True, the Japanese master Matsuo Basho (1644-94) formed and taught a theory of “lightness of touch” (karumi) that includes humour, but belly-laugh humour about the human condition belongs to senryu, a whole other poetic form (and no, Uther Dean’s poems don’t cut the senryu mustard either). They are not jokes or puns, they are not epigrams and they are not statements. They are poems that find the extraordinary in the seemingly ordinary while using everyday language. My next point is that haiku are poems – sadly, this is not blindingly obvious to people who write “haiku” with no grounding in haiku. To reflect the natural world, and the season, is to reflect what is.”Īs an aside, of the 330 haiku by 70 poets in number eight wire, which surveys the decade from 2008, only one is 5-7-5. No less a poet than Gary Snyder has said: “I don’t think counting 5,7,5 syllables is necessary or desirable. That ratio simply doesn’t hold – the very word “haiku”, for example, is two English syllables and three Japanese sound units. So what’s with the 5-7-5 idea? It’s based on a misunderstanding by early translators who recognised that Japanese haiku fell into a regular pattern, and deemed that one Japanese sound unit was equal to an English syllable. Of course, some poets choose to write within the 5-7-5 structure and are perfectly entitled to do so – but unfortunately, for most people, counting syllables encourages poor poetry, either by adding unnecessary words or by omitting necessary words and creating Tonto-isms (after Tonto in The Lone Ranger who usually left out definite articles), for instance, ‘baby blows bubbles’, instead of ‘a/the baby is blowing bubbles’. The vast majority of poets writing haiku in English in the 21st century do not bother counting syllables at all – being able to say a haiku in one breath is as good a measure as any as to whether the length is right. This is untrue, and if only the school curriculum would update: one primary teacher wailed, “but how will I know it’s a haiku if it’s not 5-7-5?”. The other is that they are written to a strict syllable count of 5-7-5. One is that the form originated in Japan (true). When I’ve taught haiku it’s clear there are two things people feel confident in “knowing”. The most favoured translation is: old pond / a frog jumps in / the sound of water Image: Masako Ishida, via Getty.

Basho’s most famous haiku, still known throughout Japan and around the world, was composed in 1686. The new stand-alone form was known as hokku (head or lead verse) until the 19th century, when the poet Masaoka Shiki renamed the verse haiku and reinvigorated its practice in Japan. Haiku as we know it today originated in Japan and was sliced out of a much older form of poetry by Matsuo Basho in the late 17th century. And there seem to be plenty who don’t even try to understand the form even while labelling their poems “haiku”. Several mainstream poets in New Zealand have, or do, occasionally write haiku. I’m writing now to attempt to convey the frustration that people who write haiku feel about the people who use the term “haiku” for what are really short poems.

With Margaret Beverland I organised the 2012 Haiku Festival Aotearoa in Tauranga and in March we published the fourth New Zealand haiku anthology, number eight wire. Both sites are updating the piece in 2019. Source: Pinterest.Ī request from The Haiku Foundation’s website (US) set me writing and compiling The Haiku History of New Zealand, published by Haiku NewZ and by THF. She offered her support as I began to explore the form that has captivated me ever since.Īfter I got my rubbish poems out of the way I’ve gone on to win many haiku awards around the world, judged international contests, and had poems published in Britain, the United States, Australia, Japan, India, Croatia and New Zealand.Īfter the first Haiku Festival Aotearoa in 2005 I took responsibility for building and running the Haiku NewZ website which functions as a hub for this country’s haiku community and has become respected internationally as a clearing house of haiku news, and reading on the forms of haiku, senryu, tanka, renku and haibun. I have been writing and studying haiku since 1993, when I met Catherine Mair, founder of the Katikati Haiku Pathway.

But as I have no doubt that my name is unknown outside the haiku community I believe I need to establish my credentials, that I know what I’m talking about. The quote marks are intentional.īrace for a bit of horn-tooting. On March 15 this year The Spinoff published in its coveted Friday Poem spot 11 “haiku” by Uther Dean.

(This weekend, a response from Uther Dean). Sandra Simpson, champion of haiku, writes to those who misunderstand – and disrespect – the form that defines her writing life.

Johnny haiki