After 'Introduction to Haiku in 20 Weeks', I Recommend 'This Haiku is Amazing!'
In June of this year, I read New Edition: Introduction to Haiku in 20 Weeks, which is famous as a bible. Since then, I have been reading books related to haiku. I've read about 15 books so far. And now, I've encountered a book I wish I had read right after the 20-week introduction.
It is Kyoji Kobayashi's This Haiku is Amazing!.
I worked quite hard to memorize the recitation haiku from the 20-week introduction. I even made full use of a memorization app, muttering them to myself on my way to work. For the first time in a while, I felt like a student preparing for exams.
Among them, there were some haiku I memorized without even understanding their meaning. Naturally, by repeating them over and over, a vague image of the scene began to form in my mind, but honestly, there are few haiku I can confidently say I truly appreciate.
That is where This Haiku is Amazing! comes in handy.
This book introduces 10 haiku poets, 5 of whom appear in the 20-week introduction. Several of the recitation haiku were also analyzed.
If you read this book, you will likely find it much easier to memorize some of those recitation haiku all at once. That is how impactful it is. Based on the historical background of the time and the personalities of the poets, the haiku are analyzed in a super three-dimensional way.
And above all, the writing is easy to understand. For example,
Kyoshi is like a famous pianist who spent his whole life playing only Beyer exercises. He abandoned the duty of an artist to explore unknown worlds, and instead, he brilliantly accomplished the great task of overseeing the entire literary world of haiku, organizing associations, discovering talent, and spreading it to the world. As a result, while he fulfilled his mission, it can be said that as an artist, his body of work was underwhelming compared to his own talent.
Even today, poets like Mitsuo Aida sometimes appear, independent of the orthodox poetry scene, and gain overwhelming support from the masses. I feel there is something underlying both their works and Santoka's haiku.
It's something like that. Regardless of whether it's accurate or not, for me, it was highly convincing and easy to visualize.
When I was memorizing the 20-week introduction, I often confused Seison Yamaguchi and Shuson Kato, but I won't make that mistake again. The image of the haiku about the monkfish being chopped up has also changed completely.
In my mind, Sanki has become a dandy, and Hako has become an extrovert. I immediately ordered the sequel, This is a Masterpiece!. I can't wait to see how Hisajo Sugita and Takako Hashimoto (and their haiku) are discussed.
For someone like me who has only read novels until now, many haiku-related texts were difficult to read. I feel that haiku poets tend to write with a 'haiku brain,' making their prose very dense. I'm getting used to it little by little, but I often find myself spending a lot of time finishing them without ever really getting into the rhythm.
In that respect, 'This Haiku is Amazing!' had a rhythm closer to a novel, making it easy to read. I read it in no time, as if it were a collection of short stories. In that sense, I recommend reading it after the 20-week introduction.
Just as the title suggests, it was a book that allowed me to feel the amazing nature of haiku in a dramatic way. Thank you very much, Kyoji Kobayashi!