Randy Brooks (part 1):
Where do my haiku begin? A quick answer focuses on the mechanics of writing. For me, I keep a journal, started in 1975, in which I write whatever I want. As my interest in haiku and tanka grew, the journal became primarily a haiku and/or tanka journal. As I became more computer-based, my journal moved from pen on paper to a digital journal. On this most simple level, my haiku begins with my writing whatever comes to mind or whatever I’m experimenting with or exploring at the time. I write for myself. Later, I come back to the journal and look for pieces worthy of editing or sharing with friends, family, or strangers (through submissions to editors). My haiku begin as drafts in my journal, with some private entries going through an selection and editing process to get them ready for sharing with others through readings or publication.
Two years ago I wrote a related essay, “Genesis of Haiku: Where Do Haiku Come From?” which was published in Frogpond, 34.1, (Toronto, Canada), Winter, 2011, pages 37-50. This essay is available at <http://www.hsa-haiku.org/frogpond/2011-issue34-1/revelationsunedited.html>. This essay was a mix of personal narrative about my early start as a haiku writer and writing theory on invention as it applies to writing haiku. As a theoretical essay, I considered 5 general theories on the genesis of writing: (1) imitation & the intertextuality of texts, (2) creativity & insight, (3) inspiration by a muse, (4) collaboration & co-creativity, and (5) consonance & dissonance as prime motivations for all human communication.
I am not going to revisit each approach as it applies to where my own haiku begin, but I will give a brief synopsis of these theoretical approaches.
(1) Imitation & intertextuality. Many haiku begin as imitations of other haiku admired or enjoyed by a reader. It is a natural response to write a haiku in response to a haiku that moves us. Therefore, all haiku are, on one level, connected to each other; each haiku has intertextuality relationships with haiku that have come before. Haiku come out of each other when we respond and alter haiku that have come before.
(2) Creativity & insight. In one of his essays on haiku poetics, Raymond Roseliep wrote, “Creation is still more exciting than imitation.” His essay, “This Haiku of Ours.” was published in Bonsai: A Quarterly of Haiku, 1.3, July 1976. Roseliep also wrote: “I believe we are preserving the quintessence of haiku if we do what the earliest practitioners did: use it to express our own culture, our own spirit, our own enlightened experience, putting to service the riches of our land and language, summoning the dexterity of Western writing tools” (p. 12). Haiku begin with the creativity and insight of the writer, using all the writer’s resources (linguistic, mental, social, and literary) to be expressive.
(3) Inspiration by a muse. This Western theory argues that the best writing is simply inspired, a gift of genius from the Gods or a muse. Often associated with Romantic literature and writers, this approach emphasizes “natural born” talent or giftedness as the primary source of our best writing. According to this theory, writers don’t know where their haiku begin or come from, they are just spontaneous bursts of creativity.
(4) Collaboration & co-creativity. This theory argues that all writing and communication come from social collaboration. With this approach, haiku begin with social play, a collaborative act of creation. In view of haiku’s origin as a playful linked-verse tradition, this theory seems very appropriate. Often haiku begin out of the social interaction of a haiku group, a playful process of sharing and creative response. This approach also seems to fit well with the idea of haiku as a co-creative process with the reader. As Makoto Ueda explained in Modern Japanese Haiku, “Any poem demands a measure of active participation on the part of the reader, but this is especially true of haiku. With only slight exaggeration it might be said that the haiku poet completes only one half of his poem, leaving the other half to be supplied in the reader’s imagination.” Modern Japanese Haiku by Makoto Ueda, University of Toronto Press, 1976, p. vii.
(5) Consonance & dissonance. On a broad level, several writing theories claim that consonance and dissonance are the primary motivations for all communication, including writing. Some genres emphasize one of these more than the other, but all communication starts with either consonance or dissonance. Most writing plays with a human tension between consonance and dissonance or moves from one to the other. Briefly, this means that our underlying motivation to write often comes from either a feeling that something is wrong or broken or needs fixed OR that everything is perfect, wonderful, beautiful and it’s great to just be alive.
In my 2011 essay, I ended with an example of the genesis of one of my haiku, “dirt farmer’s wife” which won an award from Modern Haiku magazine in 1977. In this essay, I will share that example and a few more examples of where some of my haiku began.
dirt farmer’s wife
at the screen door—
no tractor sound
Editor’s Personal Favorite Award, Modern Haiku, February 1977.
Where did this haiku begin?
First of all, I was reading a lot of haiku in anthologies and haiku magazines, including translations by Makoto Ueda, R.H. Blyth, Harold Henderson and Lucien Stryk. I was interested in the idea of writing haiku, and I was especially intrigued by the power of silence and things unsaid in haiku and how haiku could focus on perceptions of emptiness and absence, such as Buson’s imaginative haiku about stepping on the dead wife’s comb. I began trying to write haiku about noticing things not there. I was writing a series of haiku about growing up in western Kansas, where I spent many summers helping my grandparents with the wheat harvest. I was trying very hard, without much success, to write haiku that were not merely descriptive but also emotionally evocative without being overt about the emotion. I wanted the emotion to be suggested by the actions and images within the haiku. Both of my grandparents farmed, but I was very aware of the differences in their lives. My mother’s family was homesteaders who owned a ranch and kept a herd of cattle. My father’s family were cash-rent farmers who depended on the success of each crop to pay the bills. I observed significant social and cultural differences in these two homes.
Of course, none of these things were the genesis of discourse for this haiku. This haiku did not come from these contexts and circumstances. It did not come from theoretical goals such as “objective correlative.” This haiku came from me writing in my journal about a heartfelt memory of my grandmother who died in 1963 when I was nine years old. I remembered her in the farm kitchen made from a porch on the front of a little Sears-Roebuck house. I remembered her in an apron, listening for grandpa to come in for breakfast after his early start in the field. I remembered the feeling on a day when she returned to the screen door several times to listen for his return, to listen for the sound of his tractor, a sound that usually was carried easily across the Kansas fields on the south wind to her house. I realized this was an image that contained a felt memory of her care and concern and love for my grandpa as his biscuits and eggs grew cold on the dining room table. As I wrote this haiku, I wanted it to connect to a broad audience, so that they could imagine it for themselves, so that they too could wonder why she could hear no tractor sound, so that they could continue the emotion inherent in her perceptions at the screen door. To let more readers into this haiku, I didn’t write “my grandma / at the screen door.” I wrote “dirt farmer’s wife” which brought the social context and suggested the urgency of the tractor’s success. I thought this distanced me as well—presenting her as more alone and isolated on the prairie, concerned about her absent companion. This haiku is not about being a grandson. It is about a wife watching over and caring for her farmer husband. I wanted to end with “no tractor sound” so that the haiku would be forever unresolved, left open to the reader to imagine the rest of the story.
all our canoes touch
at the north mouth of the lake
more water lilies
Merit Award in the English Haiku Division, 15th Ito En “Oh-I, Ocha” New Haiku Contest. Award haiku are published in Jiyu-Katari [Free Talking], (Tokyo, Japan) September, 2004.
Where did this haiku begin?
This is a haiku that came out of a sense of consonance and wonder about the beauty of communion with loved ones and nature. I wrote this haiku on a family reunion in Glacier National Park in Montana. I enjoyed writing in my journal about the grandeur of these mountains, but more important to me was the sense of family coming together. So this haiku came from a collaborative social spirit . . . cousins, uncles, aunts gathering from around the country at pristine glacier lake. We canoed all morning, through slight rapids and gentle bends of the river, agreeing to meet up at the mouth of the lake for lunch. Coming into the lake out of the river was like entering the sky after passing through the trees and boulders of the mountain river. Whereas we had been somewhat boisterous and laughing down the river, now we gathered, almost with reverence. There was a great calm expanse of water and sky. Very beautiful. We felt no need to talk or shout out to each other. We all just quieted down, so much so that we could hear the bump of each canoe joining the cluster of others. Also gathered at the mouth of the lake, more so than any other part of the lake, were water lilies. They too clung to each other, providing support and holding against the slight current of the river coming into the great expanse of water and sky. Our canoes were surrounded by water lilies. We waited and enjoyed, for a moment, their daily life. This haiku came from that peaceful coming together.
tai chi
with my wife . . .
morning glories open
Editor’s Choice Heron’s Nest Award. The Heron’s Nest: A Haikai Journal, 5.1 (Port Townsend, WA) January, 2003.
Where did this haiku begin?
This haiku is another haiku that comes out of a feeling of social consonance, a feeling of synchronicity with my wife. At Millikin University we have a wonderful theatre professor who teaches movement, and she teaches Tai Chi at our local YMCA. I’m a bit of a klutz, but my wife, Shirley, has grace and good kinesthetic memory. So when we joined the Tai Chi class, she was a natural while I was like the Tin Man trying to keep up. Eventually, I got better at moving my chi, although I never lost my dependence of following the teacher or Shirley’s lead. So together, in synchronicity with my wife, I gained some grace with Tai Chi. This became a wonderful way to share the start of our days. I like this haiku because it captures our companionship and shared life energy. We share the chi. Of course, it is even better to do Tai Chi outside in the fresh air with companions, who like the morning glories, open up into full bloom and life-full-ness in the morning sunshine. This is a haiku about love and feeling vibrantly alive in morning glory.
This edited version of the haiku also comes from my playfulness with language. In writing and editing this haiku, I wanted the expression and subsequent rhythm to convey the calm, steady movement of Tai Chi. I wanted this haiku to imitate in style the graceful sign-language appearance of people doing Tai Chi. These movements can pause at times, like a morning glory open to the sunshine.
school’s out—
a boy follows his dog
into the woods
School’s Out: Selected Haiku of Randy Brooks, Press Here, (Foster City, CA), 1999.
Where did this haiku begin?
This title poem from my collection of selected haiku, School’s Out, came from my recognition about different types of consciousness—the analytical thinking that occupies my mind as a teacher and administrator and the intuition, spontaneous playful consciousness as a haiku writer. I learn and thrive from both types of consciousness, but as I said in my author introduction, “When school is out, I get to step down from my analytical frame of mind as a professor, and spend more time in a reflective or meditative state of mind that is more conducive to writing haiku.” This haiku comes from a feeling of letting go—letting go of direction, plans, to do lists. It is also about the companionship of a boy and his dog, how they can explore the woods together. It is both a breaking out of the confines (dissonance) of school to the freedom and endless possibilities (consonance) of the woods. I think the dog has already picked up the scent of some great adventure. Let’s see where it goes!
the homestead cedars . . .
our toy cars follow a dirt road
through fallen needles
The Homestead Cedars, The Virgil Hutton Haiku Memorial Chapbook Competition, Saki Press, (Normal, IL) January, 1999.
Where did this haiku begin?
This haiku comes from a celebration of the playful, creative spirit of my ancestors. It recalls many summer visits to my grandpa’s ranch in western Kansas. My great-grandfather homesteaded the ranch in 1885 and my grandfather was born there in 1888. My ancestors built or cultivated everything to be seen, except for the buffalo grass and cactus. They planted a couple of rows of cedar trees along the lane, slightly downhill from the windmill and its horse tank. No matter how hot it was outside, or how windy, under the cedar trees was fragrant, cool shade. The fallen cedar needles were dry and soft, a great place for grandsons to build a fort and hangout. This haiku comes from a sense of comfort, an oasis in a harsh land. It also comes from the appreciation of imagination and playfulness . . . about building things out of the materials at hand. My brother and I built a ranch in the cedar needles, with a toy tractor in the field and a dirt road for our toy cars. This haiku came from that feeling of being at home on grandpa’s homestead and imitating our ancestors’ work to create a home on the prairie.
creek water warm . . .
I swing the grapevine
up to my cousin
The Homestead Cedars, The Virgil Hutton Haiku Memorial Chapbook Competition, Saki Press, (Normal, IL) January, 1999.
Where did this haiku begin?
Pure consonance! The pleasure of playfulness with close cousins—the joy of sharing the fun of a discovered impromptu swing at the swimming hole. This is a haiku of pure summer playfulness—swinging over the muddy creek water, shouting a Tarzan yell and letting go. It comes from the comfort of the warmth of the creek water, and the social comfort of sharing this with cousins. Technically, I was trying to play with perspective and movement. The haiku starts in the warm creek water, but the focus moves to the cousin up on the creek bank. The grapevine connects us, with both the narrator and the cousin gripping the rough-textured grapevine.
cool haiku stone . . .
black ant down and out
of the kanji
Matsuyama Tourism Haiku Award sponsored by the Shiki Haiku Museum and the city of Matsuyama, (Japan), July 1997. Published in the Matsuyama Tourism Haiku Post Anthology, 1998.
Where did this haiku begin?
Literally, this haiku came from a journey to Japan in 1996 to meet several international haiku poets, editors and scholars. The haiku was written in my journal upon visiting a famous haiku by Shiki carved in stone in Matsuyama, Japan. I was a stranger in a strange land, so I employed a literary device in my journal, a haigo. I wrote a series of “black ant” haiku and tanka with the tanka being published by AHA Online Press as “Black Ant’s Journey to Japan.” This online collection is available at <http://www.ahapoetry.com/blackant.htm >.
Figuratively, this haiku comes from an awareness of the impossibility of translation. It captures a tension between consonance and dissonance—the pleasures of experiencing so many new sites, new perceptions, new sensations, new artistic works and the frustration of being so limited by language and lack of cultural understanding. Like an ant, I use my feelings and enjoy the presence of things. Unlike an ant, I wish I understood so much more. This haiku comes from so many ironies in this experience. How can we read kanji? How long does it take to learn how to read the brush strokes, in this case, brush strokes carved into stone. This haiku stone is Shiki’s ephemeral haiku memorialized as a stone monument near the location where it originated. I could touch the stone, feel the carved strokes. Like an ant, I could crawl over the words with my fingers, feel the coolness of the shaded stone. The ant makes no sense of the kanji, but simply passes down and out of it, experiencing the shapes. The haiku stone requires translation into words, into my own language. I could ponder the translation of the haiku, and again try to feel it. Perhaps the location of the haiku stone provides a similar landscape or perspective of the haiku poet? I touch the stone, feel the words and like the black ant, move on.