Moon and Finger 1 – Launch
Welcome to Moon and Finger, a new Haiku Foundation feature for addressing and discussing any haiku topic under the sun, in depth, but particularly haiku poetics. The feature is hosted by Orense Nicod and Keith Evetts, and eventually, we hope, by a variety of occasional invited guests. We aim to make it varied and challenging, serious and amusing. Host today is Orense Nicod who announces the launch of Moon and Finger.
Genesis
This column began in a comment section.
Not in a journal, not in a workshop, not in the kind of institutional space where critical positions are supposed to form, but in the open, slightly chaotic margins of the Haiku Foundation’s re:Virals. There, Keith and I found ourselves independently pushing back against the same thing. We were strangers. We recognised each other anyway. That recognition — swift, mutual, grounded in a shared conviction that questioning is essential to haiku practice — is what became Moon and Finger.
Over decades, English-language haiku (ELH) has developed a body of received teaching purporting to be faithful to tradition. In practice, however, it often functions as a gatekeeping apparatus. No metaphor. No personification. No simile. No past tense. No abstract language. No overt emotion. And many more no nos. Often advanced as ‘rules’ rather than tips or conventions, they vary by school and editor, but their effect is consistent. What is presented as craft guidance tends to become, in fact, aesthetic preference elevated into law.
The problem is not that these preferences exist. Every critical tradition has them. The problem is the insistence on grounding them in the authority of the classical Japanese tradition — because the masters do not obey them! Bashō uses simile. Buson works in past tense. Issa is soaked in overt, sometimes embarrassing emotion. These poets, these haiku, are not to be dismissed as “exceptions that prove the rule.” There are so many of them. The “rules” that many ELH practitioners police so carefully are contradicted, repeatedly, by the very corpus they claim to protect. This is not an obscure scholarly point. It is legible to anyone who reads the masters. The prescriptivism survives not because it is historically defensible but because it has institutional power.
Moon and Finger is not, however, a polemical project. We are not interested in tearing down received wisdom for its own sake. We are interested in the poems — in what they actually do, what traditions of thought they draw on, how we might read them more attentively. The column will include close readings, theoretical essays, discussions of translation and transmission, and, more broadly, any topic related to haiku. It will treat haiku as a serious literary form, which means holding it to the same standards of rigorous, historically informed attention we would bring to any other poetry. There will also be a varied diet. Amusement is not excluded!
A word on what this column is and isn’t. We are not authorities. We do not offer verdicts. The essays do not pretend to be works of academic scholarship, meticulously referenced. Everything written here is a question pursued in public, an opinion held with some conviction but not with certainty. We expect to be wrong sometimes, to be corrected, to change our minds. The close readings are readings, not determinations. The theoretical positions are positions, not doctrines. What we ask of the tradition we ask of ourselves — that no rule harden into law, that the poems always have the last word.
Keith and I bring different emphases to this project, and we expect to diverge on particular questions of interpretation and method: in that way we learn from each other. What we share is the conviction that haiku rewards close attention. In the past, the Foundation’s Forum provided a vehicle for such discussion. With its disappearance, a space for sustained conversation has been lost. Moon and Finger is, in part, an attempt to reopen that dialogue.
The name is a version of the old Zen instruction: do not mistake the finger pointing at the moon for the moon itself. It seems right for a column about a form so often reduced to its rules. The rules point. The poems are the thing pointed at. The poems are what matters to us.
At the end of each issue you will find a short anonymous poll related to the topic of the week (3 to 6 questions). It asks not what you know about haiku but what you experience reading and writing it — whether an argument lands, whether a poem does what the essay claims it does, whether your practice matches the orthodoxies you’ve been taught. There are no correct answers. A no or a not yet is as valuable as a yes, and more valuable than a performance of agreement.
Periodic issues titled Chorus will return to what the polls have gathered — not to tally verdicts but to examine what the pattern of responses reveals. Where readers converge is interesting. Where they diverge is often more so. This will provide valuable information about practice in ELH. The more poets who participate the richer the picture. We appreciate your participation, it only takes a minute.
The polls are also intended to liberate the comments. By answering the poll, you arrive at the conversation knowing where you stand. Don’t hesitate to say what you actually think. We want your engagement. We know there are others who share some of our views, but also many who might have different opinions, new topics, alternative perspectives. We want to learn, too. To this end, we hope that you will comment—civilly and constructively, of course.
Moreover, if you have requests, or better still, would think about contributing an article, then please use the discreet submission form below to send them to us for consideration. If there’s a proposed article you’d be prepared to write, send an outline. We’d be delighted!
Orense Nicod
—–
The first substantive post will appear this time next week. Aptly enough, Orense will dissect Bashõ’s “old pond” at length: where it begins. When I first came across that seminal hokku/haiku, my reaction was “it isn’t that great, surely?” But when I found where the cut really was, and the half-cut that follows, I began, just began, to understand. I think you will find that Orense’s analysis over the next three posts, not to mention her flowing argument, is a Wow!
Keith Evetts
At the end of each post you will find a short anonymous poll related to the topic of the week (3 or 6 questions).
It asks not what you know about haiku but what you experience reading and writing it — whether an argument lands, whether a poem does what the essay claims it does, whether your practice matches the orthodoxies you’ve been taught. There are no correct answers. A no or a not yet is as valuable as a yes, and more valuable than a performance of agreement.
Periodic issues titled Chorus will return to what the polls have gathered — not to tally verdicts but to examine what the pattern of responses reveals. Where readers converge is interesting. Where they diverge is often more so. The more poets who participate the richer the picture.
Discussion is welcomed in the Comments thread at the very end of this post. Meanwhile, if you would like to propose a topic you wish to see addressed, or better still, if you have an outline proposal for an article that you would be prepared to write—if accepted—please submit it to us via the submission form immediately below this text:
Why Moon and Finger? Zen, Chan, and Indian Buddhist texts cite the metaphor of a Finger pointing at the Moon with a caution: do not mistake the finger for the moon itself. Clinging to words or doctrines (the finger) obscures the awakened mind or truth (the moon). Thus, the analyses, views, and critiques of haiku in this feature are but the Finger. Haiku is the Moon itself, to be viewed by all. Views expressed here are those of the individual authors alone, except where otherwise attributed. They are very much open to discussion in the comments thread below. We all learn.
Introducing the hosts:
Orense Nicod is a French poet working across forms, with a particular focus on haiku. Born in Paris, she spent ten years of her childhood in South Africa before returning to France and writes in both French and English.
Her work has appeared in journals including Frogpond, Cattails, and The Asahi Haikuist Network. She has twice won first prize in the Haiku Society of America Rengay Awards, in collaboration with Joan Fingon (2021) and Anton R-kelian (2025).
A former teacher, she is raising her two children and her poetic expectations while co-hosting Moon and Finger with Keith Evetts on The Haiku Foundation.
Keith Evetts lives in Thames Ditton, Surrey. Life Fellow of the Cambridge Philosophical Society. Aside from scientific papers, diplomatic telegrams, and local history articles, he’s written poetry of various kinds for sixty years, much of it sub rosa. Latterly host and managing editor of the Foundation’s re:Virals commentary feature since December 2021, one of the ten editors of the annual Red Moon Anthology, and an administrator of Facebook’s largest haiku group. Married with five grown children, cottage garden, grey parrot, and a sense of humour. His short haiku bio is here.
Comments: further discussion is invited below. Comments will close when this post is automatically archived.
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Comments (47)
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Hold on a second, guys… Did we not overlook an essential dimension of the word *master* here?
Everyone seems to be discussing it from an English perspective—whether it’s gendered, elitist, outdated, etc. Those are fair questions. But haiku comes from Japan.
As a child, I practised judo. We naturally spoke about our *master*. The same applies to many Japanese arts. Tea ceremony, calligraphy, martial arts, pottery… they all revolve around the relationship between a master and disciples. Not because the master is “above” everyone else, but because they are the one transmitting the art.
To me, that’s what the word has always carried: transmission.
Bashō wasn’t only a brilliant poet. He had disciples. He taught. He transmitted a way of seeing, not just a way of writing. That’s true of so many traditional Japanese arts.
So I wonder if we’re not missing part of the picture by discussing the word only through our Western lens.
Maybe the real question isn’t whether *master* is the right word today. Maybe it’s whether we’ve lost sight of the idea behind it: the transmission of an art from one generation to the next.
Just a thought.
Excellent, Sébastien.
And apposite to the next three posts. We learn from Bashō…
The sensei, one who has walked the path before, and the notion of apprenticehip, may be more hierarchically embedded in Japanese ways than in those of the more individualistic anglophone world; but we have it too, particularly in classical music among the arts. Chefs too ( masters = les chefs étoilés Michelin du haïku?). Also in haiku mentoring.
In Moon and Finger, we don’t intend to set up as mentors, nor are we qualified in that way. More to open up thinking, and encourage others to look at the material from notable practitioners and think for themselves. Bashō is a good place to start.
…and by the way, concerning “think for themselves:”
a quote from Shiki’s Haikai Taiyõ (The Outline of Haiku), Fifth Period of Study (composing haiku): “Many who learn from others primarily seek out skilled practitioners from the beginning. The masters, in turn, guide them, and as a result, they fall into the trap of superficial techniques and never have the opportunity to truly open their eyes.”
Shiki’s conclusion seems to be that masters have superficial techniques. That strikes me as illogical. Masters guide disciplines to open their eyes.
Janice, I wonder whether at the back of Shiki’s mind was a possibly similar thought to Bashō “The two halves of melon look alike, just as we are both alike in loving haikai, but you should not imitate me,” and “Kojin no ato o motomezu, kojin no motomeshi tokoro o motomeyo” —”old people’s footprints seek not, what old people searched for seek” rendered as “Do not seek to follow the ancients; seek what the ancients sought.”
In Haikai Taiyō, Shiki also writes: “If you wish to compose haiku , compose it as you please. Do not strive for perfection, and do not be ashamed of what others may think.” And: “those who enter the world of haiku will choose their own path.”
PS (days later) now that I have a better translation, the passage reads:
“”Many who study in a conventional, run-of-the-mill style seek skill from the very beginning and prioritize subtlety. Since masters also guide them in this direction, they ultimately fall into petty tricks and never open their eyes to true insight.””
Thank you Janice, I agree the quote can seem confusing at first glance. I don’t think Shiki is criticizing the masters but rather he is criticizing a certain way of learning.
Beginners seek out famous masters. They imitate the master’s methods and habits. They become preoccupied with reproducing those visible techniques.
Because they are copying results rather than cultivating perception, they never “open their eyes.” The student copies the superficial features and thinks they are learning Bashō. But what made Bashō Bashō was not the surface technique; it was the depth of perception behind it.
At least that is how I interpret the quote.
What Keith points out proceeds from this, seeking what the masters sought rather than imitating them.
“The sensei, one who has walked the path before, and the notion of apprenticeship, may be more hierarchically embedded in Japanese ways than in those of the more individualistic anglophone world; but we have it too, particularly in classical music among the arts.” – Keith
. . . and coming to the various trades (yes, we still have them, despite AI) we have master and apprentice,
carpenter, plumber, motor mechanic, chef, roofer, electrician, and etc. etc. etc. I doubt that all the trades have vanished in the UK and USA. They haven’t in Australia.
(ps I chose a woman electrician for my most recent electrical issue.)
Yes, masters also carries that resonance for me. I mean it in the sense Peter references: the “Old Masters” as in the greats (not limited to the big 5). But I also mean it in the sense you bring up, the Asian sense of lineage and transmission: the master as the one in whose line you stand, whose seeking you inherit. By calling your poem a haiku you inherit a tradition in my opinion, that is how I experience it.
Agreed! Though I’m also hoping that this feature “Moon and Finger”
“Over decades, English-language haiku (ELH) has developed a body of received teaching purporting to be faithful to tradition. In practice, however, it often functions as a gatekeeping apparatus. No metaphor. No personification. No simile. No past tense. No abstract language. No overt emotion. And many more no nos.”
Of course many of us do practice the very no-nos that are mentioned and sometimes it’s very new people to haiku that forward misconstrued or outdated statements thinking they are diktats.
” The problem is the insistence on grounding them in the authority of the classical Japanese tradition — because the masters do not obey them! Bashō uses simile….”
So much reverence is given to him that what he did, and wrote, is not deeply looked at, and his not always adhering to the “5-7-5 rule”.
“A word on what this column is and isn’t. We are not authorities. We do not offer verdicts.”
I am relieved to have read this statement here, as we don’t want a lot of rules old and new forced on us, whether we are completely new to haiku, or vulnerable even after writing and publishing for years.
I do like the term sensei as it does not carry the darkness of ‘Master’.
I’ve been exchanging emails with a haiku organisation and mentioned that Karen just returned from the UK Sheffield Documentary Festival, and met the lovely David Olusoga (I’m jealous as I had to stay home ).
The word Master carries more than sensei, even if one meaning is ‘master’:
The Japanese word “sensei” (先生) translates to “person born before another” or “one who comes before”.
It can mean teacher or instructor, or both as “Expert”.
re ‘MASTERS’
This man bribed the entire City of Bristol, he mastered the city until just a few years ago:
Edward Colston was able to bribe an entire city to venerate him and overlook the most evil acts of inhumanity:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IIITjYvUrDo
US Southern States statues – David Olusoga
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u1jHGGv5l-U
As haiku comes out of the Japanese haikai tradition, and we use many Japanese words (haiku, hokku, kire, kigo etc…) why not Sensei too?
Just thoughts to consider.
Alan
I suspect for some the word “master”, in relation to Basho especially, dovetails into zen, from which tradition the title of this new venture (which I look forward to) derives. It sets a tone, a bell ringing which many, it would seem, listen for all these centuries later. A reference point and origin. Not a bad thing. But not necessarily a good thing. It all depends . . .
Master, of course, as in “The Old Masters”, is used in relation to some Renaissance painters. It is generally understood to refer to those who were truly great in the art and craft. And as I’ve learned from watching the British show *Portrait Artist of the Year*, it is not unusual for an art student to go to Italy or France to study the classics. Their paintings show the influence. All these years later.
I suspect more are likely to study, and start with Lucien Freud or Alice Neel— or at least be inspired and encouraged by them. That might be akin to starting one’s haiku exploration with Scott Metz, or Marlene Mountain. Is that happening at all with haiku?— young people being exposed first to more modern poets from Japan and the West? Would that be okay? What will they write?
Peter, thanks for joining the conversation. Just as many poets coming to haiku have been hooked by Bashõ’s summer grasses, I’m sure many have been hooked by Marlene Mountain, Peggy Willis Lyles, John Stevenson (in my case), Lee Gurga, Scott Metz, Kaneko Tõta, and others. Orense and I aren’t going to limit things to the ‘old distinguished virtuosos’ by any means. However, their work that has stood the test of one, two, three centuries is eminently worth studying for starters. It is also of value in countering the rigid views of some who see themselves as the guardians of tradition. A tradition that, as we see it, does not fully reflect the breadth of work those ‘old virtuosos’ wrote. It remains to be seen which of the contemporary stars will likewise be read and studied in a couple of hundred years’ time for their poems rather than for their place in art history. There is nothing so dated as an avant-garde, or the word ‘modern,’ as T. S. Eliot (if I recall correctly) pointed out.
The rubric at the top of Moon and Finger makes clear that we hope to extend invitations to guests, and to entertain outline proposals from anyone prepared to write substantively, on any topic. If you would think about writing a piece on this very subject you have put forward here, that would be welcome. Let us know. We are hosts and provide some seed articles, open some questions, advance some opinions; not pedagogues.
As to Zen: you may relax in that neither of us is committed to it, although of the various influences on haiku as it developed, the Dao and Buddhism are among the strongest – but not the only – roots. Chinese poetry and philosophy, Asian thought, Shinto, are all in the fibre. It is perhaps unfortunate that the early projection of haiku for anglophone readers by Blyth and others (not least the freewheelin’ Dharma Bums) led to an over-emphasis of Zen in particular, and thence to a (predictable) reaction against that. Fashions come, fashions go, in haiku as in most everything else.
Then again, there is the question of when haiku poetry becomes simply ‘short poetry’ and is so far detached from its roots, containing none of the DNA, that it is no longer sensible to call it ‘haiku.’ Opinions will vary. This is as it should be! Some might well claim that as soon as you depart from writing in Japanese, in traditional form and Japanese speech patterns, you have ceased to write haiku but ‘something a bit like it’ in English. Others that as long as it’s very short and produces some kind of unquantifiable visceral or cerebral response in a reader, it’s the same as, or similar to, haiku. In between, those who think that to be a haiku in English a verse should have some of the haiku DNA we can derive from its ancestors — those very poets in the canon from when and where it began. Another area that a well-researched article by a guest would be welcome. Interested?
Wow- when just the introduction gets so much discussion the actual features are bound to be fiery :). All the best!
Thank you both. I have sent a link to the site to some my poetry friends and also posted it on our local poetry group page.
By the way, as hors-d’oeuvres, the selections for Haiku of the Day this May were accompanied by commentaries for each poem. The introductory post, to which are added links in the comments to each poem and its commentary, is here: https://thehaikufoundation.org/intro-to-haiku-of-the-day-may-2026-loosening-the-shackles-on-haiku/
We’ll meet some of these poems again, and more, in planned Moon and Finger pieces.
…and thank you Orense for your comment this morning on the last one, Shiki’s bugs, just seen. Yes, as you remark, the month’s selections and commentaries are “a love letter to all the possibilities of haiku when it is allowed to inhabit its full expressive range.”
Thank you, Keith. Haiku of the Day is a lot of work. The care and thought that went into each day’s selection is evident, and the cumulative effect is genuinely educational.
This is a timely, important, and fun project. These questions arise in every haiku group and community I participate in, as well as in my own teaching. Thank you for getting this started.
Great idea to team up together. This should be fun. Add me to your email list!
It may be time, it may be past time, to retire the term “master”. Very curious to see how this goes. . . . Thank you.
If you can come up with a better one, Megan….. Rather like ‘mainstream’ in ‘mainstream poetry,’ it’s a handy term, most everyone knows what it means even if there may be quibbles. The classic exponents of haiku – not exclusively gendered – are the roots of the genre, their work is hard to equal let alone surpass, and they have authority, by enduring example, that lends weight when we may question contemporary ELH dogma. The top modern exponents too.
I can see there is going to be exciting and challenging dialogue!
re master etc…
I regularly look up synonyms and other alternatives. As I have a bit of a Ross lisp at times, I call them Cinnamon Rolls aka Synonym Roles.
This may be an opportunity to rewrite how we cover certain aspects within the topic of haiku and related genres, and whether we constantly require or reference gender terms.
e.g.
1. As an Expert or Adept (Noun / Adjective)
Used to describe someone highly skilled or an authority figure.
Expert
Virtuoso
Primary
Principal
Specialist
Cognoscente
To contradict myself, as we too often just state four men (Japanese) as the pillars of Japanese haikai poetry and if Chiyo-ni is lucky, she might be allowed into the boy’s club in some lists.
So is it just men who rule the haikai genre from the start?
Classical Japanese hokku/haiku Principle Poets:
Chiyo-ni (1703–1775):
One of the most celebrated female haikai poets of the Edo period. A Buddhist nun, she broke into a male-dominated literary tradition with her emotionally direct and fresh observations of nature. Her poem about morning glories is globally famous.
Mitsuhashi Takajo (1899–1972):
A key figure of the Shōwa period, often identified as one of the most significant female voices in modern Japanese haiku. She moved beyond traditional themes to write highly experimental and psychological poetry.
Nakamura Teijo (1900–1988):
A leading modern master who studied under Takahama Kyoshi: She founded her own haiku magazine, Kazahana, and built a major movement focused on women’s experiences and perspectives in haiku.
Fay Aoyagi (1956–present): Originally from Tokyo, she is a San Francisco-based poet and former president of the Haiku Society of America. She weaves the emotions of a Japanese immigrant with keen observations of modern life, publishing award-winning collections like Chrysanthemum Love.
Madoka Mayuzumi (b. 1962)
Stunning debut collection “Summer on the B-side” (B-men no Natsu)
I regularly performed her haiku to entice people to admire haiku, often with improv guitar by an ex-vet.
1. Historical & Japanese Focus
Far Beyond the Field: Haiku by Japanese Women (Translated by Makoto Ueda): This foundational anthology translates over 400 haiku from 20 Japanese female poets dating from the 17th century to the present. It highlights the lyrical and sometimes historically marginalized female experiences.
A MUST READ!
Women Haiku Poets Who Influenced Me by Patricia Donegan
https://thehaikufoundation.org/juxta/juxta-5-1/juxta-special-women-mentoring-women/women-haiku-poets-who-influenced-me/
Jane Reichhold
(1937 – 2016) Another pillar of haiku.
Those Women Writing Haiku (By Jane Reichhold): A comprehensive history and anthology that traces women’s contributions from early Japanese poetry through to modern international works:
https://thehaikufoundation.org/omeka/files/original/133bdb4477b11474afdfb142afbe7427.pdf
Marlene Mountain (1939 – 2018)
Another pillar of haiku and what epithet to use, she is really beyond them and to be classified these terms feel lacking:
Virtuoso
Primary
Principal
Specialist
Cognoscente
2. International & Contemporary
Wishbone Moon: An Anthology of Haiku by Women (ed. Roberta Beary, Ellen Compton, and Kala Ramesh): A groundbreaking international collection showcasing the work of over 100 female poets from 21 countries. It uniquely captures modern experiences related to women’s health, family, and daily life.
Do we segregate or see no difference other than there are some incredible pioneering spirits past, present, and yet unknown.
I quite like “acknowledged virtuosos” as a better term! ‘Pillar’ not so much. Cognoscenti sounds a little precious…. Distinguished classic and modern haiku poets might do?
Ueda’s ‘Far Beyond the Field’ is a good source book concerning women poets of influence and significance. Yes, definitely a ‘must read.’
Your question: “Do we segregate or see no difference…” I vote we definitely don’t segregate, but include. If there are differences, so much the richer. I’d rather see and hear in stereo than mono.
On demographics, already in Ueda’s last years the active haiku population in Japan was 70% female. In Facebook’s The Daily Haiku, with a sample size of 20,000, as of today 68% identify as female, 30% male, and 2% (as FB categorises them) custom. These proportions are extending across editors and awards. Men are in a clear minority.
Cognoscenti , to me (whose only language is English) sounds like a word spoken in lovely Italian, which I like to hear.
Mind, English is my only language and I only have a vague understanding of what cognoscenti probably means. My guess is that it began as a Latin word. I suppose I might look it up.
Thank you Megan and Alan. When I use “masters” I mean simply the great haiku poets — those whose work has stood as a standard and a challenge. Chiyo-ni is unambiguously among them.
The term carries no gender in my mind, but I understand that “masters” is typically understood as the big 4, or sometimes the big 5 if one includes Onitsura — and I am aware that this framing already leaves much out. As a woman, I am certainly sensitive to the bias that runs through much of literature, and not only Japanese literature.
This bit of history struck me when I encountered it. Takahama Kyoshi instituted a section called “The Kitchen Songs” in Hototogisu magazine, where women’s haiku were published in a dedicated space — ostensibly to encourage women to write. I cringe at the blindness there.
Sugita Hisajo was Kyoshi’s student. In 1936 he expelled her from the Hototogisu coterie — for reasons that remain unknown. She wrote this:
谺して山ほととぎすほしいまゝ
kodama shite yama hototogisu hoshii-mama
these echoes
from the mountain cuckoo
just as it pleases
I can’t help but read it as a critique of Hototogisu itself — of the men who move through the institution just as they please, hoshii-mama, their freedom echoing through it unchallenged, a privilege she could only long for.
I will keep using the term masters because it is the most natural term for me. Moon and Finger will show through study that the term applies to many women too.
“When I use “masters” I mean simply the great haiku poets — those whose work has stood as a standard and a challenge. Chiyo-ni is unambiguously among them.” – Orense
Yes., Chiyo-ni is a great example and the title of her book that I have (1st edition, 1998) is clearly :
‘”Chiyo-ni – Woman Haiku Master”.
Master and masters are ambiguous words if we don’t have a context. Primarily, a master is someone (or even an animal) who has mastered something. Gender doesn’t come into it.
Unfortunately, sometime in England, Master also became a title for human males of the upper classes whether child or grandfather and had mastered something or not. Even now, we have Headmaster and Headmistress. in schools.
(The meaning of the title Mistress has changed over the years. Headmistress is acceptable but Mistress alone is not & is likely to invite a hard slap. )
Thank you, Alan, for pointing out a few notable female haiku poets. I am hardly the first person to deplore Blyth’s misogyny in his “History of Haiku” where, in a too short chapter on women haiku writers, he introduces the topic by stating that women are by their very nature prone to be “emotional” and hence hardly capable to create haiku that are “deep and penetrating.”
As for haiku in English, it has long irked me that the list of Notable English-language haiku poets in Wikipedia (which in itself is far too short) includes exactly FOUR women poets (!) To remedy this is unfortunately not a project I can take on myself, but I do hope someone else will do so, and soon.
Anyway, I look forward to more discussion in this space! Thank you for creating this project, Keith and Orense.
On a haiku society private site we had to endure a truly noxious male making gross comments about an anthology of contemporary women haiku poets.
The ignorance was truly vile. I’ve seen male-dominated haiku anthologies, and doubt I ever want to see another one, unless heavily policed (sadly).
An anthology of only women is fascinating.
And thank goodness there is Rowan Beckett Minor, Founder, Editor-in-Chief, Social Media, & Book Review Coordinator of #FemkuMag:
https://femkumag.wixsite.com/home
#FemkuMag mailing list:
https://femkumag.kit.com/profile?_gl=1*1szijgy*_gcl_aw*R0NMLjE3Nzc5MTY0NTguQ2owS0NRandoLUhQQmhDSUFSSXNBQzBwM2NkVEhoWUs1YVFpd1p1WjlnRkdhTnRvOHFCb05FTm1MQ1pVWFo0bUNlci1fbGhkcVBQaFJ6b2FBcENGRUFMd193Y0I.*_gcl_au*MTQ2MjE1ODk5NS4xNzc3OTE2NDU2
Thankfully an anthology emerged years later, and was titled Wishbone Moon, and Karen Hoy appeared too!
It’s astonishing how many incredible women of not just Japan right up today but of many races, backgrounds etc…are around to find out. As well as other genders.
For instance: https://nzhaiku.wordpress.com/haiku-commentary/alan-summers-selection/
There is room for another anthology of women haiku poets, both Classic, Modern, Present, and Future already, and it’ll be a big tome!!!
I think we can all help edit wikipedia by the way, Certainly in the past I asked someone to update its entries on haiku which were truly dire.
Blyth rewrote/redacted history and maintained horrible ideology on women. I prefer factual history, which there is very little examples when dived deeply.
I’m excited that more haiku poets can speak their mind with this feature. I’m constantly learning and anything re-written for the better is worth the edginess.
Thank you Sarah, and for this feature!
Alan
Thank you, Alan, Lorin and Sarah.
I had never seen that Wikipedia list and the discrepancy is indeed egregious. Sadly, Blyth’s dismissal of women as too emotional for serious haiku is not an isolated prejudice — it belongs to a Victorian critical tradition that treated emotion as aesthetic failure, a contaminant of true perception. Blyth reminds me of Ruskin, and when we examine the pathetic fallacy in haiku, which is on our list, we may address this misguided critical stance more fully.
The lexical history of “master” is illuminating, and the larger points raised about canon, criticism, and the institutional treatment of women poets are ones we take seriously. We will have ample opportunity to explore these questions further as the column develops. And in my opinion, studying these women poets, showing in what precise ways their work is extraordinary, is the best antidote.
Megan,
A master is simply someone who has mastered something. A master chef may be a man or a woman.
A school’s headmaster may be a woman or a man. (etc. etc. etc. ) (See my longer comment further down)
I’m doing a Snoopy happy dance (in my head) right now! I’ve been writing haiku, senryū and tanka for five years now, and it’s definitely made learning the craft more challenging to have the ‘rules’ explained to me whilst at the same time seeing so many beautiful and impressive examples – both old and new – that go their own, diverting way. And whilst wanting to explore and refine my voice. I can’t wait to see how this endeavour develops!!
Sounds perfect! I’ve often disputed the fact that so many of the haiku masters we praise didn’t conform to such rigid rules that are present in ELH. Looking forward to it!
Thank you both! good initiative!
How exciting!
I am definitely going to free up some time to get involved in that project which I think was needed.
Talk to you soon.
Thank you all for such a warm and encouraging welcome. It is heartening that the feature seems to fill a void in discourse, as we had hoped. We have already received many proposals and questions! I look forward to the dialogue that emerges.
What an interesting introduction to the new feature at THF. Looking forward to the discussions to sharpen my haikai knowledge and understanding. At times, there are doubts and questions in my mind reading the old masters that I too wonder at the many rules created around haiku. A huge welcome to Moon and Finger dear Keith & Orense! 💐
This is a wonderful idea.
Japanese literature (along with many other works literatures) has a history of codifying techniques as rules. I look forward to seeing this feature develop!
Wow! I absolutely love this idea! As a rebel (of sorts) I tend to bend or break the rules on a pretty regular basis. Not a rule that’ll end up hurting anyone or myself. But unnecessary rules that seem, well, superfluous. Many “rules” in modem haiku feel that way to me. So I tend to write in my own style, using the rules that work and pretty much discarding the ones that don’t. Occasionally editors push back and I get to decide – bend or brave on. I do some of each, to be honest. I’ll be curious to see if others feel the same way, too.
Many thanks for offering this venue!
Thank you for offering this!
Oooo how interesting! Looking forward to this.
Thanks for the welcome, all! Orense and I have been preparing for this a while, and have several items ready to roll.
One veil at a time….
Ooh, I am so looking forward to all of this!
Thank you for this feature!!
Thank you! This is so exciting! More to learn! I look forward this new feature!
This will be a fascinating foray in so many ways!
wonderful! looking forward to the first post
Welcome and thank you for this important offering.
How exciting! I’m looking forward to this.