Let's share each image
chiselled in stone.
Beginning with a boulder quarried from the hills,
trucked down a metal road.
Are those newly hatched
ducklings hiding in the reeds?
See footprints of water birds
on lowtide sand.
Look at ferns uncurling
cinnamon coloured fronds.
and whitebaiters dipping nets
into the Uretara Stream.
Words engraved on boulders
warm in th sun,
cooling in the rain.
Catherine Mair
Catherine Mair encourages us to learn more about the traditions of the haiku form and provides some guidelines for the writing of haiku.
1. Recently the Japanese Minister for Education has set out a declaration on the web stating that it is almost impossible to write English language haiku in the Japanese form of 5-7-5 syllables. English language syllables are much longer than Japanese syllables, and therefore it takes less syllables to produce the natural length and rhythm of a haiku poem. Linguists who have studied this question in a number of languages where haiku is now being written agree that to approximate the Japanese haiku form it takes different numbers of syllables in different languages.
2. The appreciation of haiku is natural. The images are concrete. The poet does not intellectualise. There is no need to be formally 'educated' to understand the experience that the author had. Anyone who is sensitive to their environment and the flora and fauna around them in their everyday life can, and does, experience these special moments. Haiku is a poem of the people. It is for everyone to enjoy in universal recognition of the human experience.
3. The point of the haiku is to be truthful - to capture succinctly and effectively in words a moment in time, giving the reader or hearer something to reflect on, to imagine, to carry in the mind, to respond feelingly to. The best haiku may have their effect only in a second or third reading.
4. English language is changing rapidly, along with all other forms of the lyric. It is no longer bound by inflexible rules, but follows a multitude of directions inherent in the nature of haiku - to heed a moment and find the words to match.
5. English language haiku has taken on a life of their own, rich with experimentation as well as tradition, as indeed has the haiku in Japanese. Today the experienced writer of haiku in English will probably feel that attempts to constrict the haiku by rules are misconceived and do not help the essence of haiku - to communicate a moment in time.
6. It is great to have so much interest in haiku and I would like to comment that very few artists expect to be called upon to explain their art. All art is like music, if you can't hear it I can't explain it, and the artist should not be expected to.
