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Where am I in the long history of haiku? I am just a beginner in English haiku, though I have 15 years’ experience of writing Japanese haiku. My haiku have now appeared in Blithe Spirit and HI, the quarterly magazine of the Haiku Inter-national Association of Japan. It seems very important for me to be able to belong to a haiku society in another country, working in its own language. The character-istics of haiku, for example ‘humour’ and ‘simplicity’ and ‘seasonableness’ and ‘cutting’ , are universal, just the same as the rules of chess or football.

     Loving Buson’s haiku very much, I started to write haiku in a little haiku group, one of innumerable haiku groups in Japan. Soon I wondered why we must write haiku centred on the self in the ‘here’ and ‘now’, as every haiku teacher told us. I had recognized that the works of Bashō and Buson did not always fit into this framework. Then, from 1990 to 2000, I studied haiku literature under Ogata Tsutomu, who is an eminent haiku scholar. In 1993, Haruo Shirane spent part of his sabbatical with our class for half a year and this formed the basis of his Bashō studies. Master Ogata asked Professor Watanabe and me to assist him. From that time on we have been good friends. I learned about the history of haiku literature and realized that modern haiku starts with Masaoka Shiki (1867-1902), who reformed hokku into haiku, emphasizing a more realistic style with shasei (sketching), based on his understanding of Western arts and literature. His friend Natsume Sōseki (1867-1916), who was a scholar of English literature and afterwards a great writer, also wrote haiku influenced by Shiki. Perhaps Shiki got his knowledge of English culture through Sōseki. Both of them were educated in Chinese poetry in their youth and had good skills in it. In Chinese poetry there was an element ganzen (before one’s eyes), similar to shasei. So there might be also an unconscious influence of Chinese poetry. In Japan there was an element keiki (mood of a scene) from before Bashō’s period, but it was a little different from shasei. Shiki admired Buson’s work rather than Bashō’s from the point of view of shasei. The way of shasei reinvigorated hokku which had become stereotyped at that time. So it can be said that there was a gap between hokku before Shiki and haiku after him. But now shasei-ku itself has become stereotyped, so many of us are looking for a fresh way of making haiku. The future will not appear suddenly without the past, it will evolve from the past. It is useful to stand back and take a long view of haiku in the world.

• Long ago Chinese poetry influenced Japanese poetry.
• Classical haiku such as the works of Bashō and Buson were introduced in translations to the West and those works influenced westerners like the Imagists and R.M.Rilke and many other poets.
• Modern haiku has already been influenced by Western arts and literature.
• R.H.Blyth had an important role in English haiku.
• Haiku in various countries is on its own path. 
• It will be possible to achieve equality with previous great works of poetry with a haiku. (Look at Bashō)
• Haiku is not a fossil. It is also not a toy. Haiku is constantly changing. It is the daily bread of my soul.
• The purpose of haiku is to express one’s own real life. The most important point of haiku is ‘hai’ (). Without it, haiku is only a short poem. ‘Hai’ means some-thing  like humour,  fun, comedy, laughter. It is part of the new discovery of life and nature from the angle of anti-routine or anti-common-sense. (The Possibility of Haiku by Ogata Tsutomu, 1996) ‘Hai’ means ‘light hearted’ :  life is serious, but we should smile as we deal with its problems, and always find the brightest side of our experiences. I also think ‘hai’ is ‘blithe spirit’ and ‘karumi’ (lightness). A little candle can light the darkness of the world, and let us know the depth of darkness.