I have always loved poetry—the passionate Greek lyrics of Sappho, the witty satire of Martial's epigrams, the quirky expression of Emily Dickinson, and the playful art of William Carlos Williams. These writers and their traditions engage me in a certain type of consciousness. But the joy of haiku—with its particular type of sensory humor based on being fully alive to each moment—took me over the edge into fanatical passion. I don't want to merely study or read haiku. I want to be consumed by haiku—to live, breathe, eat, drink, write, revise, teach, publish, meditate on, enjoy and love haiku. Why? Because haiku is so alive, so fun, so creative, so playful, so very human.
Unlike most Western writing and poetry, haiku come from consonance instead of dissonance. The Western traditions of writing begin with disagreement and complaint—something is wrong, some injustice has occurred, someone has a problem, there is a conflict, a difference of opinion, a gap between what is known and unknown. The purpose of a novel or play or article or poem is to resolve some dissonance—to take us from problem to resolution. In a novel we expect characters to grow or change in a novel. We expect our readers to ask questions and to reach new understandings from an essay. Western poetry seeks to convey emotional insights into ourselves and our times.
But what does haiku ask of us? To be alive. To feel. To know this is the way it is. To enjoy the moment. To laugh. To enjoy this day's blessings. To remember. To dream in color. To remember with all of our sensory associations. To imagine being here and here and here again. It takes us from here to here again. Haiku doesn't resolve a thing! It solves no problems! Haiku don't ask us to change who we are. A haiku doesn't ask us to pretend we are someone other than ourselves. It has no utilitarian motives nor political purposes! It does not seek fame nor esoteric elite artistic status. If somebody tries to make haiku "work" these ways, it self-destructs into political aphorisms or witty social satire or self-important artistic manifestos, but it is no longer haiku. Teachers sometimes attempt to use it as an empty form to teach syllable counting, but they end up with "zappai" instead of haiku. Their students write traditional Western-poetry content based on witty dissonance or goofy jokes about spam instead of genuine haiku. Writers simply can't twist haiku to their own purposes, can't use it for self-expression, can't forge the haiku tradition into something else without losing the haiku itself. We love haiku because it has no purpose other than to be, to feel, to love life.
Now, I don't believe that every haiku has to be based on a moment of joy or only derived from fun situations. But I do believe that every haiku has within it a confirmation of the human heart being fully alive. We do find that vitality to be fun and invigorating, even when dealing with the darkest of moments. So for me the humor of haiku comes from a fundamental "consonance"—a sense of conveying an understanding and acceptance of things as they are lived. Haiku ask us to take time out from the troubles, the problems, the struggles, the workplace—time for fully being alive in the world, being in the felt joy of life. Consonance is the joy of haiku. It is the source of the humor of haiku.
The humor of haiku doesn't have to be slapstick nor witty, it can be as simple as this affirmation of being alive:
