Welcome to the second issue of Juxtapositions: A Journal of Haiku Research and Scholarship (ISSN 2378-6566). As with any new venture in scholarship, we have been heartened by a worldwide response to our inaugural issue of the journal in the realization that Juxtapositions clearly fills a critical role in the evolution of haiku scholarship in English.
In this issue, authors from New Zealand and the U.K. respectively tackle diverse subjects: the former examining the role haiku played in the poetry of the First World War; the latter, how viewing haiku (Japanese script) as opposed to reading it (Latin alphabets) differ under the aesthetic concept of jo ha kyū. Two further scholarly articles round out this issue’s selection: Ian Marshall and Megan Simpson ask the question, Can haiku be deconstructed; and Charles Trumbull makes the case for Shiki’s practice of shasei to be taken as more than the simple “sketch from nature” that has characterized it in the West.
This issue also is dedicated to, and celebrates, the life in haiku of poet, scholar, anthologist and publisher Cor van den Heuvel. Editor of the seminal The Haiku Anthology now in three editions and still in print after forty years, Mr. van den Heuvel’s contribution to haiku, and haiku in America in particular, are undisputed. Haiku Foundation founder Jim Kacian provides an insightful interview, focusing on the poet’s early chapbooks of the 1960s, and Cor’s life dedicated to haiku. In addition, Juxta offers a retrospective review of The Haiku Anthology and its place in the canon.
Editor Randy Brooks builds on his exemplary bibliography of monographs on haiku literature provided in issue one, with a comprehensive list of theses and dissertations related to haiku in English. The lost art of fine bibliography is obviously alive and well in Juxtapositions.
We do hope you enjoy this new issue of the journal. This effort would not be possible without the tireless work of the editors, nor without the full support of The Haiku Foundation. If you find these scholarly articles worthy, please consider becoming a submitting author.
Warm regards,
Peter McDonald
Senior Editor
pmcdonald@csufresno.edu