Beyond Our Borders: Expanding the Potential of Haibun
Jamie Edgecombe

To start with, I would like to make known that this essay is by no means an attack on any writer's or editor's work. What I am presenting here, in regards to my own work and the haibun of some other writers, are suggestions in an attempt to open up further discussion. For haibun is still a form that remains ambiguous and at times paradoxical. Firstly, the main aim in this essay is to look briefly at how haibun can be used as a vehicle for creative "freedom", and the debate that has sprung up regarding its "rules of engagement". Secondly, in connection with this, I will propose that the importance of the text has been overshadowed in recent debates upon the nature of "haiku prose" (to use a term borrowed from Higginson's The Haiku Handbook).

Haibun have always been a means of presenting our experiences of the world around us and therefore should incorporate more than just its physical attributes. In other words, while respecting the value placed within the "appreciation of experience for the sake of experience", there is room for more subjective approaches, such as those found in other related forms like the tanka. However, as the September 2001 haibun edition of Blithe Spirit makes clear, abstraction, theorising, philosophising and explaining should be resisted. I do agree strongly with one point here and that is the avoidance of detailed explanations. As Ezra Pound wrote, poetry should "not describe, but present", and I feel that this has a great significance when writing haibun and indeed other forms of Japanese poetry. As we know, the key word when writing such forms of verse is brevity; as detailed by R.H. Blyth in his text, The Genius of Haiku (I will return to this point at the end of this essay). However, after reading David McMurray's article "Composing Haiku in English as a Foreign Language" in World Haiku Review, I have come to believe that to use influences from one's own cultural and literary heritage can produce an expansive aesthetic which can broaden the "meanings" which one can incorporate into haibun (if indeed one thinks they should be so bold). For as Edward Said made clear, literature forms culture and cultures in turn shape literatures.

Therefore, as Susumu Takiguchi's article, " A Haiku Moment of Truth", in World Haiku Review) points out, that although we are writing in a borrowed style, we are not using the native language from which it was born, and neither can we understand the Japanese mind-set that has shaped its contours over the centuries. Therefore, direct reproduction of the Japanese aesthetic is impossible and maybe even undesired.

I would like to turn down a slightly different path just here and look at one of (if not the strongest) theme in present day haibun and that is "nature", or more accurately, one's " immersion in nature". This is portrayed through such experiences as walking, hiking and mountain climbing; or extended forms of such activities like hitch-hiking, long distance cycling and even driving. It should be noted here that these are actually akin to the Japanese verse-form of kikou, or travel diary (the most famous of which is Matsuo Basho's Nozarashi Kikou). Such haibun are numerous in anthologies like Bruce Ross' Journey Into the Interior, American Versions of Haibun, the title of which comes from a translation of Basho's famous work. During such activities as those listed above, one can be alone with oneself and find solitude in nature, an association of Self and the natural world which originates from Japan's traditional nature aesthetic.

However, within English language haibun (I dislike Ross' wholesale claim towards American-styled haibun at this point in time), there does seem to be a rather loud echo from the English Romantic and American Transcendentalist periods, where through meditation upon the natural world and our place as human beings within it, one was said to be able to discover the inner secrets of the Self. This connection has been recognised by such scholars as Blyth, where he notes how the religious insight into the nature of divinity has been replaced by the Buddhist view of mujo, a recognition of the ephemeral nature of all things. Whereas in Western poetics, we can become aware of the inscape of things (to use Hopkins' terminology), in haiku and its related form haibun, we can become aware of the magnitude of life, while at the same time appreciating its fleetingness and intricacy.

Many "meanings" that can be seen to operate within these haibun, are about ecology and the art of minimal living; allowing some poets to uncover deep feelings of satisfaction, loneliness and even (however questionably)  "enlightenment". However, few poets make wider connections to such abstractions as "modern capitalist society, which, in fact may be instigating the poet's need for "escape" into the natural world. Yet, one poet who I feel balances all these responses is Gary Snyder, in such poems as "Look Out Journal" (from his collection, Earth House Hold) and "Night Highway 99" (from Mountains and Rivers Without End). Within Ross' collection, we can find such connections in "Far From Home" by Leatrice Lifshitz. In this poem, Lifshitz harks back to the era of American expansion into the West, while grounding her physical self in the present, allowing the reader to "expand" themselves into what it remains unsaid. Yet it still remains that large numbers of haibun do not make this final leap into the greater world, maybe because of the consensus that is opposed to such abstraction and philosophising.

Albeit, I feel that through allusion to place, historical event, people and systems/cycles (be they natural like the water cycle or man made like a battle field), haibun can protect itself from becoming stayed and over-ritualised. Susumu Takiguchi, in his introduction to "Real Haiku" (World Haiku Review, August 2001), actually emphasizes the works of haiku and haibun writers who take on the "realities of [the] political, social and economic life of humans." These include Robert Wilson's continuing series of haibun entitled "Vietnam Ruminations" (World Haiku Review Vol. 1 - 2). In these linked haibun Wilson recalls the terrible effects his experiences during the Vietnam War had and still continue to have on him and the country he was supposed to be fighting for, including its abandonment by the United States. Despite addresses these experiences from a political vantage point, indeed through many of the haiku themselves, he also illustrates the life of a soldier when fighting and while in action, while all the time being surrounded by Vietnam's overwhelming natural beauty and history. Another poet whom Takiguchi features is Victor P. Gendrano, with his haiku series "Somewhere in the US", a linked poem that takes on the global issues of maternity rights, child poverty and the sex industry etc, all of which tie into the processes of global capitalism. An example of which is as follows:

SOMEWHERE IN ASIA:
she sells her body
to drunken sailors
for family food

Victor P. Gendrano
World Haiku Review

Such illusions to place, people, event and so on can also be hidden within the context or language of the poem, such as in "intertextual / transtextual" works. An example of such a practice can be seen in Masaoka Shiki's nashi saku ya ikusa no ato kuzure ie ("the pear blossoming / after the battle / ruined house" 1), an unusual appearance of a war haiku, which can be seen to be in correspondence with Matsuo Basho's natsugusa ya tsuwamonodomo ga yume no ato ("summer grasses/ those mighty warriors/ dream-tracks" 2). This link, which effectively collapses the Western idea of time and space, comes with the pun on the word ato, which can be written with three different kanji, one meaning "after" and another "track". Moreover, the original poem itself is a response, not just to direct stimuli, but to a past historical event. One modern British poet who uses a similar effect through his haibun is Arwyn Evans, in such poems as "MacNamara's Drive" (Presence, #16).

This is where Zen-styled thought can be seen as having an effect, for when pondering upon the nature of "The Void", one is supposed to realise that the present and the past, just as "here" and "over there", are illusions placed upon reality by human thought. Higginson describes this way thinking as the "vertical axis" of the haiku moment, as opposed to the "here and now"  (i.e. direct stimulus) of the horizontal axis. Many haibun writers, and indeed haiku poets, seem to neglect the broadening possibilities and meanings that such references can have, instead preferring to focus on the "here and nowness" of things, as influenced by the Japanese concepts of mu (justness) and mujo (ephemerality). In other words, Higginson's "horizontal axis". Such fixations could lead to a narrow and yet paradoxically "all-encompassing" aesthetic. For if one completely dissolves into one's "immediate" surroundings, there is the danger of forgetting about the rest of the world beyond our horizons, and the moment beyond the breath we are taking right now). This is where the text could be at its most useful, for the haiku, while adhering to the acknowledged rules and disciplines of its art, could allow the text to be freed to act as a vehicle for such branching connections and roots. Within such a conception, the limited use of metaphor and simile could also be advantageous. To use the text as a mere prologue for the haiku would be wasteful and confining.

After saying all this though, I would like to say that I do not agree with Dick Pettit's comments in Presence, #14 that "men are born free, and therefore haibun should be too". For in the end, if we strain our sense of freedom too much, we will find that what we are writing is something other than the form we love (also see Alan Jarrett's response in Presense, #15). An example of this, in my opinion, would be Marlene Mountain's "haibun": 'shetrillogy: an owom maytreearchy womocreativa', (Kyoto Journal, #33). First of all, there is nothing in this piece to inform the reader that they are reading a haibun (if indeed that is what it is), other than the title. All I can guess, is that the labeling of the piece as a "shevolutionary haibun", means that its over-rebellious style illustrates a way to overcome the so-called patriarchal nature of many acknowledged forms of literature, for language itself is supposed to be infused with patriarchal methods of differentiation. The key critique of this work is that is doesn't contain any haiku, from what I can depict. Instead, the piece works through a complete reordering of word-structure, with emphasis placed on how "eman" and "eprick" can be phonically emphasized in a number of different words. The reason why I have chosen to highlight this poem is because I feel that haibun, and indeed, haiku, can express a feminist view of life and experience (and therefore expand its relevance), as illustrated in the poetry of Hashimoto Takako (1899-1963). Yet, having said this, to call Mountain's style, here, "haibun" would be an abuse of the freedom that other haibun writers, including myself, are seeking.

As a means of conclusion, I would like to request that writers still take the same amount of care and discipline in the writing of the poem's haiku, while at the same time, recognising the reverse, i.e. that the text is an equally important component. Indeed, the text and the haiku are symbiotic. However, using the same grammar structures and styles that are used in the writing of the haiku should be limited or resisted, otherwise the text will appear only as a longer form of haikai. As the late Robert Spiess once wrote to me, " the most important thing to remember while writing haibun is to avoid repetition of style and content."

One last thought before I leave you to scrutinize my work (and achieve my goal of further discussion) harks back to the notion of brevity that I touched on earlier. This is, because I feel that whilst writing haibun, one should bear in mind (in addition to what I have already suggested) the Japanese notion of sabi. Sabi is difficult for Japanese people to explain in their own tongue, so I will just leave you with a few key words to ponder on:

• beauty
• humbleness
• order
• calmness
• economy of action
• silence

If you are interested in seeing examples of my haibun, they are scheduled for publication in these future editions of Raw Nervz Haiku: VIII:1, VIII:2, VIII:3, VIII:4 and VIII:5; along with the Spring and Fall edition of Modern Haiku this year.

~ reprinted from The World Haiku Review, vol 1, no 2, 2002.

Jamie Edgecombe is from Plymouth, UK and teaches high-school English in Sapporo, Japan. He is currently working in the Japanese English  Teaching Programme and studies Japanese and post-modern American poetics for his own pleasure. His poetry has been published in various online and paper poetry journals including Asahi Shimbun (JP), Lynx (USA), dew-on-line (UK) Aabye (UK), Modern Haiku (USA), Blithe Spirit (UK), The Journal of Anglo-Scandinavian Poetry (UK), Fire (UK), Presence (UK), First Time (UK),  Psychopoetica (UK), Poetry Now (three anthologies; UK), Poetry Today  (UK), Prismo (YU), Climbing Art (USA) and the Parnassus Literary Journal (USA). He also has acceptances of his haibun in Raw Nervz: VIII:1, VIII:2, VIII:3, VIII:4 and VIII:5; along with the Spring and Fall edition of Modern Haiku 2002.