Defense Against Haikuness Attack
How micro poets can defend themselves and their haiku verses against the scornful smart-alecks inTrikuLand.
Jose Rizal M. Reyes ☆ world’s lone sonnet grandmaster ☆ May 22, 2017
I have just relocated back to my hometown 12 days ago and I need to focus on more mundane matters. But I feel the need to write and publish this article at once so that I can also write and publish a pivotal article tentatively titled“Dismantling the Dictatorship of Haiku Honchos / towards a new nomenclature and classification system for Japanese-style 5–7–5 micropoetry in English”.
Only then could I go about my readjustment blues with a serene mind and a smile on my face. So let me bring you to the heart of our topic with a micro verse I crafted last April:
Merry bards like us
craft for our own enjoyment,
not for the scornful.
Well, it turned out later, not just for enjoyment but also for publication. Together with four other composers of micropoetry — collectively dubbed asFive Bards of the Far East — we are putting together a book for publication within this year under the initiative of Carolyn Gutierrez-Abanggan. Our other collaborators are Felix Fojas, Aine Albancis and Danny Gallardo. Each poet is being asked to contribute 200 + pieces of … haiku.
More than 1,000 haiku verses — that’s a lot of ground to defend against haikuness attack! I mean, those guys and gals who would suddenly pop up while you enjoy writing a three-line verse and then tell you that you are doing it all wrong, that you are not crafting a real haiku. They may not tell you this directly. But they can tell this to others within your hearing shot or, translated in Facebook lingo, you can monitor their comments through your home page, and you are fully justified if you would suspect that those comments are directed your way or at least to those who are doing the same thing as you and in the same manner.
So I want my fellow bards to be at ease and reassure them that we are doing it right. Or, to be more precise, I would like to reassure them that we are not doing anything wrong. Now, let us proceed to our first defense technique.
Haikuness attack.
Defense: generic haiku
and zappai concepts.
The concept of “generic haiku” follows the reasoning that the word “haiku” in the English language has evolved into two meanings — namely:
(1) Branded haiku — a kind of haiku that tries to follow rules of its Japanese counterpart as much as possible. And,
(2) Generic haiku — by popular usage, the word haiku has evolved to cover all Japan-descended 3-line poems that follow the 5–7–5 pattern.
The zappai concept refers to the introduction and acceptance of zappai into English poetry as a distinct, legitimate and separate category of Japanese-style 5–7–5 verses that traces its lineage or ancestry to haikai no renga, just like haiku and senryu.
So you have actually two lines of defense here: You can assert that your three-line verse falls under generic haiku. Or you can assert that it belongs to the different but equally legitimate zappai category. (Actually, we have a third line of defense in the works, one that is devastating to the attackers because it would disarm them and make them better citizens of the land. But let’s reserve that for our next haiku article.)
Haikuness attack.
Defense: where is your one line,
ohn and keriji?
It’s a common saying among chess players that “offense is the best defense”. So you ask your critics or tormentors to show you a haiku they created. If they cannot show you a piece they themselves composed, taunt or reproach them for it and wonder aloud how those who cannot craft a haiku piece can talk about it intelligently and authoritatively. After hammering them on this for some time, ask them for any piece that they deem to be a genuine haiku (except one written in the Japanese language using the Japanese script!). Then you do the following:
✿ Ask them why the piece they showed you was not written in one line — the way it is done in Japan.
✿ Ask them where is the kigo (season word). If they show one, then praise them by saying “Very good!”. You can even tap their shoulders appreciatively.
✿ Next, ask them where is the kireji (cutting word). The keriji separates the haiku piece into two parts. Tell them that a kireji is a requirement in traditional haiku, a genuine haiku. But unfortunately for them, kireji words are said to be non-translatable to other languages. So, before proceeding, pound for quite some time your tormentors for their lack of a kireji. They are the ones who insist for a genuine haiku, right? So where is their kireji?
Even if they show English translations of Matsuo Basho’s haiku pieces, there is no way they can point to a single kireji. So insist that those haiku verses might have been composed by Basho in the original … but they are not genuine haiku, they are faulty translations, because they have no kireji.
✿ Lastly, ask them for the ohn count. Ohn (ususally spelled as “on”) is also called onji. Both words means “sound” in Japanese. Ohn is very close in meaning to mora (plural moras or morae) … but it’s far in meaning tosyllable. So ask the haiku smart alecks to show you the 5–7–5 onji count of their haiku. If they count syllables, then gently … and wisely … remind them that onji is different from syllable.
So, let’s sum up. They didn’t show you a haiku written in one line. They cannot show you a kireji. They cannot show you a 5–7–5 count of ohn or onji. Their haiku piece is therefore deviating from its Japanese counterpart in several ways. Tell them that. Again, they are the ones insisting for a genuine haiku, right?
Haikuness attack.
Defense: no real haiku
in English languge.
There really cannot be a genuine haiku in the English language — no, none in the way the haiku exists in the Japanese language. Aside from the issues of one-line verse, kireji, and onji count, there is the peculiar cultural fact that 5 ohn and 7 ohn are natural rhythms in the Japanese language and are deeply ingrained in Japanese minds even if they write a haiku verse in just one line. These 5 ohn and 7 ohn rhythms aid them in memorization in the same way that rhymes are a mnemonic device in English and many other languages.
There’s also the matter of being able to convey much more information in 17 English syllables than in Japanese. Some commentators say that in terms of volume of information, 11 English syllables would be a good equivalent for 17 Japanese onji. But what kind of English haiku can you write in 3–5–3 English syllables?
Now there is the short-long-short alternative or the so-called free style alternative. But if people are capable of thinking on their own and not be overly awed by the majesty and authority of the Haiku Society of America and similar-minded haiku honchos, they would readily notice that abandoning the 5–7–5 format … weakens their case for a genuine haiku in the English language. Form — although not the be-all and end-all of a poem — is an integral part of haiku and other types of formal poetry. So those who abandon the haiku form in English haiku have no business pontificating about “genuine haiku”.
Haikuness attack.
Defense: Japan style haiku
is non-transplantable.
This must be finally said: Due to several cultural and linguistic reasons, Japanese-style haiku is non-tranplantable to other languages. A large part of the problem lies in the brevity of this poetic form — merely 17 onji … or 17 syllables. The haiku form is a delicate thing that cannot survive travel outside Japan. What we can only hope to achieve and enjoy in English and other languages is a rough equivalent of haiku.
Compare that with the sonnet, which is a larger poetic form, although not really that long. It has enough body size as to withstand exportation without radically altering and mortally threatening its form, character, essence and dynamics.
Haikuness attack.
Defense: where’s Japan-style piece?
Show one or shut up!
I suppose I have sufficiently explained to you already why your critics and tormentors cannot show you a genuine Japanese-style haiku in the English language. So before we part ways for now, let me take a happy dig at my favorite theoretical adversary in haiku matters — the Haiku Society of America — which strikes me as the most powerful and influential body in the international haiku scene except in Japanese-language haiku itself.
Before I forget, let me confide to you something sensitive and earthshaking. You know, I have this dawning hunch that grows stronger by the day that the HSA’s savage and almost insane dismissal of zappai as being a doggerel verse has … something to do with vested interest, something to do with mortal threat to their self-importance, something to do with keeping their perks and privileges in the order of things. We shall discuss this matter in more details in the coming days.
By the way, have you noticed my mention of “TrikuLand” in the secondary title up above? We shall discuss that at length in my next article. Meanwhile, here’s my latest haiku dedicated to haiku honchos out there. My due and profuse apology to Basho if my piece somewhat looks like the famous one he crafted; it was purely coincidental. You know, even in Western literature, they have that line about the big frog in a small pond.
Small Japanese pond.
HSA dives into it.
The ugly frog croaks.
(Updated the following day, May 23, 2017. The micro poems presented in this article are given the following code numbers in consecutive order: jrmrB117 crafted April 29, 2017; jrmrB348-B352 written May 17, 2017; and jrmrB390 composed May 21, 2017. All photos via Google.)
#Triku #Haiku #Senryu #Zappai
#HaikuHoopla #HaikuBuko #HaikuAvenue #HaikuMania
#Poetry #JapanesePoetry #Literature #MicroPoetry
An updated version of this article was posted in my HubPages blog site on August 9, 2017 (see link below).
https://hubpages.com/literature/Haiku-Diary-May-22-Defense-Against-Haikuness-Attack
