reviewed
by Michael Dylan Welch
World Haiku 2005, edited by Banya Natsuishi
(Tokyo: Nishida-shoten, 2004). ISBN 4-88866-392-0.
272 pages, 6½ x 8.25½, perfectbound. $16.00 postpaid
from the editor, 3-16-11 Tsuruse-nishi, Fujimi,
Saitama 354-0026, Japan. See <http://www.worldhaiku.net/news_files/wh2005/wh2005eng.htm>
for more information.
The
World Haiku Association, now in its fifth year,
has published World Haiku 2005, the first
volume of what promises to be an annual anthology
of worldwide haiku poetry and criticism. Chiefly
edited by cofounder and president Banya Natsuishi
with a six-person editorial staff, a twelve-person
translation staff, and a designer, the book provides
a substantial taste of work by a variety of haiku
poets, presumably all WHA members. The book is worthwhile,
whether readers devour the entire collection or
dip into it to read work by familiar names or deliberately
those whose names may be unfamiliar. Be prepared,
though, to spend some time at it, not only because
of the volume and variety of material, but because
of the challenging diversity of writing styles that
are called upon to represent the length and breadth
of world haiku today.
More ambitious than many haiku anthologies, this
book contains 456 haiku by 152 poets (three poems
each), forty-five pages of essays by five writers,
and an eight-page gallery presenting thirty-three
haiga (though not in color, and most are too small
to see well). Whats more, the entire text
is offered in both English and Japanese, spread
over 272 pages. By virtue of how English reads from
left to right, and Japanese typically from right
to left, the book has two front covers, on either
end, and the page numbers increase towards the middle,
where the haiga gallery offers a visual and bilingual
melding. Even if you confine yourself to one of
the books two main languages, reading the
entire collection requires an ambitious reader.
In
this books poetry section, North American
readers will find several familiar names, such as
anya, Randy Brooks, Jim Kacian, David G. Lanoue,
Allen McGill, Carmen Sterba, Zinovy Vayman, and
Billie Wilson. Still, many dozens of prominent North
American writers are absent, presumably because
they are not WHA members, revealing a limitation
in the book, or perhaps a disinterest in the World
Haiku Association or world haiku on
the part of American writers. On the other hand,
a healthy selection of poets from elsewhere makes
up for it, and several of their names will also
be familiar, such as Dimitar Anakiev, Martin Berner,
Angelee Deodhar, Vladimir Devidé, Kai Falkman,
Alain Kervern, Philip Rowland, Kuniharu Shimizu,
and Geert Verbeke. The majority of poets represented
are Japanese, and many of their names may be unfamiliar
to most Western readers, but perhaps that situation
will begin to change as books such as this broaden
our awareness and knowledge while bringing of haiku
poets closer together worldwide..
For
twenty-one of the poets in this collection, their
poems appear not only in Japanese and English, but
also in their native language. Two poets poems
appear in French and German, respectively, plus
Japanese, but not in English. Though no biographical
information is provided, we are told the year each
poet was born, along with his or her nationality.
Birth years range from 1920 (Yoneko Arimitsu) to
1974 (Izumi Kaneko) and the average birth year is
exactly 1942. Unsurprisingly, the average birth
year for the Japanese participants is 1939.5, compared
to 1946.6 for non-Japanese. Poets are represented
from 20 countries, with 97 poets resident in Japan,
a surprising 15 in Bulgaria, 14 in the United States,
three in France, two each in Germany, India, Croatia,
Macedonia, Russia, Australia, and Slovenia, and
one each in Portugal, Estonia, Ireland, Sweden,
Denmark, Mexico, Romania, Serbia and Montenegro,
and Belgium. One may conclude from the fact that
the book includes more Bulgarians than Americans
that American haiku poets may be more myopic about
world haiku than those in other countries,
for surely there could be more American members
of WHA than there seem to be. By virtue of geography,
if not other factors, Americans have limited daily
interaction with most other cultures or languages
(in contrast to people in, say, European countries),
which might help explainthough not justifythis
myopia. On the other hand, even the Japanese participation
is relatively small when weighed as a percentage
of the entire community of haiku writers in Japan
(numbering millions).
World
Haiku 2005 is well organized, cleanly designed,
and easy to enter. The preceding facts about the
book should underscore how difficult it is to bring
poems and commentary together from around the world
in a representative volumeand for that task
alone, the book succeeds admirably. Where it is
perhaps less successful is as an arbiter of quality,
leaning, as it does, towards a seemingly democratic
inclusiveness. As a result, the poems themselves
are variable in quality, or reflect such a wide
range of styles or tastes that surely every reader
will find some poems not suitable to his or her
taste, regardless of their quality within their
own aesthetic stance. Here is one random selection,
by Bulgarian poet Stefan Petkov, which you can judge
for yourself:
Over
the shadow
of my years
north radiance
The
books variety is both laudable, a testament
to the challenges of supporting and developing world
haiku, and problematic, in that its easy to
think of some poems as failures when they seem at
times radically different from what one might expect
of haiku. This is not so much a problem for the
poems written by experienced poets, but it is a
problem for a few poems that seem more naive or
accidental than, say, surefootedly surreal. Sometimes
poems or prose may stumble because of the translations,
and sometimes only a simplified message or effect
survives the translation, unfairly lessening the
original text. Still, for those reading English
only, we have nothing else to assess. As a result,
the poetry and prose may come across as uneven partly
for necessities of translation. The unevenness of
a book such as this may well be attributed to the
limitation of its contents being just by members,
but it makes for an interesting snapshot of the
World Haiku Association and its members who elected
or were selected to participate. Though the book
is full, a brief introduction on the nature of the
selection process might have clarified reader expectations
on quality and inclusiveness.
For
those more attracted by the prose than the poems,
the five essays are by Russian-American writer Vayman
(Haiku in Russia), the Portuguese Casimiro
de Brito (The Way of Haiku), the Bulgarian
Ludmila Balabanova (Between the West and the
East), the Briton (resident in Japan) Philip
Rowland (Surrealism and Contemporary Haikuor,
Surreal Haiku?), and Banya (For
World Haiku) from Japan. The essays by Balabanova
and Rowland are the most substantial, but regardless
of length or quality, the selection gives an engaging
sample of haiku criticism from various voices and
places.
Rowlands
essay comes to the defense of surrealist haiku,
and ultimately of Banya, whereas Balabanovas
essay presents a fresh overview of the development
of Bulgarian haiku, noting that the form [of
haiku] will develop in every language according
to [the languages] characteristics,
and that Haiku is not a perception shared
by the author, but an invitation to the reader to
achieve his own enlightenment. If anything
may be observed as a slim commonality to these essays,
and perhaps this book as a whole, it may be a sort
of self-assertion, as if the notion of world
haiku still needs to be justified or explained,
or that the particular styles of some of its key
writers perhaps need defending from criticism. However,
too often the entire haiku movement, at least outside
Japan, suffers from a sort of inferiority complex
relative to mainstream poetry, or a perceived lack
of respect, prompting haiku proselytization. Perhaps
this inferiority exists only to the extent that
the haiku community persists in wanting more respect.
Indeed, perhaps haiku will gain more respect at
precisely the point when it stops insisting on it,
and stops evangelizing to turn more resolutely to
the task of earning that respector realizing
where it has already been earning it. Likewise,
world haiku seems to be in a similar
situation within the realm of haiku in general,
and may not need to try so hard to assert itself.
In any event, some of this books poetry may
be included by virtue of the poets being members
of the association, and is thus potentially uneven
for that reason alone. Nonetheless, a significant
number of the poems reflect a deliberate sort of
rebelliousness (or were selected for this reason)
poems that try to be different, surreal, unusual,
or are accepted as being regionally representative,
even though a few of them may have been written
out of inexperience or naïveté rather
than truly conscious competence. Beyond this, though,
it is the essays that seem to give the slightly
defensive or overcompensating assertive tone that
perhaps wont be needed in future anthologies.
As
this series of anthologies appears annually over
many years, perhaps a refinement will take place,
with more poets being involved, greater selectivity
being applied, and a graduation towards greater
confidence rather than hinting of rebellion or defensiveness.
To be able to compare this first volume with projected
later volumes, and to enjoy this volume for its
present compendium of poems and essays, you are
urged to read World Haiku 2005 for yourself.
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