R. H. Blyth gives a good summary of the characteristics — the nature — of hokku. In that summary we find:
1. Willing limitations (hokku is not “all things to all men” and has willingly-accepted standards and boundaries).
2. Sensationism (a focus on sensory experience).
3. Unsentimental love of Nature.
4. Lack of elegance.
5. Appreciation of imperfection.
6. Skillful unskillfulness (appearing to have been easily, naturally written without effort or contrivance).
7. “Blessed are the poor” (an emphasis on poverty in experience and phrasing).
8. Combination of the poetic vague and the poetic definite.
9. Human warmth.
10. Avoidance of violence and terror ( hokku are generally peaceful and contemplative).
11. Dislike of holiness (hokku is very spiritual, but not in any “preachy” or dogmatic sense).
12. Turns a blind eye to grandeur and majesty (like the early Quakers, who refused to remove their hats and used the same second-person pronoun for wealthy and poor, hokku is “no respecter of persons”).
13. Unobtrusive good taste.
14. A still, small voice.
I hope those who read here will think about these and how they apply to the hokku we have discussed thus far, or to those read elsewhere. Perhaps in the future — or if people have questions — I will expand on these characteristics.
David
