Long-time readers here will recall that the hokku I teach is derived only from the best aspects of the old Japanese hokku — those that tend to objectivity, poverty, simplicity, and selflessness. That is why not everything one may find in old hokku is included in the new.
To better explain that, we might look at some verses from two widely-separated periods of hokku — that of Matsuo Bashō in the 1600s, and that of Masaoka Shiki, who died in 1902.
What I would like to point out today is that each wrote more than one kind verse in hokku form, and not all of them fit what we continue in modern hokku.
First there is Bashō. He wrote some verses that are overtly “poetic,” while others are more objective. Let’s look at some examples.
If held in my hand,
My hot tears would melt it;
Autumn frost.
To understand that verse it is essential to know that Bashō is visiting his old home, and is being shown a lock of his dead mother’s white hair. That hair is what he says would melt if he took it in his hand.
Now we can see immediately that there is an unreality, a fantasy element to the verse. Bashō is expressing both his personal sorrow over his mother’s passing and the transience of all things, but he is doing it subjectively by altering reality in his imagination. We know the grey hair would not be melted by his tears; that is just a poetic exaggeration used to show his sorrow, similar to the kind of thing we find in Western poetry. We can characterize verses such as this as his “poetic” side taking over.
The very last line — “Autumn frost” — would ordinarily be appropriate to more objective hokku, however here Bashō is not using it entirely objectively. Instead, he parallels the autumn frost with his mother’s white hair — and autumn frost melts in warmth, while hair does not. And note that we would NEVER write hokku today that require knowledge of the background — knowledge not included in the verse itself — in order to be understood. In this verse we must know that Bashō is really speaking of his dead mother’s white hair in order to grasp what the verse is about. In modern hokku such a verse fails, because a hokku should be able to stand on its own.
Bashō also wrote verses about his personal life, verses which, though more objective, are not good hokku. For example:
One thing —
My life is light.
A gourd.
Again, this requires some explanation. It would be clearer if we add a little more to the literal translation:
Owning one thing,
My life is light —
A hollow gourd.
This too is a poetic exaggeration. Bashō not only owned this gourd, but also his clothing and his writing implements and papers, etc. But he wants to emphasize that his few possessions make his life easier — lighter — than it would be if he owned a lot of things. The hollow gourd was used as a container for rice used in cooking, though it could also be used to store liquids.
By the way, those who have seen the recent book Bashō: the Complete Haiku rendered by Jane Reichhold will find this “gourd” verse very misleadingly and inaccurately rendered there, a caution one should keep in mind when reading the rest of her renderings of Bashō. I do not recommend her book for those who want the “real” Bashō. A far more reliable translation of Bashō’s hokku is that of David Landis Barnhill, even though his book also uses the anachronistic term “haiku” in its title for what were really hokku.
We find more poetic exaggeration in this rather well-known verse by Bashō:
The sea darkens;
The wild duck’s cry
Is a faint white.
That, again, is the “poetic” mind at work. Bashō wants to make an interesting contrast between the darkness and the “voice,” the cry of the wild duck that comes out of it. We want to avoid that kind of manipulation in modern hokku.
Contrast the preceding verses with his best-known verse:
The old pond;
A frog jumps in —
The sound of water.
Note the objectivity. Bashō has stopped talking about himself, has stopped his poetic exaggerating, and has presented us with a hokku that just reflects an event in Nature, in the context of the season — spring. Even though this verse, according to tradition, was reworked and not experienced just as it is written, it nonetheless reflects the realities of Nature rather than Nature made unrealistic by the “poetic” imagination. Such verse is the best of Bashō, and that is why it is in keeping with the principles underlying modern hokku. So again, modern hokku does not include everything ever written as hokku as exemplary, but rather only the best.
If we turn to Masaoka Shiki, we tend to find elements in some of his verses that we found also in Bashō — for example the presence of the personal:
Getting a shave —
On a day when Ueno’s
Bell is misty.
It is obviously objective even though Shiki is writing about himself; the flaw in it is that it is also awkward and rather pointless; we don’t feel any real connection between Shiki getting a shave and the bell standing in mist. We learn from this that objectivity without deeper significance can be boring. Shiki never quite learned that simply recording an event objectively, whether personal or impersonal, does not of itself make good verse. That is why some of his verses tend to be very flat and two-dimensional, like a picture in a book.
A better verse is one he wrote in 1896:
The old garden;
Emptying the hot water bottle
Beneath the moon.
That is more connected to Nature because we feel a connection between the transparent water and the moon. It would be better, however, if it were not a hot water bottle being emptied, but simply a water bottle:
The old garden;
Emptying a water bottle
Beneath the moon.
That way we do not have the word “hot” which is in conflict with the Yin character of the moon; removing it makes a greater harmony between the Yin water sparkling as it is emptied in the moonlight, and the moon itself.
Shiki also wrote:
Spring rain;
Umbrellas all uneven
In the ferry boat.
We see the ferry boat in the spring rain, its passengers all holding opened umbrellas at different heights. We also feel the connection, though it is very obvious, between the spring rain and the umbrellas. So there is a unity in this verse not found in his “being shaved” verse.
Put very bluntly, there was never a period when all hokku were equally good. Only a minority of Bashō’s hokku are still worth reading, and all through the years from Bashō up to Shiki we find hokku that are too “poetic,” too “personal,” and some with the same thing we find in Shiki — verses that are objective but lack any depth or sense of deeper significance.
That is why, again, in modern hokku we use only the best of old hokku as models, and keep only the deeper principles of these as standards for writing new hokku.
When you read the older posts in the archive here, you will see what those deeper principles are — harmony, unity, reflection of the character of a season, and of course a sense of poverty, simplicity, and selflessness combined with the feeling of transience that has always been a part of hokku at its best.
David
HOKKU 