Haiku

:This is the article on the ancient Japanese form of poetry. For the BeOS open-source re-creation project, see Haiku (operating system). For the town in Hawaii, see Haiku-Pauwela, Hawaii.

Modern haiku

Shiki's innovationist approach to haiku was carried on in Japan by his most prominent students, Hekigod? and Kyoshi. Hekigod? was the more radical of the two, while Kyoshi (1874–1959) wrote more conservative verse sometimes recalling the older hokku. Both conservative and innovationist haiku continue to be written in Japan today, where haiku is still a very popular form of verse.

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1874 - 1959

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Though there were attempts outside Japan to imitate the old hokku in the early 1900s, there was no genuine understanding of its principles. Early works on the topic in European languages, such as that of Basil Hall Chamberlain (1850–1935) had some influence on poets of the time, but made little wider impact.

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1900s - Basil Hall Chamberlain - 1850 - 1935

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The first significant work in relation to modern haiku was The Bamboo Broom (1934), by Harold Gould Henderson (1889–1974). Though Henderson wrote a later revised volume, An Introduction to Haiku (1958), his work did not make an impact approaching that of his contemporary and acquaintance Blyth, perhaps because Henderson chose to translate hokku and haiku into an English rhyme foreign to the Japanese originals, which never used rhyme.

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1934 - Harold Gould Henderson - 1889 - 1974 - 1958 - Blyth - Rhyme

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It was thus not until 1949, with the publication of the first volume of Haiku, the four-volume work by Reginald Horace Blyth (paradoxically dealing almost entirely with hokku, though including Shiki), that the verse form was properly introduced to the West.

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1949 - Reginald Horace Blyth - The West

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R. H. Blyth (1898–1964) was an Englishman and teacher of English who took up residence first in Japanese-occupied Korea, then in Japan. He produced a series of works on Zen, on hokku and haiku, and on other forms of Japanese and Asian literature. Those most relevant here are his Zen in English Literature and Oriental Classics (Hokuseido, 1942); his four-volume Haiku series (Hokuseido, 1949–1952); and his two-volume History of Haiku (Hokuseido, 1964). Today he is best known as the major interpreter of hokku and haiku to the West.

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R. H. Blyth - 1898 - 1964 - Englishman - Korea - Zen - Japanese - 1942 - 1949 - 1952 - The West

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Present-day attitudes to Blyth's work vary. Writers of hokku and conservative haiku tend to respect him highly; writers of more experimental haiku often deprecate what they view as his conservatism and his strong emphasis on Zen and spirituality. Though Blyth did not foresee the appearance of original haiku in languages other than Japanese when he first began writing on the topic, and though he founded no school of verse, his works paradoxically stimulated the writing of haiku in English. At the end of the second volume of his History of Haiku (1964), Blyth remarked that "The latest development in the history of haiku is one which nobody foresaw,--the writing of haiku outside Japan, not in the Japanese language." He followed that comment with several original verses in English by the American James W. Hackett, with whom Blyth corresponded.

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Spirituality - 1964 - American - James W. Hackett

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Precisely who qualifies as the first American haiku poet depends on one's definition of haiku. Individualistic "haiku-like" verses by the innovative Buddhist poet and artist Paul Reps (1895-1990) appeared in print as early as 1939 (More Power to You - Poems Everyone Can Make, Preview Publications, Montrose CA.). Other Westerners inspired by Blyth's translations attempted original haiku in English, though again generally failing to understand the principles behind the verse form, which in Blyth is predominantly the more challenging hokku rather than the later and more free-form haiku. The resulting verses, including those of the Beat period, were often little more than the brevity of the haiku form combined with current ideas of poetic content, or uninformed attempts at "Zen" poetry. Nonetheless these experimental verses expanded the popularity of haiku in English, which while never making much of an impact on the literary world, has nonetheless proved very popular as a system of introducing students to poetry in elementary schools and as a hobby for numerous amateur writers who continue the innovation and experimentation that is the legacy of Shiki's reforms.

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Paul Reps - Westerner - Beat - Elementary school - Hobby - Amateur

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Today haiku is written in many languages, but the number of writers is still concentrated primarily in Japan and secondarily in English-speaking countries.

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