James Hackett (1929 – 2015) was an American poet who is known for his work with haiku in English. The James W. Hackett Annual International Award for Haiku was administered by the British Haiku Society from 1991 to 2009. His books include The Way of Haiku, Zen Haiku and Other Zen Poems, and A Traveler’s Haiku.
I am currently reading an account of Hackett’s ‘Way’, by English poet Paul Russell Miller. Hackett was an early initiator, perhaps the first and certainly the most renown, of both the Nature and the Buddhist traditions of English-language Haiku. He has written that “the present is the touchstone of the haiku experience.” Hackett considered himself a “life worshipper, not an apostle of poetry or art.” He recognized the haiku moment in whatever form he met it as “the very pulse of life itself.” Further, he wrote: “Haiku is more than a form of poetry. I discovered it can be a way—one of living awareness. A way which leads to wonder and joy, and through the discovery of our essential identity—to compassion for all forms of life.”
Robert Spiess, Hackett’s publisher and a poet himself, wrote: “There is no haiku moment of true awareness if the previous instant is not dead, if the ego still clings to what it has named in order to feel secure in its desire to perpetuate itself. The haiku poet needs must live only by continually dying. The whole of life is in each moment, not in the past, not in the future—and thus a true haiku is vitally important because it is a moment of total and genuine awareness of the reality of the Now.”
Thus, we are reminded that, as in Hinduism and Buddhism, the ego is an illusion.
The challenge for me in haiku is to reconcile the observations of this self I call “I”, which writes for others to see, while allowing this “I” to recede to a minimum while also allowing the moment to pervade my senses and direct my pencil.
But let’s get practical. What form does the haiku take? We know about 5-7-5 and the seasons and Nature. I like that there are three lines: a beginning, a middle and an end. I like that one uses as few words as possible to express the present moment, which just ended. I think it not important to be precise about 5-7-5, and possibly not even the three lines. As in a religion, there are a lot of sects in the writing of haiku that have rules which may or may not get in the way of expressing this present moment, depending on one’s point of view or how strong one’s “I” is.
I have corresponded with Paul Miller, author of “The Wild Beyond Echoing; James Hackett’s Haiku Way.” He wrote me: “What constitutes a proper haiku is finally for each individual poet to decide, I think, yet hopefully arrived at without undermining the genre’s history or fundamentals. A certain restlessness and desire for novelty seems all-too common at present, sadly, mirroring society at large.”
Basho, the most renown of the ancient progenitors of haiku, tells us:
“Haiku is simply what is happening in this place at this moment.”
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PS: To be true to the original form, one should use concrete words. If there is to be a feeling or thought for the reader to discern it must come from the juxtaposition and flow of the concrete words.
When an individual decides what a haiku is and has been locked into ‘a certain restlessness and desire for novelty’ (that which ‘seems all-too common at present, sadly, mirroring society at large…’) the decision seems all too likely to me to go against ‘truth to the original form’..For example:-
Is forsythia the wrong destination
Piffle out of ‘Haiku 21’ (Gurga & Metz)..
Yo no comprendo…
‘Haiku 21’ is an anthology of ‘Modern Haiku’ by Gurga & Metz the contents of which suggest to me that people are happy with the idea that if they call what they’ve just written a haiku then that’s just what it is. In ‘Haiku 21’ these five words – ‘Is forsythia the wrong destination’.- are seriously presented as a haiku – where’s ‘the moment’ in those five words? There are many more examples of hycoo like this in ‘Haiku 21’.
I think that they are the result of individuals deciding what a haiku is without any knowledge of or interest in the history of haiku.
Writing haiku is about tapping into a state of mind different from the one we’re usually in – a Zen state of mind.as depicted by James Hackett. Your post says it all. .
Thanks, Colin–I was worried that I had committed something unpardonable.☺
🙂 Glad to have made myself clearer, Ron!