on haiku, among other changes, is actually having a positive and slowly transformative effect on the public understanding of haiku, but it still has a long way to go.
On the WomPo (women‘s poetry) online discussion forum, I recall well-known formalist poet Annie Finch once saying that ―Haiku poets are touchy.‖ I‘ve referred to this before, and I think it‘s something we need to know better about ourselves. We‘re often insular and defensive about our art, and snippy about this definition or that, splitting hairs over details without realizing who they might matter to. To outside viewers, this behaviour is not exactly a display of maturity, let alone a come- hither overture. As Emerson said, ―Who you are speaks so loudly I can‘t hear what you‘re saying.‖ There‘s infighting in all sorts of poetry, but I think haiku poets exude a particular brand of it that helps to keep haiku in a ghetto. Like I said, it‘s haiku poets, not others, who have primarily put themselves—and this poetry—in a ghetto. The common misunderstandings of haiku are only part of the story.
I mention all of this because haiku images have a great power to them, and we should not underestimate them. The wider poetic audience is already attracted to haiku—both Japanese translations and English originals (as Bill Higginson has written, ―haiku ismainstream‖). In 2008, the Vancouver Cherry Blossom Festival in Vancouver, British Columbia, erected a haiku stone with all of the winners of the 2006, 2007, and 2008 Haiku Invitational awards that I co-judged. It‘s wonderful to visit the stone in VanDusen Gardens in Vancouver and just eavesdrop on people commenting on the poems. Sure, you‘ll hear the occasional question about 5-7-5, but most of the time that‘s not an issue. People laugh or smile or nod their heads. They photograph poems they like the most. They say ―I‘ve seen that‖ or ―That‘s happened to me too.‖ They are clearly and immediately touched by the poems, even if (surely) many of them have never written a haiku in their lives. This is gratifying to see.
Indeed, the public and larger poetry community already likes haiku (however they perceive it), but it is often, I believe, less attracted by some aspects of the haiku community. Your question was whether haiku can change the heart of even the most cynical critic. Well, yes and no. The poetry can, no doubt about it. But there‘s more to the equation. We need to do a better job of makingo
u e erslvsas
poets change the hearts of critics. As you say, by elevating ordinary moments from day-to-day life into something extraordinary, haiku does have that power. But sometimes the poets themselves—we as the haiku community—get in the way.
Colin: So taking what you have just said as a given, do you think the online haiku community, and I use the term community in the loosest possible sense, has helped or hindered the development of haiku?
Michael: I suspect that the only way to answer this question is to say both. The haiku community, in its broadest sense, would be anyone who writes haiku, or anyone who thinks they do, whether online or off. So some folks definitely have helped, as demonstrated by the informative definition of haiku on Wikipedia, and the increasing number of worthwhile haiku-related blogs and websites (I‘ve recently tried to contribute my own, at
www.graceguts.com). But of course others have hindered haiku‘s development, as shown by the steady continuance of pseudo-haiku books from major publishers (and their editors who see them as money-makers, or what the public expects, regardless of literary value or correctness). Another significant change in recent years has been the growth of print-on-demand outfits like iUniverse, CreateSpace, and Lulu—and there are many more. These services have been used by excellent haiku poets to produce wonderful books, but they have also
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