FOREST OF SUBJECTIVITY, On subjectivity in haiku

"Shukan", 主 観  (subjectivity), a calligraphy by Venelina Petkova

Dimitar Anakiev

FOREST OF SUBJECTIVITY, On subjectivity in haiku

I don't know if we need the authority of aesthetics, the science of art, which claims that every art is necessarily subjective, in order to defend the subjectivity of haiku poetry, which Santoka claims to be the "heart of poetry" and Basho claims to be an "expression of freedom", from numerous regulations, rules and definitions. In fact, the only real definition of haiku is the form 5,7,5, which automatically adds the ancient, in all cultures valid, "poetic license", the poet's right to use, mean and violate the form, as required by his poetic vision and need.

Present day destruction of the haiku form, the basic and only definition, has led to a flood of regulations and norms. Probably this is the reason for the need to "define" haiku as an "objective sketch of life", the idea of the young poet Shiki, which today is becoming a cult of Western haiku, although, as we have seen, aesthetics considers this task impossible if we want to talk about art. In fact, art is only objective when it is completely subjective, which means when it is regulated by emotion and not by the mind. I would like to give a few examples of this claim, first a couple of my haiku.

The start of the war.

Through the bare branche I spy on

my neighbors' houses.

                          (from Rustic, translated by Jim Kacian)

This haiku was created on the eve of the Yugoslav wars. It was very popular in Japan thanks to Kiyoshi Nanasavа, the producer of the popular NHK documentary "Haiku Beyond the War in the Balkans", which he really liked. I explained the background of this haiku in front of the camera - it took four years to be written: "I noticed my anxiety as I looked out the windows of my neighbors. I wrote the last two verses but I couldn't finish that haiku successfully. I missed some essential knowledge. After four years, I accidentally found a piece of paper with written verses in my jacket pocket. The war was already raging and I knew what I was missing. I wrote the first verse: 'The beginning of the war'. " This haiku is a seemingly completely objective record in 5,7,5 syllables, “kigo” is “bare branches,” a picture of death. However, this haiku is dominated by the emotion of anxiety. Can a haiku be an “objective sketch” if emotion is its dominant content? Is there anything objective in emotions?

Or the following example:

Spring evening:

the wheel of a troop carrier

crushes a lizard.

                       (from Rustic, translated by Jim Kacian)

My most quoted haiku. Apparently, this is again an "objective sketch". Its topic is "collateral war damage" in NATO terminology, that is the “innocent victims” of the war. All the dead women and children and the unarmed are symbolized by a lizard, a summer topic in the most of the Balkans . This haiku therefore has two "kigо". Can a haiku that has two “kigо” of opposite direction be an “objective sketch”. (So spring and summer haiku at the same time)? Obviously not. It is a typical "gendai" haiku, although it looks like an objective sketch. The lizard suffers, which means that war kills the future as well: it is spring and there will be no summer (future). Obviously the concept of "objective sketch of life" in haiku is not an easily viable concept, however it is the same with other poets, and not only in my case, here is another example:

pandemic walk

one mossy stone

than another

                  Maya Daneva

And this is a seemingly completely "objective sketch", while "pandemic walk" is not a subjective syntagm, but an abbreviation for "objective" phrase less adapted to a haiku manner of expression "walk during a pandemic". However, we see that the landscape of that walk has been radically shortened. The whole landscape is reduced to two stones with moss. We don't know what is next to the stone, whether there is sun and clouds, trees, rivers or anything else we don't know. So again a very subjective haiku. A radically shortened landscape may be the result of the context of this haiku, and one really strong mediation of the pandemic experience. If it is true that an "objective sketch" does not exist, that it is an ideological fabrication that has miraculously turned into a cult of rationalism in Western haiku poetry today, and it is certainly true both in terms of aesthetics and poetic sense, then what prevents us from turning the haiku into a completely subjective expression, into a field of complete freedom, as Venelina Petkova often does, here is another haiku with a stone motif:

stones

the envy inside me is

inextinguishable

I took this haiku from the rensaku "Sporadic" by Venelina Petkova, which she posted on her FB profile in Bulgarian on the first of June. Since it is a matter of binding the verses, the interested reader can find reasons for her jealousy in that rensaku. However, with such direct and openly expressed subjectivity, knowing the real reasons is almost superfluous. Because the magic of this haiku is that it revives the stone. In ancient pagan times, a human could speak with a stone, and today Venelina Petkova is jealous of stones. A very strong pagan emotion but, it should be said, we call haiku of open and direct subjectivity “zen haiku”. And here we return again to the earlier assertion: an objective haiku is only one that is completely subjective.

Zornica Harizanova's expression in the following haiku is equally completely subjective:

an old rug -

the language

of several generations

I took this haiku from the extensive Bulgarian magazine Haiku World no. 5 and 6 (2019/2020). The juxtaposition of the old rug with the language of generations is a very inspired poetic knowledge that speaks of the connection of language with folk culture. This haiku can be compared to Basho's well known haiku (equally completely subjective):

The song of the reapers

in the rice field - 

beginning of art

Unlike Shiki, Basho is the bearer of subjectivity in haiku poetry and as such is certainly a much better basis for contemporary haiku. 

Contemporary Japanese haiku masters have a different approach to subjectivity. Some, like Hoshinaga Fumio, like to disguise it and even write down completely imaginative haiku as “shasei,” however, it is a matter of the artist’s strategy rather than actual objectivity. Such is the case with the haiku "amusement park" in which we again encounter the case of two opposing "kigo".

the amusement park
full of nazis –
this autumn

                  Hoshinaga Fumio

Others, again, quite openly express their subjectivity in complex allegories. What Gendai really brought to haiku is a shift from ordinary metaphors to allegory. Here are two haiku by Tohta Kaneko:

Japanese plum bloom my lake:

blue sharks swim everywhere tiger’s shadow next to it

through the garden so black

the plum in bloom
blue sharks have come right in
into the garden

I recently wrote the following haiku:

The night ate

the forest, spring rain

drew it again.

I called this haiku in one of my FB comments in Bulgarian "subjective sketch", superimposing it on the rather meaningless concept of "objective sketch". For me, replacing the visual image of the forest, which disappeared in the night, with the sound image drawn by the rain was something quite objective, even although the feeling and "method" is subjective. In that comment, I wrote: “In fact, it is a subjective sketch, unlike Shiki's objective sketch. I will declare it my style and call it "Shukan" 主 観 (subjectivity). I like the "kanji" and their meaning: 'a look at the important'.” I add here a few more of my last haiku in "Shukan", subjective, style.

Seemingly free

slave: red-haired woodpecker

in a green forest.

Reading the impressions

of the poet on the condition of her body,

I drink moonlight.

The wind is my friend -

its whistling at the night

makes a dense forest in my soul.

For Good Friday the French kiss

eats: two eggs, a large green hot pepper

and a glass of milk.