Featured Writer: J Hahn Doleman
First-person reflections on the art of writing haibun
The subtitle assigned to this essay reminds me of the Narcissus myth. As writers, we spend a considerable amount of time alone, gazing down at words that reflect our thoughts, and the potential to become enthralled by what we see is very real. The tragedy of Narcissus, though, is not that he is mesmerized by his mirror image, but that he is satisfied with the view, never reaching out to ruffle the surface, or diving in to discover a deeper truth. Narcissus never acquires a knowledge of self, remaining instead a two-dimensional figure. The myth is a cautionary tale, a warning not to be obsessed with our own appearance. It is also an appeal to search beyond ourselves, to take a chance on the unknown, however formidable that may be.
A difficult chore for me as a writer is to unbuckle the armor of artifice, leaving myself open to rejection and embarrassment. Yet, vulnerability is an essential component of creative work that both inspires and endures. We must reach past the image we project––and protect––to confront what makes us most uncomfortable. Prior to adopting haibun, writing was a way for me to hide behind the facade of a profession and avoid an honest appraisal of my own thoughts and emotions. My work as a cub reporter on a local newspaper was rewarding, but I rarely took a personal interest in the stories I wrote, so it gave me a sense of safety. When the theatre bug bit me and I briefly pursued playwriting, I never allowed my own voice to inhabit the characters I created. Finally looking past what I wanted to see was a necessary step in my artistic development. The practice of writing haibun has prompted me to laugh at my reflection, plunge into the frigid waters at the deep end of my soul, and dredge the bed of my subconscious.
canyon walls the echo of voices from my past
It was Dr. Seuss––much to my mother’s exasperation––who introduced me to the phonic properties of words. But, the art of storytelling first grabbed hold of me in children’s books like Pyewacket, Rosemary Weir’s tale about a motley crew of house cats that I read not once, not twice, but a third and then a fourth time, fascinated by how it bred in me a paradox. On one hand, I felt an affinity for the cats who were scheming to rid the neighborhood of people, yet I sympathized as well with the human characters who wanted to remain in their homes.
What captivated me most about Weir’s book––what elicited deep and complicated emotions––was how she developed the relationships among the cats, and those between each cat and its human, bringing complexity and authenticity to the story without lengthy exposition, abstract language, or tangled plotlines. This seems to me a valuable approach when writing haibun, particularly in light of its economical architecture. By focusing on the exchanges among principal players and their environment, we increase the capacity to elicit from readers multiple, intricate, and often conflicting reactions.
This capacity is a major muscle group of all good literature, regardless of genre. Exercising these muscles so they are powerful enough to move a reader demands we often labor through multiple drafts of the same piece. Each new version of a haibun is an experiment that can take a different point of view, rearrange the chronology of events, and add or subtract––well, mostly subtract––material to achieve balance, clarity, and precision. This part of the writing process is often what I enjoy most, as it forces me to look at what is on the page from a variety of perspectives, recognizing the end result is less important than what I experience and discover on the way there. Haibun is particularly conducive to this approach, I believe, because it is so adaptable to various themes, tones, and constructions while not being saddled with the same plot constraints as a novel or a play.
Similar to plein air painting or sumi-e, haibun writing often depicts a scene with the eye of a minimalist. Yet, such a limitation still leaves the gate open for much creativity. How poets represent what they see depends on their sensibilities, the color palette they choose, and the techniques they employ. In her book Basho: The Complete Haiku (Kodansha, 2008), poet and translator Jane Reichhold reports some scholars believe Basho fictionalized certain events in Narrow Road to the Deep North so his travel journal would follow the arc of a traditional renga, with all its compulsory verses and references. Haibun are not simply random diary entries, Reichhold adds. “The haibun are to be poetic prose, the idea being that the principles that govern poetry are followed in the text portion.”
Reichhold’s statement rings true. Yet, we must also guard against falling into the formula trap. As anyone who has ever written a sonnet can appreciate, scribbling 14 lines in iambic pentameter does not automatically prompt comparisons to William Shakespeare or Elizabeth Barrett Browning. We cannot simply borrow an empty template and fill it, Mad Libs style, with the requisite parts of speech. When a literary work delights or dazzles us, our awareness of the organizational features become secondary, a palpable energy envelopes the syntax and the prosody––a kind of instinctive spirit dancing between the lines––and we sense the writer has lived the content, real or imagined. The piece, more plainly, has a soul.
the master paints with an invisible brush wind and fog
As a relative newcomer to the world of haibun, I am still absorbing a great deal of work and commentary from writers who blazed the trail before me, and I have encountered many thoughtful remarks on the nature of haibun, informing my own notions about the genre. Basho, whom we usually credit with inventing haibun, or at least elevating it above plain journaling, described it as “prose in haikai spirit,” according to Haruo Shirane in his Traces of Dreams: Landscape, Cultural Memory, and the Poetry of Basho (Stanford University Press, 1998). But, what is this “haikai spirit” and how are we to instill it in our own work (if indeed we feel obliged to do so)?
When asked to elaborate on the concept, Basho told his followers to watch how children act, Shirane reports, to “see the world with new eyes and without preconceived notions.” He was referring primarily to writing renku verses, but the same sentiment could be applied to haibun. This has resonance for me, as I am often most satisfied with my own writing when it emerges out of shosin, or beginner’s mind. In other words, “haikai spirit” to me includes being receptive to any possibility. Let sounds and images develop organically, out of observation, feeling, and spontaneous thought. Working this way means taking in each idea, however absurd or trivial, and pondering its significance. I have dismissed certain notions when writing about a specific subject because I did not think they fit the tenor of what I wanted to achieve. Yet, some of those ideas kept up their clamor until they found their way into my work. So, I’m learning to listen more and censure less. Remaining open and observant––taking on the role of receiver––is for me the first step. Building the haibun to reflect that sensitivity is the next. This usually involves hard work, but searching for the structure is, like a treasure hunt, part of the fun.
Earl Miner brings us closer to some of the organizing principles of haikai in Japanese Linked Poetry (Princeton University Press, 1979), where he quotes Basho advising “‘sabishimi and okashimi are the bones of haikai style.’” Sabishimi is a classic nod to the beauty of desolation and decay, a primary value in waka and renga verse. Okashimi, on the other hand, is a more irreverent quality, upholding the peculiar and humorous. So, sabishimi and okashimi are fused in Basho’s world, combining the values of traditional poetry with more common, popular themes, a kind of synthesis that I believe exists in some of the better haibun. It is a quality I pursue in my own writing. If this is the haibun skeleton, though, it follows we must also have some skin and muscle.
Especially in his later years, Basho is said to have favored above all else the concept of karumi, or “lightness,” which I would suggest we can use to flesh out the framework of a haibun. Not everyone agrees on an exact definition of karumi, though most accept we should not confuse it with frivolity or superficiality or, as devoted Basho disciple Kyorai made clear, thinness. Miner quotes Kyorai stating this quality of lightness “‘derives from the depth of the body.’” Shirane devotes an entire sub-chapter to the concept in his book, suggesting karumi is a complicated value containing ideas of transience and linguistic rhythm in addition to the visuospatial effects of painting such as overtone and white space. “In contrast to the ‘heavy’ poem, which is conceptual or leaves little room for alternative interpretations,” he writes, “the poetics of lightness leaves a space for the reader to become an imaginative participant.” In addition, Shirane states that karumi “implies rhythm and attention to the poetry of the ear,” utilizing such devices as melopoeia (emotional resonance through sound and rhythm) and onomatopoeia (the audible embodiment of an object or action).
We find further revelations on karumi from a contemporary writer who gave much thought to the constructs of literature. In his Six Memos for the Next Millennium (Harvard University Press, 1988), Italo Calvino dedicates a full lecture to the quality of lightness in literary works, and he describes various senses of the term. For instance, when language is lightened, he writes, then “meaning is conveyed through a verbal texture that seems weightless, until the meaning itself takes on the same rarefied consistency.” He offers several examples of this, including this poem by Emily Dickinson:
A sepal, petal and a thorn Upon a common summer's morn— A flask of Dew—A bee or two— A breeze—a caper in the trees— And I'm a Rose!
Dickinson’s words dance across our minds like ballerinas across a stage. Nearly everything about the poem is light, airy, and seems to be in motion. Nearly everything. There is a thorn in the first line, perhaps a kind of warning not to get too close. The final line, with its slant rhyme, is a delightful surprise, but one that also adds a thoughtful tension to the poem. It’s as if one ballerina were caught mid-air, suspended in time, and we are left staring at the wonderful machinery of the entire scene, awestruck. If there is a single effect I pursue in my own writing, I would say this is it––a kind of lightness that hopefully lifts the reader up with the words and allows them to feel the same way as the ballerina. It is an effect I never tire of in the work of other writers, and I believe haibun is one of the most conducive literary vehicles we have to achieve such a feat.
In another sense, Calvino says, “there is a visual image of lightness that acquires emblematic value.” Here again, he provides several models, such as the famous scene of Don Quixote seeing giants where there are only windmills, charging one of them with his lance and, upon spearing its sail, being lifted off his poor horse and sent flying through the air. This is one of the most memorable scenes in all of literature, and we recall it not because the description is great poetry, but because of the image we see in our minds. It is an excellent example of the old saw, “Show, don’t tell.”
On its surface, the windmill scene is strictly farce, but the character of Quixote in that instant is the personification of his own ironic action, and this fusion explodes into multiple dimensions of meaning, at once hilarious and heartbreaking, melancholic and mad. The scene contains karumi, of course, but sabishimi and okashimi as well. If I can combine these elements––the muscle, skin, and bones of haikai––in some ratio, the piece tends to have a physical effect on me, lifting my emotions, as Kyorai might say, from the depths of my body. This sensation for me is the ultimate objective of writing. In a letter to a co-editor of her first two collections, Emily Dickinson wrote, “If I feel physically as if the top of my head were taken off, I know that is poetry…Is there any other way?” On the notion of what makes for good reading, I stand firmly in Emily’s camp, and haibun is no different in this regard than any other literary genre. The only “rule” of good writing is that it moves a reader––to laughter, to tears, or better still, to a mixture of emotions––and opens up a new portal on to this world, or into the next.
Though I’ve just begun this haibun journey, I’ve had the good fortune of learning from many poets who started out before me. “If you can influence yourself,” Gertrude Stein once said, “that is enough.” Certainly there is wisdom in her statement. At the same time, we may refine our craft by listening to other haikai voices, permitting a deeper dive into our own selves––reaching past what we see on the surface. Reading featured writers in previous issues of cho is humbling, but also inspiring, and I’ve found useful insights from each one: Bob Lucky’s tell about the “aesthetic cringe” (oh, it’s not just me!); Alexis Rotella’s that anathema (ah, my blue pencil needs sharpening!); Ludmila Balabanova’s new math (1+1=3); the “confessions” of Michele Root-Bernstein; Keith Pollette’s allusions; core samples from Lew Watts; the “clicks” of Renée Owen’s pen; Gary LeBel’s pleasure craft; how Judson Evans lets in the light. So many other writers who belong in this space have also influenced my writing (I started typing their names but realized quickly the list was far too long). Such diversity makes any species, any community, any genre, stronger. We need only look past our own reflection to find words fitting our purpose.
calligraphy class past the window a crow flies in cursive circles
The following haibun by J Hahn Doleman won the Grand Prix in the 2021 Genjuan International Haibun Contest.
A Mead-Hall of the Mind
Wild-eyed with open maw comes this mass of tangled fur loping full tilt through the frothy surf. My fists spring from their pockets, ready to fight a creature from whom there will be no retreat. In seconds the growling beast is upon me, and only then do I spot the yellow tennis ball, gritty with sand, clenched between its gleaming teeth.
This amiable Old English Sheepdog sans collar and leash halts at my feet, drops his quarry, backs off, then looks up, all slobber and smile, reminding me of my first best friend, another playful mutt and tireless stick-fetcher I lost so long ago.
Sirius rising the bark of a sea lion buried between waves
As I reach down for his prize, the pooch explodes into a tumbleweed of heads and tails and legs, putting twenty yards between us in no time. I wind up, cock my arm, and huck the drool-drenched orb as hard as I can. For a moment it hangs in the sky as if it will never come down, but then gravity kicks in and the dog snatches it on the first bounce.
This scenario recurs again and again as I scan the beach for an owner. No one is in sight. Perhaps the dog is a stray, I muse, already defending my notion to take him with me when I leave. Then a high-pitched voice calls from the bluffs above us. “Grendel! Come, boy! Time to go home!” Running my fingers through the dog’s coat one last time, I drink in the sea spray of memories dampening my face.
red-rimmed horizon the carapace of a crab broken underfoot
About the Author
J Hahn Doleman began writing haibun in 2018 and serves as a contest coordinator for the Haiku Poets of Northern California. Recent honors include first and second place in the Haiku Society of America’s 2022 Haibun Awards competition and Grand Prix in the 2021 Genjuan International Haibun Contest. He lives in San Francisco and works as a speech pathologist.