The Heart of Haiku

by Jane Hirshfield

In this mortal frame of mine, which is made of a hundred bones and nine orifices, there is something, and this something is called a wind-swept spirit, for lack of a better name, for it is much like a thin drapery that is torn and swept away at the slightest stir of the wind. This something in me took to writing poetry years ago, merely to amuse itself at first, but finally making it its lifelong business. It must be admitted, however, that there were times when it sank into such dejection that it was almost ready to drop its pursuit, or again times when it was so puffed up with pride that it exulted in vain victories over others. Indeed, ever since it began to write poetry, it has never found peace with itself, always wavering between doubts of one kind and another. At one time it wanted to gain security by entering the service of a court, and at another it wished to measure the depth of its ignorance by trying to be a scholar, but it was prevented from either because of its unquenchable love of poetry. The fact is, it knows no other art than the art of writing poetry, and therefore, it hangs on to it more or less blindly. Matsuo Bashō, Journal of a Travel-Worn Satchel (tr. Nobuyuki Yuasa)

In his poems and in his teaching of other poets, Bashō set forth a simple, deeply useful reminder: that if you see for yourself, hear for yourself, and enter deeply enough this seeing and hearing, all things will speak with and through you. “To learn about the pine tree,” he told his students, “go to the pine tree; to learn from the bamboo, study bamboo.”

In one recorded dialogue with a student, Bashō instructed, “The problem with most poems is that they are either subjective or objective.” “Don’t you mean too subjective or too objective?” his student asked. Bashō answered, simply, “No.”

a hangover? who cares, while there are blossoms

Art can be defined as beauty able to transcend the circumstances of its making.

Leaving Edo required crossing a high mountain pass. Famous for its view of Fuji, it was the vantage point of many earlier poems. Here is Bashō’s contribution: Mist, rain, not seeing Fuji— an interesting day!

At other times, Bashō reminded his disciples of the 9th-century Buddhist teacher and poet Kukai’s words: “Do not follow the ancient masters, seek what they sought.”

Of the formal requirements of haiku, he said, “If you have three or four, even five or seven extra syllables but the poem still sounds good, don’t worry about it. But if one syllable stops the tongue, look at it hard.”

It reminds of the story of a Zen master who, finding his hut has been robbed, goes running after the thief with a last pot in his hand: “Thief, stop! You forgot this!”

The words he wrote on the rim his home-made traveling hat can be translated, loosely, as these: Under this world’s long rains, here passes poetry’s makeshift shelter.