Emotion in haiku

[easywayout]

Hi all,

I'm wondering what the role of emotion in (primarily non-Japanese) haiku is. Are emotional haiku 'better' for not being purely imagistic or are they just a different strand of the thread? To what extent is it the reader's role to bring haiku in through careful reflection and rereading, and to what extent is the writer responsible for igniting such a reaction in the reader (through choice of topic, kigo/place names, vividness of language, juxtaposition, ma, the truth of a real experience or any of the other techniques available to haiku poets)?

Feel free to refer me to any books if this has already been covered in detail.

Cheers,
Tanvi

[AlanSummers]

Great post!

I'm wondering what the role of emotion in (primarily non-Japanese) haiku is. Are emotional haiku 'better' for not being purely imagistic or are they just a different strand of the thread?

People in general might often want overt emotion in haiku to latch onto, and not have to explore the writing with close reading.

I find those that do not overtly showcase emotion are more rewarding.

Japanese haiku, and its predecessors, were not imagist, and sometimes we are overly influenced outside Japan by the poets' group The Imagists.

To what extent is it the reader's role to bring haiku in through careful reflection and rereading,

If a poem is a sow's ear what can a reader do, perhaps silk purse it, but is it deserving?   If a poem is a silk purse should a reader care, or maintain its brilliance, or should they sow ear the poem?

Should the reader have a role?

For me personally, I love to overhear the general public discuss a haiku of mine, when they don't know the author is present.  Often I get amazing feedback, rarely do the ordinary person or family in the street say it's rubbish, they don't get it etc...

Haiku writers can be a bit lazy in reading other haiku though and I think we could all learn by getting under the skin of a haiku and not just rest with a surface reading alone.

...and to what extent is the writer responsible for igniting such a reaction in the reader

The writer should write the poem to the best of their ability and constantly strive to be better and better, and every poem is a rewrite of THE POEM to my mind.  And we should push ourselves to create a poem that makes writer and reader as one, even if the reader gets something different from it.

(through choice of topic, kigo/place names, vividness of language, juxtaposition, ma, the truth of a real experience or any of the other techniques available to haiku poets)?

Topics, themes, sub-themes, and everything else is vital, but not all in one poem.  I prefer to know if an author writes biographical haiku, as most non-fiction work sadly contains too much fiction nowadays.

Every technique known to art and outside art is worth exploring for our creation of a haiku, well to me it is. :-)

Look forward to lots of people responding and fresh viewpoints by our newer members too!

warm regards,

Alan

Hi all,

I'm wondering what the role of emotion in (primarily non-Japanese) haiku is. Are emotional haiku 'better' for not being purely imagistic or are they just a different strand of the thread? To what extent is it the reader's role to bring haiku in through careful reflection and rereading, and to what extent is the writer responsible for igniting such a reaction in the reader (through choice of topic, kigo/place names, vividness of language, juxtaposition, ma, the truth of a real experience or any of the other techniques available to haiku poets)?

Feel free to refer me to any books if this has already been covered in detail.

Cheers,
Tanvi

[Anna]

I do not know much about haiku and am still learning, but

but,  what attracts me to haiku or other oriental forms of poetry is that emotion is not the kind that chokes the reader,  I have not read many that are really outlandish in display of emotion though haiku is more involved with the way the mind works at a deeper level... there is an understated elegance. 
Haiku is more of detached observation, more of introspection when the observation turns inwards.

Two haiku come to mind as I write this:

becoming a child
on New Year's day ...
I wish

~Issa
the link is worth a read: http://www.modernhaiku.org/issue46-3/Lanoue-IssaChildMind-MH46-3.pd

and

grief and anger -
I spit out black, black
watermelon seeds

~Takeshita Shizunojo  from Far beyond the Field by Makato Ueda

The above is a poem that comes to mind each time I see watermelons,  and it is one haiku that is very very
emotionally charged,  though it made me smile when I read it for the first time.

But then again, these are translations of Japanese poets, 


this small ache and all the rain too robinsong
~Alan Summers   from http://area17.blogspot.in/2014/06/a-selection-of-haiku-poems-by-alan.html

where the lines end and the absence begins an architecture or so

~Chris Gordon, 2002; H21 74; HIE 191 from one of my favourite reads of all times: Under the Basho

which also leads me to reader participation and the above haiku was taken from an article in Under the Basho where reader participation is brought up

http://www.underthebasho.com/2014-issue/pondering-haiku/pondering-haiku-2.html

Hope that helps, and welcome

[AlanSummers]

Thanks Anna,

That Modern Haiku link is:
http://www.modernhaiku.org/issue46-3/Lanoue-IssaChildMind-MH46-3.pdf

Just missing an f in pdf.


The emotional cousin, or sister genre, to haiku could be that of the five line lyrical tanka poem, although using Anna's brilliant phrase, even tanka is balanced and not emotion that chokes the reader, or outlandish.

There are varying degrees of harnessing emotion and blatantly overdoing it either exhausts the reader or leaves them unmoved or disinterested.

Of course the Japanese (from before Basho and after Shiki) continue to break the rules or laws of haiku that the West and other non-Japanese countries lay down on them, and successfully.  Issa, Santoka and Ozaki are great examples and the women poets in Far beyond the Field and The Long Rainy Season set a gold standard not only in haiku (and tanka) but in harnessing emotion.   

Thankfully we have some fine translators who create parallel poems in English to the original Japanese to assist us.

Thanks Anna!

warm regards,

Alan

I do not know much about haiku and am still learning, but

but,  what attracts me to haiku or other oriental forms of poetry is that emotion is not the kind that chokes the reader,  I have not read many that are really outlandish in display of emotion though haiku is more involved with the way the mind works at a deeper level... there is an understated elegance. 
Haiku is more of detached observation, more of introspection when the observation turns inwards.

Two haiku come to mind as I write this:

becoming a child
on New Year's day ...
I wish

~Issa
the link is worth a read: http://www.modernhaiku.org/issue46-3/Lanoue-IssaChildMind-MH46-3.pdf

and

grief and anger -
I spit out black, black
watermelon seeds

~Takeshita Shizunojo  from Far beyond the Field by Makato Ueda

The above is a poem that comes to mind each time I see watermelons,  and it is one haiku that is very very
emotionally charged,  though it made me smile when I read it for the first time.

But then again, these are translations of Japanese poets, 


this small ache and all the rain too robinsong
~Alan Summers   from http://area17.blogspot.in/2014/06/a-selection-of-haiku-poems-by-alan.html

where the lines end and the absence begins an architecture or so

~Chris Gordon, 2002; H21 74; HIE 191 from one of my favourite reads of all times: Under the Basho

which also leads me to reader participation and the above haiku was taken from an article in Under the Basho where reader participation is brought up

http://www.underthebasho.com/2014-issue/pondering-haiku/pondering-haiku-2.html

Hope that helps, and welcome

Edit reason: correcting the pdf link on Issa/becoming a child

[AlanSummers]

Emotion is an interesting topic for both haiku and other media:

"Strong emotions like melancholy or sadness (kanashisa 悲しさ) and others are usually not used directly in traditional Japanese haiku, which tend to simply describe the scene but not interpret it in human terms. A suitable KIGO is used to bring out the underlying mood / emotion of the haiku."

"Children are usually taught to imply the emotion within an appropriate KIGO, as I have experienced it in our local grammar school."

Dr Gabi Greve

The kigo is a powerful poetic device used in haiku. Using examples, Machmiller plans to show how, by using the kigo, a writer can create a mood or imbue the haiku with a subtle perfume that scents the whole poem. The examples will demonstrate how haiku without kigo can be improved by the adding a kigo.

Patricia J. Machmiller
http://www.haikunorthamerica.com/blog/patricia-machmiller-to-talk-about-kigo-on-thursday

"Mentioning a season, essentially, is a shortcut to emotional resonance"

Melissa Allen
https://haikuproject.wordpress.com/2014/04/05/there-is-a-season/

Japanese kigo are a strong allusion device (there are others) and I worry that kigo is mistakenly seen as cliché and/or as a weather report thrown into the mix so that half the haiku is done already, when in actual fact they can contain cultural and emotional tones of extreme intensity within Japan; and surely at least a warmth of layered memories outside Japan?

Alan Summers
http://area17.blogspot.co.uk/2014/04/more-than-one-fold-in-paper-kire-kigo.html


Easter Sunday
baby bumps
among the beer bellies

Karen Hoy
Multiverses 1.1 (2012)

comfort television
I don't move the vase
for the orange asters 

Karen Hoy
Multiverses 1.1 (2012)


Toshugu shrine pines
I try to stay as still -
mist and dew

Alan Summers
Anthology Credit: We Are All Japan (Karakia Press  2012) 
Haiku Collection: The In-Between Season (With Words Haiku Pamphlet Series 2012)

Whether using the idea of kigo, or other areas such as bereavement how far do we push the emotional button of the reader?

Thankfully this haiku both caused great grief and release for one haiku poet when her mother died the same day this journal by the British Haiku Society reached her in the States:

house clearance
room by room by room
my mother disappears

Alan Summers
Publication Credit: Blithe Spirit 26.1 (March 2016)

She emailed to thank me.   We tread this emotional path in poetry with great care, and responsibility, I hope, and I was relieved the poem helped.

Another poem, this time about my father's funeral, helped one man so much with the death of his father-in-law that he carried it as a mantra in his head:

the rain
almost a friend
his funeral

Alan Summers
Azami #28 (Japan 1995)

It's been translated into French twice, the second time as part of an analysis for French readers:

la pluie
presqu'une amie
ses funérailles

la pluie
presqu'une amie
à cet enterrement

haiku: Alan Summers
trans. Serge Tomé

warmest regards,

Alan

[Jan Benson]

My 2 offerings, each with neutral-ish kigo.


Mother's Day an empty mailbox

---Small Canyons
---Beall House of Poetry, Baylor University
---The Heartbreak Anthology, L.A.
---The Love Journal, L.A.
"Corrected for third title credit"
------------------

Adobe Walls at dusk
crickets knit the names
of the lost

---2015 Texas Poetry Calendar

Jan Benson

[AlanSummers]

Great stuff!

But neutral?

Both my mothers are dead, and within two weeks of each other, and so Mother's Day is loaded for me, as it will be for those whose parents died in many circumstances.

The power of kigo  I guess.

re Walls, it's fascinating to just read about the history of walls more as power symbols or sometimes as a defence or both, moreso than just pure home.

The one line haiku is very moving, as is the Adobe Walls haiku.

warm regards,

Alan

My 2 offerings, each with neutral-ish kigo.


Mother's Day an empty mailbox

---Small Canyons
---Beall House of Poetry, Baylor University
---The Love Journal, L.A.

------------------

Adobe Walls at dusk
crickets knit the names
of the lost

---2015 Texas Poetry Calendar

Jan Benson

[Jan Benson]

Alan,

I should really be careful with kigo, and not have intimated my bias at all.

The empty mailbox plays to any number of severed relationships with Moms.
I knew when I wrote this ku (2011?) That it had endless resonance. The distillation of that moment can be devistating, in the first read.
This ku is my example of not quite agreeing with the postulations above that haiku,  well done, has a less in-your-face or dramatic effect.

---In the case of your "bird song" ku above, it took two reads for me to find the meloncholy, months ago.
---When I read it again here, the transfer of emotions took the shape of a heart-shadow that directed me into the space where meloncholy exists.
---So, for me, your ku operates well in the parameters of expectation, as has been discussed in this thread.

Jan Benson

[AlanSummers]

Hi Jan,

There is nothing wrong with haiku that do have kigo or don't have kigo. :)

Mother's Day tends to be a firm season based phrase pushed by the big chain stores with smaller shops following suit, so despite being a money chaser for businesses just as Easter, Christmas, and Halloween, we are alas stuck with it as a kigo type phrase. :)

Empty mailboxes certainly has a resonance because we rely on something through the mail be it a letter or a parcel, so countless situations throughout our life.

re:

---In the case of your "bird song" ku above, it took two reads for me to find the meloncholy, months ago.

I have written dozens of birdsong haiku covering all sorts of mood and emotion, which particular one do you mean?

Anna posted this, for instance:

this small ache and all the rain too robinsong
~Alan Summers   from http://area17.blogspot.in/2014/06/a-selection-of-haiku-poems-by-alan.html

I probably put in ache because although I know the unusual circumstances it would not be clear this was a joint sad and happy moment.

A few other bird song haiku:
http://area17.blogspot.co.uk/2013/09/a-selection-of-haiku-short-verse-poems.html

I guess because you have done a close read, a more skipped over read of a haiku would have a person miss many nuances, unless they were feeling sad or deeply unhappy, and then we often read emotion into so many things.

Thanks for the explication.

warm regards,

Alan

Alan,

I should really be careful with kigo, and not have intimated my bias at all.

The empty mailbox plays to any number of severed relationships with Moms.
I knew when I wrote this ku (2011?) That it had endless resonance. The distillation of that moment can be devistating, in the first read.
This ku is my example of not quite agreeing with the postulations above that haiku,  well done, has a less in-your-face or dramatic effect.

---In the case of your "bird song" ku above, it took two reads for me to find the meloncholy, months ago.
---When I read it again here, the transfer of emotions took the shape of a heart-shadow that directed me into the space where meloncholy exists.
---So, for me, your ku operates well in the parameters of expectation, as has been discussed in this thread.

Jan Benson

[Jan Benson]

Alan,
What you describe in your missive above is something "bittersweet", and she be the mother of the blues.

      "I probably put in ache because although I know the unusual circumstances it would not be clear this was a joint sad and happy moment."

...This music moment has been brought to you by...

Jan Benson
(THF Soundscape Engineer)

"this small ache and all the rain too robinsong
~Alan Summers   from http://area17.blogspot.in/2014/06/a-selection-of-haiku-poems-by-alan.html "

[AlanSummers]

Cheers!

yes, that is me, bittersweet, the glass half full but going down too. :-)

Alan,
What you describe in your missive above is something "bittersweet", and she be the mother of the blues.

      "I probably put in ache because although I know the unusual circumstances it would not be clear this was a joint sad and happy moment."

...This music moment has been brought to you by...

Jan Benson
(THF Soundscape Editor)

"this small ache and all the rain too robinsong
~Alan Summers   from http://area17.blogspot.in/2014/06/a-selection-of-haiku-poems-by-alan.html "

[easywayout]

Thanks, all, for your thoughts.

Alan, I agree that outside Japan we tend to rely too much on the imagist... aesthetic or mindset or whatever the word is. I find that the haiku Jan Anna posted (the watermelon seeds) resonates most strongly with me, so I think I am someone who generally needs/prefers that jolt of emotion. Agree about the subtler ones needing to be reread, though (I need to break my habit of skimming), and I also like the homelike delicate feel of Hoy's comfort TV. I didn't quite feel it in the other haiku; that is, I understood the emotion but that particular situation didn't trigger any memories or associations for me, or something. For me the bluesy bittersweetness that Jan describes either doesn't come easily or will pop up one day in other haiku about other topics more pertinent to my life experience.

One of the most overtly emotional haiku I've read is Tohta's

After a heated argument
I go out to the street
and become a motorcycle

- Kaneko Tohta

I also liked the jogger haiku, empty-handed that Lorraine posted in Beginners' Mentoring, because, again, there was some emotional resonance/connection there for me.

As always, just my two cents.
Tanvi

[Jan Benson]

Tanvi
Correction.
It was Anna, not Jan who introduced the watermelon ku.

----------
grief and anger -
I spit out black, black
watermelon seeds

~Takeshita Shizunojo  from Far beyond the Field by Makato Ueda
----------
And ...
----------
... I find that the haiku Jan posted (the watermelon seeds) resonates most strongly with me, so I think I am someone who generally needs/prefers that jolt of emotion.
----------

Jan in Texas

[easywayout]

Sorry, Anna (and Jan), that was me misreading. Thanks for the correction, Jan!

Tanvi

[AlanSummers]

Thanks Tanvi!

That's interesting, as you are saying you need an overt keyword like 'heated' or key phrase 'heated argument'?

re Karen Hoy's baby bumps haiku, all those pregnant women didn't work for you?  Was it the British image of a Sunday pub lunch when families go out together?   

It is perhaps why more haiku over the last decade have become closer to the subjectivity of tanka when once there were more distant in nature.

I didn't often write overtly emotional haiku, unless a situation came up:

street attack -
I hold the young girl
through her convulsions

Alan Summers
Publications credits:
World Haiku Review  vol. 2: Issue 3  (2002); Short Stuff  vol 2, Issue 1, (2003)


the rain
almost a friend
this funeral

Alan Summers
Azami #28 (Japan, 1995)

unlacing the shoe
on his sole
mud from the gravesite

Alan Summers
Publications credits:
Blithe Spirit Vol. 6 No. 3  (1996); Does Fish-God Know (YTBN Press 2012)

I am constantly looking to re-identity my work and be closer to a neutralness where the reader can place themselves in whatever emotional state they find themselves.  This is an observational piece:

the long white apron
of a barman–
the day menu unscrews

Alan Summers
Snapshots 9 (2001)

It simply suggests a shift in the day as we approach evening.

warm regards,

Alan

Thanks, all, for your thoughts.

Alan, I agree that outside Japan we tend to rely too much on the imagist... aesthetic or mindset or whatever the word is. I find that the haiku Jan Anna posted (the watermelon seeds) resonates most strongly with me, so I think I am someone who generally needs/prefers that jolt of emotion. Agree about the subtler ones needing to be reread, though (I need to break my habit of skimming), and I also like the homelike delicate feel of Hoy's comfort TV. I didn't quite feel it in the other haiku; that is, I understood the emotion but that particular situation didn't trigger any memories or associations for me, or something. For me the bluesy bittersweetness that Jan describes either doesn't come easily or will pop up one day in other haiku about other topics more pertinent to my life experience.

One of the most overtly emotional haiku I've read is Tohta's

After a heated argument
I go out to the street
and become a motorcycle

- Kaneko Tohta

I also liked the jogger haiku, empty-handed that Lorraine posted in Beginners' Mentoring, because, again, there was some emotional resonance/connection there for me.

As always, just my two cents.
Tanvi