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Featured Writer: Ludmila Balabanova

First-person reflections on the art of writing haibun

Contemporary haibun is a combination of prose and haiku poetry. The prose may be written in any style (from parable to fantasy, often tending toward prose poem), but it must meet the criteria of haiku aesthetics. This means, in general, ultimate brevity and simplicity, concrete imagery without abstraction or comment, and no unnecesary figures of speech. Every word is important (verbiage is unacceptable) and intellectual reflections are avoided, as are directly shared ideas. Like a haiku poem, a haibun is not an insight shared by the author, but an invitation to readers to achieve their own enlightenment.

When an author discovers the characteristics of a genre or form, it is a creative process, refracted through his or her sensitivity and talent. Talent also includes a special sensitivity that helps you to learn from others. It is useful to read the advice of good haibun authors, and it is essential to read their haibun. Here is what I learned after reading 100 good haibun.

The most important thing I learned: haibun is more than a sum of prose and haiku (1+1=3).

There is a hidden element that adds value to a haibun, and it is the most important: the connection between prose and haiku. The poem does not illustrate the prose. Sometimes it repeats the idea of prose, but with the grace of poetry. Very often, the link has been shifted so much that at first glance it seems to be quite detached from the narrative text. The aim is to stimulate the imagination and sensibility of the reader to find deeper relationships and complex connections. The embedded haiku can enhance the hidden emotion, support the theme of the prose in unexpected ways and from a different point of view, and perhaps oppose an idea that is perceived in the prose, raising the entire composition to a higher level. Haibun is subtle and sophisticated literature. If haiku poetry is an art of deep suggestions and barely hinted relations, haibun works on a deeper level in that direction.

Haibun writers can learn much about the technique of associative leaps from the Japanese haiku masters.

In general, the Japanese culture has a rich tradition of indirect transmission of information, in which intuition play a major role. Associative leaps are an expression of a concept whose roots lie in Far Eastern philosophy and especially in the aesthetic principles of Zen. In haiku, this concept is expressed through the technique of disjunction (kire), which in its classical form is realized through the cutting words (kireji). But the tehnique of associative leaps is about much more than just breaking the connection through kireji. Richard Gilbert points out 14 more types of disjunction in his book Poems of Consciousness. Contemporary Japanese & English-language Haiku in Cross-cultural Perspective (Red Moon Press, 2008). This technique is a test for any author—the right balance must be struck so that the reader can feel the message without it being explicitly expressed. The Japanese masters offer important lessons in how to achieve.

Western poets are making their own contributions.

Haibun has its roots in Japan, but it is experiencing a renaissance in the West. Even more interesting is that Western poets have further developed haibun. Thus, it has a double hybridity. One contribution they’ve made is to expand the associative leaps to include the title, increasing its aesthetic role using the rich tradition of Western poetry.

Two companion articles by Joan Zimmerman offer a detailed study of the contrasting Eastern and Western approaches. In “What English-Language Haibun Poets Can Learn from Japanese Poets” (contemporary haibun online, vol. 9, no. 4), she notes how Japanese authors avoid naming their works—and when they do, the title does not play an artistic role. In contrast, “What Haibun Poets Can Learn from Non-Haikai Western Poetry” (contemporary haibun online, vol. 9, no. 3) discusses the Western approach to the title, which often plays a rich aesthetic role with multi-layered metaphors.

Some Western editors have elevated the title to a crucial position. Zimmerman notes that when Modern Haiku’s current haibun editor, Robert Beary, judged the 2012 Haiku Society of America Haibun Awards, her judge’s comments indicated “that she evaluated each haibun ‘by giving equal weight to the title, prose and haiku.'” Zimmerman also mentions that she was surprised by Berry’s criteria, referring to it as “constraining.”

I think a title can offer artistic possibilities. One of my haibun, “Sunflower Field,” is an example of a metaphorical title which makes an associative leap with the rest of the haibun. [To read the full haibun, click here.] The prose narrative tells about a city and its alienated people. The title, completely detached from the story, suggests through the image that no matter how different we are, we are all rooted in a small planet, staring at the same insignificant but close star, and perhaps alone in infinite space. From this perspective, the differences do not seem so great. The connection is indirect, culminating in the final haiku:

looking
at the setting sun
a beggar and i

However, overly strict rules are unacceptable in any art. Sometimes, with prose and haiku heavily metaphorized, a simpler title may sound better. I completely agree with these words of Zimmerman: “I am dubious of any claim that only one template for haibun is valid.” (For more about titles, see also Ray Rasmussen’s essay, “A Title Is a Title Is a Title, or Is It?” published in Haibun Today.)

My own experience with writing haibun.

In the beginning I wrote about my childhood, about memories of my life. Now I am more excited about the universal laws that move the world. I think prose poems are best suited for such pieces. One of my early non-haiku poetry books is titled Fireflies Know. A poem from this book says: “Fireflies know / it cannot be light / all the time.” This is one of the basic principles in Far Eastern thought with roots in the yin/yang concept, which operates on many levels – days and nights, happy and sad days. That is the suggestion of one of my most recent pieces, “Today”… or so I hope. It is from my book Sunflower Field, published in 2019. Of course, a haibun piece most often suggests more than one message.

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Today

Morning is wild—dew drops on tooth marks. I choose the dew. The sun tries to tame this day—but not for long. It starts to drizzle—the dew migrates to some other spaces. After it there remain sad traces, but the wind dries them. The road meanders between round hills. Then the night tiptoes down the slope. We turn the lights on—in hopes of tomorrow.

my star
light years away—
fireflies

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About the Author

Ludmila Balabanova is a computer engineer and has a Ph.D. in literature. Her books include nine collections of poetry (including three haiku books and a haibun book) and a book of criticism on haiku (Haiku: A Dragonfly under the Hat. The Power of the Unsaid, 2014). Her haiku and haibun have won international awards, including both a Touchstone Distinguished Book Award and an HSA Merit Book Award for her collection of haibun, Sunflower Field (Zhanet, Plovdiv, Bulgaria, 2019). She currently lives in Sofia, Bulgaria.