Haiku is only seventeen syllables, but it is a mass of uniqueness. The amazing aspects of haiku and kukai (haiku gatherings).
I like the slightly lighthearted nature of haiku.
Generally, haiku is called 'bungei' (literary art) rather than 'bungaku' (literature). While novels are sometimes referred to as literary works, haiku is rarely called 'haiku literature'.
Moreover, it is a fact that it is often called 'bungei' with a slightly lighthearted image attached to it. If you ask for the meaning of 'bungei,' it is defined as 'art expressed through language,' so in its original sense, it should not be a light term.
However, perhaps because the character for 'gei' (art/performance) overlaps with images of parlor tricks or performing arts rather than fine art, it seems to head in the direction of a performance art using the words of a retired person (laughs).
Kenichi Yamamoto is a famous haiku critic, but he defines the essence of haiku as 'humor,' 'greeting,' and 'improvisation.' Indeed, at first glance, none of these essences seem related to deep contemplation or a noble spirit (laughs).
However, this haiku, which is thought of as light, is actually quite extraordinary. That is what I find 'cool,' and it has been a long-standing relationship. Haiku is one of my life's works. So, I hope that the number of people who have even a little interest in haiku will increase.
Therefore, I have written down my daily thoughts on the form of cool haiku as poetry and the 'kukai' (haiku gathering), which is a place for learning it.
The poetic form of haiku has a uniqueness that has no equal.
Haiku is not something I created, but if I may boast, 'haiku has a uniqueness that is nothing but haiku'.
That is to say, 'it is the shortest poetic form in the world at seventeen sounds,' 'it has a history of roughly five hundred years since the era when it was called the hokku of haikai,' 'the haiku population in Japan is estimated to be about two million (though there are various theories), making it a familiar poem that is often cited,' and 'haiku has a group of vocabulary called kigo (seasonal words) that enriches expression through the season and the abstraction that the kigo possesses'.
Whether it is its uniqueness, its social nature, or the fact that it has a wide potential interest group even in the modern age, it is a perfect poetic form (laughs). 'Haiku' is something that can sufficiently survive the modern era.
The work-oriented operation of kukai is also unparalleled.
In a kukai, there is a 'sosho' (master) who organizes and facilitates the gathering. The relationship between the sosho and the participants of the kukai is not a teacher-student relationship in the general sense. Therefore, although it may feel like an old-fashioned way of speaking, I call them sosho. Since the relationship between a teacher and a student is one of someone who teaches and someone who learns, it is the teacher who evaluates the student's work. The instructor of a haiku course at a culture center and Itsuki Natsui from the TV program 'Pre-Bato' are also teachers.
The sosho at a kukai first participates in the kukai. In other words, they submit their own haiku that they have written, which is called 'toku.' I hope you have understood the difference between a teacher and a sosho by the fact that they submit haiku or not.
What follows is important, but at a kukai, first, 'tanzaku' (thin strips of paper) are distributed according to the number of haiku to be submitted. Each person writes a haiku on that tanzaku, and when finished, they submit it face down. The submitted tanzaku are mixed and returned to the participants once more. Then, this time, they are copied onto paper with ruled lines.
Suppose there is a kukai with 10 participants including the sosho, and each person submits 5 haiku, that makes 50 haiku. This means there will be 10 sheets of paper with 5 haiku copied onto each. It seems like a troublesome thing to do, but the purpose of this work is to make it as difficult as possible to know who wrote which haiku.
Protecting the purity of mutual selection
The reason for doing it that way is because at a kukai, participants select each other's haiku, which is called 'gosen' (mutual selection).
It is a device so that when selecting, you cannot choose based on whose haiku it is or because it is the sosho's haiku.
For the sake of mutual selection, the papers that have been neatly rewritten into 10 sheets are passed around in order. With the number of haiku in the example, each person selects 5 haiku that they judge to be good, and among them, the haiku that impressed them the most is chosen as the 'tokusen' (special selection).
Therefore, the flow is to extract and write down the haiku you felt were good from the papers passed around, narrow them down to 5 in the end, and decide on the special selection haiku.
After that, the papers used for selection are submitted, and the people who selected the haiku with the most points state their reasons for selection and their impressions.
Naturally, there are haiku that are not selected at all, and there are times when even the sosho's haiku do not receive any points.
In other words, at a kukai, you are required to face only the haiku when making selections.
It can be said that the reason why selection is taken so seriously is because there is a correlation between the ability to select and the ability to write haiku.
Therefore, if you have only just started haiku, there are often times when you cannot understand the quality of a haiku that is better than your own ability.
But a kukai is a place that accepts that as it is.
The role of the sosho in a kukai
The sosho has no limit on the number of selections and announces their own selection results by distinguishing them as 'kasaku' (honorable mention), 'shuitsu' (excellent), and 'tokusen' (special selection), which concludes the kukai.
The sosho also picks up on haiku that were not selected but have good points, and strives to nurture beginners.
However, this way of being a sosho, which goes beyond the position of teaching unique to haiku, is unparalleled.
Each haiku poet has their own beliefs about how to write haiku. Selection is nothing more than being measured against an ideal form.
If you are thinking of participating in a kukai, it is important to understand that.
The amazing thing about the kukai as a place for learning and exchange
To add further, by providing a place called a 'kukai,' learning haiku and human interaction are integrated, and you can incorporate the suggestions you received for your own haiku that you felt were good into your work with the single word 'itadakimasu' (I gratefully accept), and by doing so, the relationship between the work and the author is not damaged.
I think this is a way of thinking that would not work in a national character with a strong tendency toward individualism.
If a 'kukai' were just a place to bring and present haiku, it would end up being, 'That haiku was revised based on my suggestion, so it is my haiku' (laughs).
It is important that the members of the kukai are people who find joy in both giving and receiving.
The true form of the old-fashioned haigo (haiku pen name)
Originally, there were kukai in the Edo period, an era with a class system, and it is said that because the kukai was a place to set aside one's status, people called each other by their 'go' (pen name) or name.
They interpreted the 'go' that they each chose as not carrying a status like a 'surname'.
Recently, research into the Edo period has progressed, and the original form, which was in a sense concealed in the name of modernization after the Meiji era, is becoming clear.
From the wide range of human interaction and information exchange through haiku, something unknown about this era might come to light.
Anyway, when you recall the original meaning of the custom of calling each other by pen names at a kukai that is still alive today, don't you see something different from 'doing things in an old-fashioned way'?
Moreover, although it is different from the class system of the Edo period, there are also kukai where people with different social positions and generations gather.
At such times, I think they are regaining the roles of the old days. (Toshiro Kurokawa Marukimaru)
※The title image is my own work, Marukimaru, but it can be used freely via the 'Min-Photo Project' produced by 'Shichau Ojisan.' There are also variations in background colors. In addition, Marukimaru's works are on display in the gallery at the 'Min-Photo Project'.