weatherhill, Inc., Tokyo.

BASHO

How admirable,

on seeing lightning,

not to think, “Life too is brief!”

—:—

I am in Kyo

yet I long for Kyo—

O bird of time!

BUSON

Ah, grief and sadness!

the fishing-line trembles

in the autumn breeze

—:—

The cherry blossoms having fallen,

the temple

through the branches.

ISSA

For you fleas too,

the night must be long,

it must be lonely.

—:—

Don’t kill the fly!—

look—it’s begging you,

wringing its hands and feet!

—:—

O snail,

climb Mt. Fuji,

but slowly, slowly!

MORITAKE

A fallen flower

returning to the branch?

It was a butterfly.

RYOKAN

(Some of these poems of Ryokan are not considered haiku, but they carry enough of the flavor for us to include them.)

The thief left it behind—

the moon

at the window.

—:—

Only two in the garden:

plum blossoms at their peak

and an old man full of years

—:—

Going out to beg this spring day

I stopped to pick violets—

Oh! The day is over!

Death Poems

 In Japan there is a tradition among poets, artists and Zen monks of writing a “death poem” as one approaches the end of this life. Professor Yoel Hoffmann has collected some of the best of these final poetic statements in an excellent new book titled Japanese Death Poems, published this year by the Charles E. Tuttle Company. Here are some of our favorites from this book, death poems written in the haiku form. (The name of the poet precedes a note on the date of death followed by the poem.)

ENSEI

Died on the sixteenth day of the fifth month, 1725

at the age of sixty-nine

A parting gift to my body:

just when it wishes,

I’ll breathe my last.

ISSA

Died on the nineteenth day of the eleventh month, 1827

at the age of sixty-five

From one basin

to another—

stuff and nonsense.

KAISHO

Died in 1914

at the age of seventy-two

Evening cherry-blossoms:

I slip the inkstone back into my kimono

this one last time.

KARAI

Died on the twenty-eighth day of the ninth month, 1778

at the age of fifty-seven

Why should I hesitate?

I have a travel permit

from Amida Buddha.

KIBA

Died in 1868 at the age of ninety

My old body:

a drop of dew grown

heavy at the leaf tip.

∞

From the Winter 1986 issue of Inquiring Mind (Vol. 3, No. 2)