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Feature: Jim Kacian: A Haiku Primer

Chapter 9: Performance – Sharing Haiku

Haiku is meant to be shared; it has no other purpose. There may be things which result from this sharing–poetry is powerful magic, and in the past has been used to heal, incite, recall and dispatch, among other things–but all results come forth from this first intent.

There are many ways in which to share haiku. We have already considered publication, and this is the most common way to go about it, and has the advantage of having the greatest potential audience. But while it has some virtues, it lacks the immediacy of interpersonal contact, for example, or the nuance of voice. In this chapter we’ll consider some of the ways in which haiku have been offered in person and out loud in the past, and suggest some other ways which might be tried.

It is true that haiku are difficult to read, particularly individual poems. It is difficult to generate momentum within the course of a single haiku: by the time the reader is finding his rhythm, or the listener has fully attuned herself to the speaker’s pitch and intonation, the poem is over. Also, haiku are very densely filled with images, and after a short while any listener might experience an input overload. We could compare it with a box of chocolates: everything in the box is tempting, but eating them all at a sitting will produce not satiation but a heavy dullness. There is a limit which finds a balance between these states, and it is not always easy to predict or recognize. A standard practice has grown up in English-language haiku circles to read a haiku, pause, and read it a second time, before moving on to the next poem. This has the advantage of allowing the images to be fixed a second time in the listener’s mind, and for the resonances to well up. On the other hand, the stop-and-start action prevents the building up of momentum. Nevertheless, this must be considered the norm for reading practices at this point, especially useful for single poems.

The key element here is the creation of useful time for the listener to imagine himself into the situation, and to experience it for himself. Many other devices have been employed to achieve this same effect. One such practice has been the sounding of a gong or bell following the reading of a poem, with the subsequent poem not read until the vibrations from the bell have totally died away. Another imaginative method for outdoor readings has been the releasing of helium balloons, with the next poem read when the balloon fades from sight.

These techniques are especially useful, as before, with single poems, or with groups of poems by several authors. On the other hand, there is the danger that the resonances of the poem may be lost to the inherent interest in the sounds or sights generated as spacers to the poems. There is also the consideration that the last-mentioned technique is not perhaps ideally attuned with contemporary ecological and conservationist practice.

A different approach to gathering time and resonance to the poem is the use of another medium, such as music or art, in collaboration with the readings. Often individual instrumentalists are employed to accompany the reader, very commonly a shakuhachi or samisen player, but increasingly musicians who play western instruments such as oboe, clarinet or flute. Stringed instruments are often used as well, especially guitar or violin. Here, because of the development of the musical line (ideally related in affect to the poem read), a musical pause is developed, which can be especially moving when there is good connection between the two performers. Of course the music may prove distracting when the players do not match each other well.

In the case of art, or photographs, or dance, or physical re-enactment, these same sorts of values come into play, with the same potential advantages and difficulties.

For longer readings, the aim is usually to attain a balance between the individual poem and the movement of the whole. These last few performance styles lend themselves to longer performances as well as the one-poem-at-a-time format. In addition, the reading style can vary considerably as well. One particularly effective means, if losing individual resonances of particular poems is not a concern, is the jazz reading, where streams of poems in which cascades of images wash over the listener are read close upon each other, with particular emphasis given to the rhythmic element in the poems. This too can be enhanced by musical accompaniment, and reinforces the historical connection English-language haiku holds with the Beats.

Then there is the cyclic reading, where poems are read two or more times at different intervals over the course of the reading. This has the effect of introducing the listener to a poem the first time, and allowing a resonance to grow from repeated exposures, while at the same time permitting a certain amount of momentum to be generated over the course of the whole performance. This works particularly well with poems which are related by thematic, seasonal or emotive links.

Rare, but not unheard of, is the sung reading, wherein all the poems are performed by the reader with pitch and often melody. This is a truly creative mode which goes beyond the simple considerations of performance and enters the realm of new form. It can be inspiring, but obviously depends upon gifts which not every haiku poet may have at his command. It is useful to consider the differences between the traditions in this matter as well. The Japanese rarely employ any of these methods, preferring straightforward readings, although there is perhaps a higher incidence of sung readings there. One of the reasons for this may lie in the fact that the Japanese are utilizing a more specific rhythmic underpinning than we in the west, who are more comfortable with a free verse tradition.

In the Japanese haiku, especially those which seek to employ traditional concepts of format, there is an understood rhythmic form which gives shape to the reading of every poem. We may think of it as though it were a grid of eight beats per line, times three lines, so an overall pattern of twenty four beats. I don’t mean beats to suggest stresses as they would in English: we might better conceive of them as the ticks of a metronome, unstressed but marking a specific passage of time in a specific tempo.

Within this grid, there is a great deal of latitude for performance, and one may speak on or off the beat, or syncopate with partial beats, or employ silence for a beat or beats. In other words, the grid is extremely flexible, while still providing structure. And it is within this structure that the reading of a haiku is heard by a Japanese listener, although he or she may not consciously refer to it. It operates somewhat as cadence does for us in the west: once the pattern of tonal closure has been evoked, we will hear it automatically, or else feel discomfiture if it is withheld (so, too, a haiku without rhythmic closure).

This may suggest why haiku performance with music can be so powerful, and also provides ideas for future performances. It might be possible to create a similar rhythmic expectation in an audience in the west by providing some sort of rhythmic accompaniment–something as simple as a clicktrack or as complex as a full-blown musical composition–and then operating within the rules of this rhythmic device, or else breaking them, to gain the desired effect appropriate to each poem. The most important consideration, no matter what the technique, is to remember that communication with the intended listener is paramount. All effects ought to be aimed at permitting the listener a closer experience in keeping with the reality of the poem. Where this is successful, a powerful enhancement of the text is possible. Where the listener can enter more entirely into the moment of each poem, there will we find the greatest connection possible, the primary purpose of haiku.

Jim Kacian is founder and president of The Haiku Foundation; owner of Red Moon Press; and editor-in-chief of Haiku in English: The First Hundred Years (W.W.Norton, 2013). He is the founder and is the general editor of Contemporary Haibun. He's also the founder of Contemporary Haibun Online and was its general editor until Bob Lucky stepped into the role.

A Draft of "A Haiku Primer" was first published in f/k/a: archives real opinions & real haiku,