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Philip Rowland’s article Against the Mainstream (BS12/2) prompts me to reply, given that a summary of my views features so heavily. I feel that a distinction between haiku and mainstream poetry needs to be made and I shall continue to make it. I see haiku as the kind of poem that the poet in us would write on our day off, having unwittingly let go of the need to achieve anything. So, the kind of haiku that interest me are those that arise out of unguardedness, occurring when the writer is least identified with the idea of being a poet. This kind of haiku is not just an insight into the poet’s life but into our own lives also - it affects us because it is genuine and is as real for us as it was for the writer. This is what makes haiku unique and is the challenge that it can offer us - to be in touch with our readers instead of just with ourselves. This attitude is in keeping with the communal roots of haiku as social poetry.

     What I gloss as mainstream poetry is the kind of poetry that is written as an act of will - it belongs to, and is a personal expression of, its writer. I call it ‘mainstream’ because I believe that this is how most people think poetry is written, including, it seems, Philip Rowland. What he describes as ‘homogenous’ may seem to restrict a poet’s scope, but why do writers always need to be in control of what they write? Encouraging an acceptance of life outside of our control gives haiku an additional spiritual dimension in a natural and non-religious way. The closer haiku becomes to what I call mainstream poetry, the less interesting it is, precisely because it loses that unique unguarded naturalness. We already have fiction, therefore we don’t need fictional haiku; similarly, rhetorical questions, aphorisms, proverbs, anecdotes, philosophical thoughts and abstract statements already exist, so we don’t really need haiku versions of those either. The kind of haiku I’m talking about has a unique function in poetry which is the  transferable contact between writer and reader that that can be found in Chinese and Japanese poetry. That freshness is what haiku has to offer mainstream poetry and that’s how, if we maintain a haiku attitude and can hold our ‘creative writing’ aspirations in check, it will come to enrich poetry generally. Haiku doesn’t need to become more radical because it is radical already. If it needs to develop, it needs to become deeper, as well as broader, bringing us more in touch with our lives and the lives of others. Yes, the question of content needs to be considered, but the examples that Philip Rowland describes as radical are unhelpful,  particularly item 87, which left me baffled.

     This debate is far from over for all of us and it won’t get any easier; it will become more subtle. There are many schools of haiku and I’m committed to one that seems to be opposite to Philip Rowland’s view. I would turn his closing statement on its head: ‘If one is drawn to the spirit of haiku, then mainstream poetry will sometimes result from the attempt to write haiku’, and that’s fine, but why blur the distinction?