Keiko Izawa

                                                            

Magna On Magna Poet Speak interview with Keiko Izawa, who  lives in Yokohama, Japan, a port city known for its exotic atmosphere.  Keiko has worked for a variety of companies as a technical translator. She started  writing haiku in November 2004.  Before then, she had never written a single haiku, not even a haiku in Japanese. Writing haiku in English is more comfortable for Keiko than writing haiku in Japanese.  However, she deeply admires the haiku written by the old masters and modern poets in Japan. Her work has been published in Haiku Harvest, Simply Haiku, Mainichi Daily News, Roadrunner, Heron's Nest, Birmingham Words, Haiku Presence, Bottle Rockets, and Red Moon Anthology.

_____________________________________________________________________________________

Question: There's a lot of talk about what is (or what isn't) English haiku and in the last decade the haiku seems to have blossomed in several countries around the world. For a Japanese writer like you wherein does the Japanese haiku differ from English haiku?

Answer: This is a very good but difficult question for me, because I often ask myself how they are different and always end up without any decisive answer.

First, I must confess I haven't read so many Japanese haiku by the old  masters or modern poets, nor have I tried to study Japanese haiku academically; I only learn from the Japanese poets' haiku in a weekly TV kukai program and Japanese newspapers occasionally. So I may not be a good commentator here. However, one obvious difference between the English haiku and Japanese haiku I see is the process of perception. To be more specific, difference in the character formation - for instance, in spite of the basic 5-7-5 three line form common to both haiku, in Japanese haiku usually kanji*(Chinese character)*, hiragana* and sometimes katakana* are mixed together, enabling it to create a nice blend of image and music with its unique layers, whereas in English haiku only one style of character is used, which in my view makes the 3 lines more simple and dynamic. The hieroglyphic nature of kanji also allows us to picture the scene more easily in each haiku, and sometimes even the Japanese phrase alone sounds beautiful enough to our Japanese ear. So if we try to translate Japanese haiku into English, it tends to be flat.
                                                             * http://www.japan-guide.com/e/e2047.html

On the other hand, in my personal opinion, there are at least two points that English haiku could merit attention: one is the aforementioned dynamism with sharp waveforms and instantaneous force, and the other is the rather playful visual form that is hard to adopt in Japanese haiku style.

Another different and controversial point between the two haiku might be this question - does Japanese haiku require "Aha moment"? Sadly I cannot answer this question satisfactorily, but I don't feel so in most cases, and basically Japanese haiku does not need to be innovative or philosophical.

When I showed an English haiku book to my Japanese friend who also writes haiku, she said, "These are more like poems, not haiku."  Although I found her remark very interesting, I personally think English haiku should advance in its own style that best fits the culture so that the people there can enjoy it in the most effective way.