As I have mentioned many times, when R. H. Blyth wrote about haiku in his four- volume set under that title, as well as in his two-volume History of Haiku and in his other writings, what he was really talking about was hokku. Yes, he included verses of Masaoka Shiki — the “founder” of haiku — in his anthology, but as we have seen, Shiki for all practical purposes still wrote hokku; he just re-named his verses and declared his “haiku” independent of linked verse, though hokku had already often been written independent of linked verse even in the times of Bashō.
So that means generally, when we read Blyth, we can simply substitute “hokku” for the anachronistic term popular in the Japan of Blyth’s time, “haiku”; and I shall do that in what follows.
When, in his book Oriental Humour, Blyth writes of hokku, he says this:
“Chinese culture was to a large extent that of rich people, at least of scholars, but in Japan, especially from the seventeenth century [the time of Bashō], there was a poetry of poverty, quite different from that of the Renaissance culture of Europe, based as much of it was upon power and wealth.
Senryu, no less than hokku, arises from poverty, that material poverty which invariably accompanies spiritual poverty.”
Further, he writes something that many may find shocking:
“To live the life of hokku it is necessary to be poor and obscure; it is a difficult and narrow way, and few and fewer there be that find it.” (pages 208-209)
Elsewhere, Blyth suggested that if one wanted to write hokku, one should live in a house with a roof that leaks — or at least one with a roof that has the potential of leaking.
Now what does all this mean for the writer of hokku today?
Well, it does not mean you have to get rid of everything you own and empty your bank account and live on the street. It does mean that we — as writers of hokku — should live simply, non-materialistically, and close enough to Nature to be keenly aware of its changes within the seasons. It also means that we should be able to appreciate simple food and simple pleasures such as a warm blanket on a cold night, or a cool drink of water on a hot day. We should be able to recognize the essentials in life, and not live as though possessions answered spiritual needs (which they definitely do not). It means we live modestly rather than extravagantly, and we do not try to “make a name for ourselves,” which simply feeds the ego — and hokku is definitely not “ego” verse.
On reading of “… that material poverty which invariably accompanies spiritual poverty,” one thinks of those like Henry David Thoreau, who wrote ‘The necessaries of life for man in this climate may, accurately enough, be distributed under several heads of Food, Shelter, Clothing, and Fuel.’ We should be very aware of just what we choose to add to those basics in our lives — and why. Blyth once suggested that we should have few possessions, but those few should be of the best quality for the purpose that we can manage.
Hokku asks us to look — as Thoreau once did — for the essential facts of life, and not to clutter it with all that is unnecessary and pointlessly distracting — all that our consumer-based society tries to convince us we need — in spite of the environmental and spiritual cost.
Of course in the Japan of the old writers, poverty was common and often right at the door. We live in easier times today if we are fortunate (and many are not, even in the supposed “wealthiest country in the world”) — but we should still keep to the simplicity and selflessness of hokku.
That poverty also extends to the verse we write. Hokku is not a florid or extravagant kind of verse. It uses simple words in simple ways. It does not try to be clever or intellectual — in fact hokku deliberately avoids intellectualism of all kinds — including the luxury of a writer ornamenting or elaborating or commenting needlessly on his subject. Everything is kept very bare, using only what is essential to convey an experience of Nature and the place of humans within and as a part of Nature, set in the context of the changing seasons. That is why we often mention three of the important characteristics of hokku as poverty, simplicity, and selflessness.
That does not, of course, mean that the life of hokku is without pleasure, but it is not the kind of pleasure modern society often so frantically seeks. Instead, the life of hokku is one of simple pleasures, and those may be found in many places, and often without cost. Here is a hokku in daoku form by Bashō:
(Autumn)
Among the stones
In the stone seller’s yard —
Blooming chrysanthemums.
菊 の 花 咲く や 石屋 の 石 の 間
Kiku no hana saku ya ishiya no ishi no ai
Chrysanthemum’s flower bloom ya stone-seller ‘s stones among
David
HOKKU 