The Crisis cont.

I have been studying Bruce Ross’s essay “The Essence of Haiku” in the current Modern Haiku (Autumn, 2007; see http://www.modernhaiku.org/essays/RossEssenceHaiku.html"> It is a brave undertaking – an attempt to recast the key terms of the art. Any response to it at present must be fragmentary. I will take up his ideas one by one in this and future blogs. My first attempt is dedicated to the language of his first paragraph and how it frames the question of the crisis of contemporary American haiku.

The essay is a version of remarks given at the Second European Haiku Conference this June in Sweden. It opens with a critique of American haiku: “Too much contemporary haiku is composed to the end of wit or flashy connections between images.” While we recognize the note of crisis (it is being sounded regularly now), Ross’s way of putting it – “too much . . . is composed” -- makes contemporary haiku sound like sausage—too much haiku (haiku is ambiguous as a noun)-- rather than poems (not that a good poem cannot be compared to a tasty sausage). Either this is just sloppy language or it is an accurate reflection of Ross’s attitude.

The sentence goes on: “to the end of wit or flashy connections . . .” “To the end” means, usually, “with the goal of” – Ross is attributing this to the poets’ intention: wit and flashy connections between images are what these American haiku writers are after. Or he may mean that, regardless of what the poets intend, to him all this leads to mere wit and “flashy connections.” The confusion conveys Ross’s consternation in a way that may recall, to some of his readers, Samuel Johnson’s comments on metaphysical poetry.

The mood worsens: in contemporary American haiku, what passes for "visceral emotion" recalls only the stereotyped "emotions" displayed in mass media. His point is, I think, that a “real emotional response” to something in the world appears, in haiku, as unreal/unspontaneous/insincere (“transparent”?)—or, perhaps the poet merely substituted “the expression of visceral emotion” with prefabricated images from the “media." In any event, the assumption seems to be that what is “visceral” and unmediated (by social conventions) is to be preferred to what is too often offered in contemporary American haiku, not to mention "the media."

Ross’s diagnosis comes down to the nature of the emotions engaged by contemporary haiku. Instead of real emotions, we get wit and superficial, half-baked images that remind one of the content of broadcast media. “Feeling” is indeed a key concept in Ross’s essay.

Indeed, against this pitiful state of affairs, Ross proposes “discussions about the states of feeling and their ‘transformational effect’ in relation to haiku . . .” and these discussions will “balance these directions” and “in effect, save the essence of haiku.” As a program, this is impressive, if vague – what IS “transformational effect,” not to mention “states of feeling”? As for the “essence of haiku,” one can only hope Ross has something up his sleeve. His opening statements, clearly intended to win the reader’s confidence, have in any case piqued his curiosity.

New haiku

condensation
the day after Thanksgiving
kitchen windows
-- M. F.



in the cold rain
hunched over the mud flat
stately heron
-- M. F.



cupped
in brown leaves
snow flowers
-- M. F.




in the silence
the tingle of touch
winter fly
-- T. D'E




winter glare
off the tidal pond
bufflehead surfaces
-- T. D'E