The Chrysanthemum and the Scissors

This book focuses on the development of modern haiku in Japan and the reception of haiku in the West. I have been working on the project for several decades, publishing articles about haiku and haiku poetry translated into English. The book takes a historical approach beginning with Bashō and ending with several important contemporary women poets. However, the path it takes bears no resemblance to the traditional history of haiku. The focus of the book is on the...
More Description

This book focuses on the development of modern haiku in Japan and the reception of haiku in the West. I have been working on the project for several decades, publishing articles about haiku and haiku poetry translated into English. The book takes a historical approach beginning with Bashō and ending with several important contemporary women poets. However, the path it takes bears no resemblance to the traditional history of haiku. The focus of the book is on the decontextualization of traditional haiku both in modern Japan and in the West. I am using the term to describe how haiku are often stripped of their original meaning, their literary context, and historical background. Once a haiku has been decontextualized, a new meaning and a new context can be created that are more understandable to modern readers. Without decontextualization haiku might have remained a mere oddity in the West. The first three chapters of the book deal with Bashō. The first chapter focuses on the importance of seeing haiku in the context of the Japanese literary tradition. The chapter analyzes one poem and how it makes use of a phrase that is a part of the long tradition of poetry in Japan. The next two chapters look at the pictures of Bashō that emerge from different Western translators of Bashō's haiku. One chapter deals with translators who treat Bashō as a religious figure. The next chapter deals with various other problems that arise when translators do not pay sufficient attention to the language or the context of the poems. There are also chapters on Issa and the modern poet Taneda Santōka, both of whom have been seen by translators as primarily religious rather than literary figures. A chapter that analyzes the poetry of one of Bashō's unknown disciples, Rōka, brings up the question of canon formation. Two chapters that go into detail about the haiku of Japan's most important novelist, Natsume Sōseki, examine the process involved in the creation of modern haiku in Japan. Two chapters examine new directions in haiku from young women poets who are writing today. One of these poets, Mayuzumi Madoka, works outside of the contemporary haiku establishment. The other, Ōtaka Shō, was a part of the conventional haiku world. There is one chapter on haiku in everyday life in Japan through the comic art of the creator of Sazae-san, Hasegawa Machiko. The final chapter looks at the nature of traditional Japanese verse from the point of view of a tenth-century diary. Through this unusual selection of haiku poets, the book attempts to create a multi-dimensional picture of the evolution of haiku as a poetic form and how haiku is perceived today.