The History of Australian Haiku and the Emergence of a Local Accent Author: Rob Scott, B.A. Dip Ed. College of the Arts, Writing, Communication and Culture Discipline Group, Victoria University Submitted in fulfillment of the requirements of the degree of Masters by Research March, 2014. Table of Contents The History of Australian Haiku and the Emergence of a Local Accent ....................................................... i Table of Contents ............................................................................................................................................................... ii Abstract .................................................................................................................................................................................iv Acknowledgements ........................................................................................................................................................... v Student Declaration .........................................................................................................................................................vi Prologue to Thesis ............................................................................................................................................................. 1 Australia’s First Haiku? ............................................................................................................................................... 1 Chapter 1 – Introduction to Thesis ............................................................................................................................. 3 Lost in Translation ........................................................................................................................................................ 4 Haiku vs. Haiku ............................................................................................................................................................... 6 So, what is Haiku? ......................................................................................................................................................... 7 The Problem of Definition ......................................................................................................................................... 9 The Problem of Kigo .................................................................................................................................................. 11 Shasei and The ‘Haiku Moment’............................................................................................................................ 13 Outline of Thesis ......................................................................................................................................................... 14 Chapter 2 – Key Moments in the Birth and Early Development of Australian Haiku Movement .. 18 The Beginning .............................................................................................................................................................. 21 The Problem of Translation ................................................................................................................................... 21 The Problem of Syllable Counting ....................................................................................................................... 28 The Bostok Years ........................................................................................................................................................ 30 Bostok as a Role Model ............................................................................................................................................ 32 A Turning Point ........................................................................................................................................................... 38 Bostok and the formation of The Australian Haiku Society...................................................................... 46 Online Presence .......................................................................................................................................................... 46 Haiku Groups and other Publishers of Haiku ................................................................................................. 47 Conclusion ..................................................................................................................................................................... 48 Chapter 3 – What is Australian Haiku? .................................................................................................................. 50 The Question of Definition ..................................................................................................................................... 52 Normative Practices .................................................................................................................................................. 53 How Much Haiku can be Found in Haiku?........................................................................................................ 54 The Question of Kigo. ................................................................................................................................................ 56 Swedish Haiku ............................................................................................................................................................. 62 Dutch Haiku .................................................................................................................................................................. 65 The Australian Experience of Kigo ...................................................................................................................... 69 ii Australian Idiomatic and Aboriginal Language. ............................................................................................ 72 Australian Migration and Other Tensions........................................................................................................ 76 One-line Haiku ............................................................................................................................................................. 85 Conclusion ..................................................................................................................................................................... 87 Chapter 4 – Australian Haiku in the Global Context ......................................................................................... 90 Globalisation and Homogenisation in Haiku .................................................................................................. 99 The Rise of Non-Australian and Australian Haiku ..................................................................................... 117 Conclusion .................................................................................................................................................................. 144 Chapter 5 – Conclusion .............................................................................................................................................. 146 References ....................................................................................................................................................................... 154 iii Abstract Since haiku first crossed Australian borders more than one hundred years ago, it has undergone a process of translation, interpretation and transformation. This study examines aspects of haiku’s cultural transmission and evolution in Australia from a genre oriented to the early Japanese models, to one which is informed by a growing international haiku community and an emerging local sensibility. This study will examine the origins of Australian haiku by evaluating the contribution of some of its most important translators and educators and assess the legacy of Australia’s early haiku education on current haiku practices. Haiku is still best known as a three-line poem of seventeen syllables broken into lines of 5-7-5, however, contemporary haiku largely eschews this classicist approach and is characterised by a blend of emulation and experimentation. This study presents and discusses a variety of approaches to writing haiku that have emerged in Australia over the course of its development. One of the strengths of Japanese haiku has been its ability to reflect its own culture through the use of kigo. This study includes a detailed discussion of the two main conceptualisations of kigo (season and culture) and potential sources of kigo, or kigo alternatives (keywords) in Australia are identified in the context of the depth and resonance they could bring to Australian haiku. Australian haiku is not occurring in isolation and this study puts the development of Australian haiku in a global context. A number of Australian poets have been active in international English-language haiku, and this study aims to assess the effects of their engagement. Some have pointed to a growing homogenisation of haiku as a direct consequence of globalisation. This study will present a range of haiku being accepted for publication in international haiku journals and make some observations about global haiku practices and the extent to which they have contributed to a perceived loss of Australian identity in Australian haiku. iv Acknowledgements I would like to acknowledge the professional support and guidance of my Principal Supervisor, Dr. Ian Syson and Associate Supervisor, Dr. Tom Clark. I have been based overseas for long periods throughout this project which has placed extra demands on time, involving many midnight Skype sessions. I thank them both for their patience and commitment to seeing this through to the end. I would also like to thank Australian haiku poets, John Bird, Lorin Ford, Sharon Dean, Ron Moss and Beverley George for their generous support, information, guidance and warmth at various stages of this research. It is with a great sense of satisfaction that I offer you, and all Australian haiku poets, the final product. For responding to my call for assistance, I thank Paul Miller, editor of Modern Haiku, who searched, scanned and sent through some valuable information relating to the earlier haiku research by Dr. Bob Jones. For allowing me to travel back to Australia to submit my thesis, I thank my current employer, Europaskolan in Stockholm, Sweden. Your understanding of the importance of my postgraduate research is much appreciated. I take this opportunity to acknowledge the love and support of all my friends and family in Australia, Sweden and other far flung places, who have, at various times, given me just the right amount of encouragement or inspiration needed to keep persevering with this project. Finally, this thesis would not have been possible without the everlasting love and support of my dear partner, Monika Näslund, who has endured this project as much as I have. During the life of this thesis, we have moved overseas, started new careers and endured a string of life– changing events. I am privileged to have Monika, and our incredible daughter Annika, by my side, providing me with all the love, strength, support and encouragement I need. v Prologue to Thesis Australia’s First Haiku? Precisely one hundred years before the Australian Haiku Society released the first of two anthologies of Australian haiku in 1999, a call went out to Australian poets to try their hand at ‘‘some haikais’’. A. G. Stephens (aka ‘The Bookfellow’), editor of the ‘Red Page’, the literary page of the Sydney Bulletin called for submissions for a competition that had been run along similar lines earlier in Britain. Stephens stipulated that the haikais must have an Australasian reference and also informed his readership that, ‘haiku consisted of three unrhymed lines of five, seven and five syllables’ and that ‘the haiku’s style is light and fresh, a swift, fugitive impression more often than not ending with a surprise’ (Bulletin, 8 July 1899, cited in Wooldridge, 2009). The competition, for which the prize was 10s.6d. (the equivalent to a day’s wage – an extraordinary sum by today’s standards) attracted keen interest, but the overall quality failed to impress Stephens: None showed remarkable prowess . . . some attempts too closely imitated the models; others were poetical, but unmelodious; a third class were melodious and unpoetical. It does not seem clear that the form is well suited to English . . . But they say the haikai is residuum of a long series of experiments; and genius could no doubt do wonders with it. Local talent has only produced tiny portents’ (Bulletin, 12 August 1899) Wooldridge (2009). Despite Stephens’ lack of enthusiasm for the standard of the entrants, 14 haiku and 2 haiku sequences were selected and published in the ‘Red Page’, with Sydney poet Robert Crawford declared the winner for his entry: Flannel-flow’rs dancing To the dawn on the hill-tops . . . The Vision of Spring! with Stephens adding, ‘his third line could be intensified’. Stephens’ blunt commentary makes for interesting reading when seen in the context of the current haiku scene in Australia. His was the first attempt at balancing traditional haiku with Australia’s local reality. As the first witness to the tensions to emerge from that hybridism his findings and commentary were prescient. What would he make of the current state of haiku in Australia? 2 Chapter 1 – Introduction to Thesis Haiku is currently enjoying unprecedented prosperity and vitality in Australia. This recent burgeoning interest is reflected in the growing number of poets and journals (both online and print) dedicated to the study and enjoyment of haiku, and of course the profound impact of the internet which has not only increased poets’ access to the form, but to each other. It has been claimed that haiku is the most popular form of poetry on the web (Barlow and Lucas, 2005). Indeed, haiku has become a multicultural global phenomenon. “As we enter the 21st century, haiku has become one of the most widely written and enjoyed international literatures” (Higginson, 2001). As such, one theme which emerges almost from the beginning of this research is that Australian haiku is not happening in isolation. Early in this thesis we become aware that Australian haiku, led initially by Australia’s premier haiku poet, Janice Bostok’s own personal musings, and exacerbated by the growth in communication technology, is developing in a truly global context. Trends in world haiku, and in particular, English Language haiku (ELH) are felt strongly in Australia, and have had arguably more influence than Japanese haiku on the writing of haiku in this country. In an effort to reflect this reality, and to provide a more meaningful context for the discussion of Australian haiku’s transformation, this thesis has sourced haiku from several haiku corpuses around the world, namely, the US, the UK, Canada, Japan, Sweden and The Netherlands, as well as Australia. These days, haiku by Australian poets can be found in an increasing number and variety of locations, from dedicated small press haiku journals both here and overseas, to online anthologies, at poetry readings and workshops, in exhibitions on commuter trains, even on fruit juice containers (The Age, 1 Nov, 2004). Australia now boasts its own haiku society (HaikuOz) which has produced three anthologies featuring the work of over 200 poets. Numerous groups meet to share and discuss haiku around the country. Australian haiku poets have also made an impact on the international scene, regularly appearing in acclaimed international journals and anthologies of haiku, winning and judging haiku competitions. Haiku has never been more popular in this country and the haiku being written now is far removed from its origins. It is an opportune time to trace haiku’s growth in Australia and make some observations about the transformation of the genre from its early and fragmented beginnings to a readily identifiable form of poetry that has taken its place as a legitimate part of Australia’s literary landscape. This thesis will explore this transformation and the course of haiku’s advancement in Australia. It will also try to determine whether haiku poets in this country have found their own distinctive voices and, in the Japanese tradition, compose haiku that reflects Australian culture and history. 3 Lost in Translation1 It is impossible to talk about haiku without considering its cultural transmission. Haiku poets the world over have, for over a century now, tried to forge a tradition of writing haiku that keeps faith with Japanese bloodlines but which is at the same time acclimatised to local poetics – a balance which has proved difficult to sustain. “It is a commonly held notion and a demonstrably true one that poetry is notoriously difficult to transmit from one culture to another” (Kacian, 2000a). At the core of transmission is, of course, translation. Arthur Waley (1865–1966), an early translator of Japanese literature, wrote: It is not possible that the rest of the world will ever realize the importance of Japanese poetry, because of all poetries it is the most completely untranslatable (Bowers, 1996, viii). True or not, haiku scholars have been faced with many challenges, due not only to language barriers, but more critically, the question of how a culture and the principles and techniques of its poetry can be transmitted to a new culture without diminishing its aesthetic. Yoneoka (2008) believes the problem of this ‘cultural hybridisation’ “must take into account the sensitivities and cultural environments of both the original and target languages”. He says (p. 200): Any creative effort, be it music, art, poetry, literature, or drama, is incontrovertibly linked to and defined by the spatial and temporal culture in which it was conceived. And as translators and interpreters of such products have long known, rendering such creativity outside of its cultural shell to be understood and appreciated by members of a different cultural space and time is generally a task fraught with great difficulty. There are always choices to be made: whether to translate a concept or forego it, whether to emulate the form or convey the meaning, whether to be faithful to the original and add beauty or depth to the derived product. Some go so far as to say that translation is impossible, preferring to use terms such as “rendering” or “recreating” in the new context. 1 A word about translation – English translations of poems by Dutch poets, van der Molen and Berkelmans which appear in Chapter 3 were done in two stages. Max Verhart provided the initial translations which I then edited with his assistance. Other translations are not my own work and I have cited where appropriate. 4