Most Western haiku "poets" understand haiku as "risk-free" poetry. A few leaves, a few flowers, birds, some gentle thought and everything is fine. "I am a poet, without risk." It will not be – every art, including poetry, requires a view of the world. Without his/her worldview, there is no poetry. And that carries a risk. Maybe people won't like your view of the world? So, confrontation, struggle, is a part of poetry, like any autonomous attitude towards life. You need to defend your view of the world as if it were your heart, liver, lungs ... And it is so.
I have to say that I wrote a lot of haiku that no one wanted to publish. It was a great incentive for me to be on the right path, my own, author's path. And, I also received indirect support, especially from Japan, from editors who were not allowed to publish my haiku. A very nice example is the famous Japanese poet who first refused to publish my haiku "Haiku and Palestine" and then in the comments below my FB post of the same haiku wrote the calligraphically, in Serbian, "Happy Birthday" ("Srećan rođendan"). I was surprised because it wasn’t even close to my birthday. And then I understood: that's how the Japanese give support. Encrypted, it is part of their historical reality. Here, in a sea of censored haiku of mine that no one wanted to publish, I am publishing the three most famous along with the “Happy Birthday” calligraphy.
A Neanderthal man
bombing Afghanistan back
to the Stone Age.
Haiku and Palestine
two precious things with
the same destiny.
- Dimitar Anakiev
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