Forum:
Background
In Unit 1: The Brass Tacks Basics of Haiku, we looked at 5 simple points that can get anyone up and running in writing haiku and beginning a haiku journey should they choose to do so.
These points are a great introduction to haiku writing and empower a newcomer to produce good haiku, when practiced. But part of the great joy in the haiku journey is one's own adventure, enlightenment, growth, empowerment, and increase in ability to capture moments in a way that will really resound and will impact readers.
In the physical world, it takes time to travel anywhere and the best thing to do is to enjoy the experiences, the scenery, the travels, the encounters—in short, to "enjoy the journey" as you go. Haiku will cultivate mindfulness in your life and you will enjoy your encounters much more as you journey along.
The haiku journey is no different. It will take time as you travel the path to greater haiku understanding and empowerment. So as you go, enjoy the experiences, the scenery, the travels, the encounters, and most of all enjoy the community of haiku poets. Haiku enjoys one of the greatest communities globally of any kind of poets anywhere. We'll specifically look at that in another unit.
For now, let's recall point number 3 from the Brass Tacks Basics. Here's the excerpt:
Let's look at the importance of the "cut or shift" in haiku. What really gives the haiku its power, its energy, its wonder, its impact, its ability to "wow" a reader, is the way the two parts of the haiku are abutted together or matched together for purposes of giving the reader some sort of comparison to think about, how the two parts relate to each other, whether there is a contrast, or they are opposites, or there's a parallel, maybe a progression, or some other interrelated connection between them. And it is in the surprise noticing, or the revelation of this match or combination that there is the aha!, or enlightenment, or sense of wonder invoked by the haiku.
If this "cut or shift" in the haiku is so critical, we should look into it more deeply. And that's what we are going to do right now.
In the Japanese language, the "cut or shift" was historically and traditionally marked by a "cutting word". The term for this in Japanese is kireji. So kireji means "cutting word". The Japanese have a number of kireji (cutting words) in their language. These were strategically placed in the haiku by the haijin (Japanese poet) to indicate where the "cut or shift" should occur. The Japanese term for the "cut or shift" is kire.
So, just to keep it straight here, a cutting word (kireji) was used to indicate the cut or shift (kire) in Japanese haiku.
So now that we have the Japanese terms straight, and our English language meanings, we can go on to see what it is that the kire (cut or shift) does in haiku.
The Kire (Cut or Shift) in Haiku
Remember that in the Japanese language, the kire is historically and traditionally made by use of a kireji or cutting word. These are actual words in the Japanese language like ka, kana, ya, or suffixes like -keri, -ramu, -shi.
You don't need to learn these words to write haiku. In fact, unless you plan to learn to translate Japanese haiku, just ignore them. The point is simply that the Japanese have actual words and suffices that indicate the cut.
There is no equivalent for kireji in English and most other languages. One way to think of kireji (cutting words) is that they are a kind of verbal punctuation in haiku.
Some kireji add emphasis and-or carry nuances of meaning that add a sense of wonder, unsurety, possibility, doubt, awe, and more, to the phrase in the haiku. It would be hard to list all the nuances of meaning they can invoke in the mind of the Japanese reader. When used, they distinctly mark the place in the haiku where there is a cut, a shift; and they indicate to the Japanese reader where there is a change of focus or merging of focus with a second matched element in the haiku. In English, we have come to call this "match" the "juxtaposition".
Kireji are impossible to perfectly translate because we do NOT have equivalent words in English that function in the same way. Some translators have used punctuation to indicate the kireji or cut, such as the ellipsis ( ... ) or exclamation point ( ! ) or the colon ( : ) or an emdash ( — ). Others have used words like "ah!" or "eh" or "O" or "lo" and more.
The basic explanation of what kireji accomplishes is it places the two major elements of the haiku close together, it matches them for some purpose. It is said that the kireji divides and unites at the same time. Haiku usually rely on these matches which engender associations, contrasts, parallels, progressions, similarities or dissimilarities, connections, or some other possible relationship between the two parts of the basic fragment/phrase haiku. The best use of matches results in a powerful effect that makes the haiku interesting or enlightening. As noted before, this is what really gives the haiku its power.
In my book, A Tree Frog's Eyes: Haiku, I wrote a Foreword* that explains some of the most critical elements of haiku. This is what it says about kireji:
kireji — the cutting word in Japanese haiku which indicates the kire, cut or shift, and sets up the match or toriawase.... Since we have no equivalent, English haiku poets might use punctuation, or interjections like "ah!" or "lo", or obvious syntax and line breaks; whatever the method, the cut should be clear enough to make a definite toriawase match (called juxtaposition in English).
Okay, so let's stop a second here and review since we've added a few new terms and concepts to the mix.
The kireji is the cutting word in Japanese that indicates the kire, cut or shift; the kire sets up the match, which in Japanese is called toriawase, and which in English we call the juxtaposition.
Read the above sentence as many times as it takes to clearly understand these terms.
Also, remember in English we do not have kireji. English language haiku poets use punctuation, interjections, syntax, and line breaks to indicate the cut. Interjections can add some meaning to our haiku, and the ellipsis is thought to be a pause giving time to consider, while the em-dash is a bit more abrupt, and the colon is the most abrupt and stark separation of the two parts. The ! is an exclamation and the ? is a question or query.
Let's look at some examples here to illustrate the cut and the match or juxtaposition. We are going to use some of the same haiku we saw in The Brass Tacks Basics.
One of the most famous haiku ever written is Bashō's frog haiku. First is the romaji (Westernized alphabet way of presenting Japanese characters), then the translated haiku parsed out in one line to show its comparison to the Japanese, then followed by the 3 line presentation:
furu ike ya kawazu tobikomu mizu no oto
old pond...frog leaps into the sound of water
old pond...
frog leaps into
the sound of water
Notice the third word in the Japanese romaji version. It is "ya" a kireji. It ends the first rhythmic part of 5 Japanese sound units: fu-ru-i-ke-ya. So Bashō indicated the cut here by use of ya which indicates the break after what we call the first line. The translator used an ellipsis ( ... ) to show the cut.
The meaning or connotation of the use of ya invites the Japanese reader to consider the words of the haiku as an equation. The key to understanding the simple greatness of this haiku is to understand that the frog did NOT leap into the pond and make a sound in the water. The equation or riddle Bashō presents here is that the frog is leaping into the actual sound of the water, the frog leaps into the splash. It all happens so simultaneously Bashō invites the reader to consider this in a new way. Most think of the frog as making the sound, but Bashō invites us to realize it is the water that actually produces the sound we hear.
When encouraging someone to listen to a frog leaping into a pond, most of us would probably say, "Listen to the sound the frog makes when it jumps into the water," or "Listen to the sound of the frog jumping into the water." Bashō said, "Listen to the sound of the water that the frog jumps into." In a broader sense, it encourages us to question our perceptions about everything and look at the simple beauty of what is really happening.
Here is an Issa haiku:
mochi usu ni tori utai-keri kimi ga yo to
on the rice cake mill
the rooster sings too
"Oh Great Japan!"
(translated by David Lanoue)
Notice that the fifth word of the haiku in the romaji has the Japanese suffix -keri, which is the kireji or cutting word here. The meaning or connotation in the use of -keri is exclamatory in the Japanese. Hence, Lanoue translates it as the exclamatory interjection "Oh....!" The last words of this haiku are a reference to lyrics of the Japanese national anthem.
This haiku would be parsed as follows:
on the rice cake mill the rooster sings too / "Oh Great Japan!"
The cutting word indicates that the break comes after the second rhythmic unit and it is shown by an interjection, "Oh...!" in English.
Now some modern examples of the cut.
new moon . . .
curve of the steeple bell
in winter twilight
—Ebba Story, San Francisco, California
Here the cut is clearly indicated by this English language haiku poet with an ellipsis. The match or juxtaposition is between the "new moon" and the "curve of the steeple bell in winter twilight".
Mother’s scarf
slides from my shoulder—
wild violets
—Peggy Willis Lyles, Tucker, Georgia
Here the cut is clearly indicated by this English language haiku poet with an em-dash. The match or juxtaposition is between "mother's scarf sliding from the speaker's shoulder" and "wild violets".
Okay, so let's take a breather and recap here again. The Japanese kireji carried nuances of meaning that affected the haiku. We don't have kireji in English, but we use other methods of punctuation, interjections, syntax, and line breaks to indicate the cut. Interjections can add some meaning to our haiku, and the ellipsis is thought to be a pause giving time to consider, while the em-dash is a bit more abrupt, and the colon is the most abrupt and stark separation of the two parts.
So now that you understand what the cutting word is, what the cut itself is, and that it sets up a match or juxtaposition, let's look in more detail at the match itself.
As our pattern has been in these unit articles, we will look first at the Japanese background and ideas of the concept, and then at how we apply it in our English language haiku.
As noted earlier, the Japanese term that describes what the match does is toriawase. Again, referring to the Foreword of my book, A Tree Frog's Eyes: Haiku, let's consider this excerpt and explanation:
toriawase — literally "take and put together", combining, arranging a match, by use of
kireji, a cutting word; said to divide and unite at the same time (we call this the juxtaposition in English); the kire (cut), leaves space for the unsaid (ma) and may engender an association, contrast, parallel, progression, similarity, dissimilarity, connection, disjunction, or some other possible interesting and often revelatory relationship; toriawase most strikingly can connect the particular to the universal.
You can ignore ma (the unsaid) for now, that will come up in later units. But understand the gist of the toriawase match (juxtaposition) as being a combining that unites and divides at the same time and engenders some kind of associative relationship. I cannot say it enough times, the real greatness and power of haiku predominantly comes from this toriawase match or juxtaposition.
Now you can appreciate why some haiku poets get frustrated when others who are new to haiku write in a 5-7-5 structure and call it haiku because of the 5-7-5 structure alone and yet it totally lacks the "feel of haiku" because it lacks a juxtaposition or other core essentials. Look at this 5-7-5 example:
my mom laughed at me
when I spilled my cereal
all over the floor
It has the form, but it lacks the feel. It tells too much (we want to show not tell). It does not focus on strong nouns and images. And it does not have a clear fragment/phrase structure and juxtaposition.
I'm glad new people want to try haiku, but I truly hope they remain open to learning the fragment/phrase structure, the cut, and the juxtaposition. It is not hard to do and it transforms the work into a haiku. While the following may not be a "fantastic" haiku, with a few adjustments it can at least be recognizable as one:
this bleary morning
mom laughs at my cereal...
spilled over the floor
It is still 5-7-5, but now it has a clear fragment/phrase structure, a cut, and a match that reveals a bit of a surprise. We may wonder why mom is laughing at the cereal. After the cut we realize it is because it is spilled. But even this is not the total answer. It is a bleary morning, so we can see the speaker of the poem fumbling around tiredly and then losing control of her cereal bowl and mom laughing.
Perhaps if we worked at economizing this with the briefer form and left more unsaid it could be made even better:
bleary morn
mom laughs at me...
spilled cereal
We slightly changed the surprise but went from 17 syllables down to 11 syllables.
The important thing is that there is some kind of match or juxtaposition set up by the cut that draws our attention to the uniting and dividing of the two major ideas in the haiku so we can consider their connection and hopefully arrive at a moment of surprise, wonder, or aha! from the connection. Sometimes this is almost exactly as intended by the haiku poet, sometimes as readers our experience leads us to a different surprise from the connection.
Remember that we are dealing with the basic of the basic of the basics here, so I purposefully left off explanations about variations and endeavored to avoid diving too deeply into details about all the different kinds of cuts there are and ways that English language haiku poets can indicate cuts. That is something to learn as you travel on in your haiku journey and they will come up in future units.
For now, I want to share some haiku where the cut may not be as clear and which take a little bit more engagement for one to see where the cut is. This is just to whet our appetites about the variations as we look forward to growing in haiku.
Another Issa haiku:
from the great bronze
Buddha's nostril
a swallow spurts
The way this is translated it is unclear where the cut is. It reads as one complete portion of a sentence and not as a fragment/phrase:
from the great bronze Buddha's nostril a swallow spurts
So what's the answer?
Remember in Unit 1 we looked at how we can check for fragment/phrase by parsing? So let's look at this one both ways and see what we get:
#1: from the great bronze Buddha's nostril / a swallow spurts
#2: from the great bronze / Buddha's nostril a swallow spurts
Now we can see very clearly that although the entire three lines flow together, when we separate the individual lines (rhythmic parts) the first sample works brilliantly as a phrase/fragment but the second is totally off. We can see that "Buddha's nostril a swallow spurts" does not make sense.
So even though hidden by the way we speak, this haiku is a phrase/fragment as shown in sample #1. Indeed, in the Japanese, the kireji used by Issa shows that the final separated fragment is "a swallow spurts". Sometimes the "cut" can be very subtle like this where it appears to be lost in the words.
That is why reading haiku involves engagement. We need to think about and ponder haiku and look at them in various ways to really get the full gist of the haiku. It is important to not harshly judge a haiku as broken because it appears to not be in a fragment/phrase structure with a cut. Perhaps upon deeper examination, we will see how the haiku poet made these more subtle but they are still there.
Issa sets us up for a comical surprise in this haiku. It's like a proclamation in which we expect something grand or glorious to be coming from the great bronze Buddha's nostril. But then in the final fragment, instead of some great spiritual more or riddle or enlightenment, a swallow spurts out.
Here's one of my haiku:
cold wet stones
walking in the canyon stream
barefoot
— D.E. Navarro
I left all punctuation and indication of the cut out of this one on purpose. This actually uses a semantic disjunction called "misreading as meaning" to help reinforce the surprise in this haiku and to indicate the cut.
At first it reads like the cold wet stones are walking in the canyon stream. The absence of an indicated cut leads the reader into this initial misreading. The final line clears up the confusion or riddle and we learn that the speaker is walking barefoot in the canyon stream feeling the cold wet stones.
When we parse this we see the cut clearly because the other way around does not work:
#1: cold wet stones / walking in the canyon stream barefoot (yes, works)
#2: cold wet stones walking in the canyon stream / barefoot (no, does not make sense)
It is clearly a fragment/phrase (sample #1) even though the absence of a clearly indicated cut hid that fact. However, upon realizing cold wet stones do not walk in canyon streams, the obvious misreading reveals that it must be the cut.
By the way, the Japanese also write haiku like this in Japan. In modern times, they too have gotten away from only using kireji to indicate their cuts and they now use other methods of language and syntax. So they are experimenting with the form too and finding new ways to express themselves while still retaining the core essentials of haiku.
Final Summary
What is it that we really need to take away from this article or unit?
The Japanese kireji is historically and traditionally a cutting word that indicates where the kire, cut or shift, occurs in the haiku for the purpose of making a toriawase match (juxtaposition) that draws the reader's attention to the uniting and dividing of the two major ideas in the haiku so the reader can consider the connection and hopefully arrive at a moment of surprise, wonder, or aha!
In English, we may use punctuation, interjections, syntax, or line breaks to indicate where the cut or shift occurs in the haiku for the purpose of making a juxtaposition that draws the reader's attention to the uniting and dividing of the two major ideas in the haiku so the reader can consider the connection and hopefully arrive at a moment of surprise, wonder, or aha!
So now you have a wonderful expansion of point number 3 from the Brass Tacks Basics of Haiku.
I hope you can see from this unit how important the toriawase match or juxtaposition is and how it instills a certain feel or essence into the haiku that gives it its zest and power.
Next we will look at kigo, the seasonal indication, and zoka, which will be explained.
Notes:
* You can access the Foreword to A Tree Frog's Eyes: Haiku as a research article on the website Academia at this address: https://www.academia.edu/43388336/Pure_Land_Bliss_Haiku_as_a_Poetry_of_Being_includes_explanations_of_four_core_essentials_zoka_ma_tathata_and_toriawase_and_two_core_functional_elements_kigo_and_kireji
This research article gives 26 references to document the veracity of the information.
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