Interview with Stephen Addiss
by Robert Wilson
Q. In your book, A Haiku Menagerie, you write: "As we lose
contact with other living beings, we are in danger of feeling
ourselves alone in the universe; the arts of poetry and painting
can help us to awaken our interrelationships with everything that
lives." Could you elucidate this?
A. We can divide human lifestyles into three main groups, namely
hunting-gathering, agricultural, and urban societies. The first two
kept us in close touch with nature, but as humankind moves more and
more to urban life, this connection has become weakened. The arts,
and especially poetry and painting, can help to renew our sense of
self as part of a larger natural world. Haiku plays an especially
important role, I believe, because of two factors. The first is how
perception of nature is emphasized in this form of poetry in terms
of personal identification, rather than difference. The second is
that haiku invite us to enter and complete the poems, thus bringing
us into intimate connections with other forms of life.
Q. Do traditional Japanese woodblock artists and haiku poets share
a similar outlook towards nature?
A. In my series of books (A Haiku Menagerie, A Haiku Garden, Haiku
People, and Haiku Landscapes), we use prints from artists of many
diferent schools and traditions, most of whom would not be
considered as woodblock artists. Instead, they were providing
designs for woodblock books (rather than single prints) as a small
part of their total work as painters. So your question can be
enlarged: do Japanese painters and haiku poets have a similar
outlook? I think the answer, in the large, is yes, although the
different forms of expression have slightly different aspects. For
example, painters are geared to visual interaction with nature,
while a haiku poet may have a visual image in one poem, but may
emphasize different senses such as sound, aroma, and touch in other
poems. But I think their underlying spirit is very similar.
Q. You mention in your book that Matsuo Basho, the ancient haiku
master, captured in his poetry, "the meeting between the universal
pulse of nature and the intensely human aesthetic perception of a
particular time and space." Why was this a breakthrough at the
time and how did it change the course of haiku?
A. this was not entirely new to haiku, since Japanese waka poets as
well as painters had emphasized this before, but in haiku it becomes
the absolute focus of the art. In my view it was Basho who brought
this intensity of vision to fruition in his haiku.
Q. How did haiku make poetry accessible to the masses in the early
17th century? And, as a follow-up question, how was a haiku poet's
perception of nature different from that entertained by waka poets?
A. There was a general broadening out of culture after the three
great Shoguns reunited Japan in the late sixteenth century. After
almost a century of civil war, people responded to peace with a
great flourishing of the arts, and this extended beyond the nobility
and samurai class to everyday people. In painting, for example,
there grew up a number of schools to respond to different audiences.
Even the fields previously dominated by courtiers, such as waka
poetry, now became practiced by people from many different walks of
life. The "Three Women of Gion" poets, for example, ran a teahouse
in the Gion Park in Kyoto, and added greatly to the waka tradition.
So haiku was part of a larger trend, but by its simplicity of form
and everyday imagery combined with depth of spirit, it perfectly
suited the new interest by larger numbers of the populace to take
part in poetic expression.
Q. Why did you choose to compile an anthology of Japanese
woodblock prints and haiku about living creatures?
A. That book (A Haiku Menagerie) was the first of our series; in
fact, at that time I only envisioned one book. Although at first it was
difficult to find a publisher, when finally printed it was
successful enough to spawn another, then another, and now a total of
four with a fifth now being prepared. But at the time I was struck
by the absolutely wonderful images, in both visual and verbal form,
that were created by Japanese responding to birds, animals,
reptiles, fish, and other living creatures. There was such immediacy
and delight in both haiku and woodblock book prints that I thought
it would make a marvelous book. Nothing quite like it had been done
before; these are not haiga, since the poems and images were not
created together. But nevertheless their interaction has proved to
reach many people in the western world.
Q. As an artist, scholar, and poet, what is your perception of
Buson in regards to his outlook towards haiku and its relationship
with nature?
A. Buson to me is the one artist who combined absolute skill as a
poet with absolute skill as a painter. Haiga by Basho and Issa, in
contrast, have a special quality precisely because they were not
painters, but rather expressed their feelings with modesty and
simplicity. But Buson could go further, and in his haiga he was able
to show his haiku spirit equally in two different but now unified
arts--which I greatly admire!
Q. There is a controversy as to what is and isn't haiga. What is
your definition of haiga?
A. I don't tend to like rigid definitions, but to me a haiga
combines a haiku with an image, or it loses either the "hai" or the
"ga." It might have more than one image, or more than one poem, but
it should combine the visual with the verbal to qualify for the
term. Of course, the image does not have to be a painting--
photography, collage, digital work, and even ceramics and sculpture
can be utilized (even though "ga" literally means painting). But
there is something very appealing to me about writing the poem with
the same implements that create the image--be it rush, pen,
pencil, crayon, pastel, or whatever. This creates a unity that I
myself usually prefer.
To make the matter of definition more complicated, in Japan a kind
of image, very simple and informal, became associated with haiga, so
there developed paintings in haiga style without poems. These are
not really haiga, I think, but perhaps the phrase "haiga-style" is
appropriate here. Conversely, there were occasionally fully detailed
and elaborate paintings with haiku that differ in style but still
technically qualify as haiga. I suppose the question is whether you
base your definition on style, or on the combination of poem and
image. I prefer the latter, but perhaps a loose definition is not a
bad thing.
Q. Who has been the greatest influence on you as a haiku poet and
artist?
A. That's very difficult to say. Since I do a great deal of
painting, calligraphy and pottery without poems, and also compose
many poems without visual images, the influences are really broad
and varied. But in general I came to my work through studying the
Japanese masters, so it has been Basho, Buson, Shiro, Socho,
Kodojin, and perhaps most strongly Issa, that I have admired for
their combinations of haiku and image. For other kinds of
poem-paintings, I have been influenced by the literati artist
Gyokudo and the Zen Master Hakuin.
Q. What advice can you offer those new to haiku, haiga, and
related art forms?
A. Have fun! There's an old Japanese saying that we get good at what
we like to do, so the most important thing is simply to do it.
Secondly, take time to experiment, try different methods, styles,
approaches, and see what feels most interesting rather than most
comfortable. Third, I think that one should not judge one's work
while creating it, but give it a little time, and then look it over
and learn where to go with it. Fourth, I think appreciation of what
others have done is very important; creative people run the danger
of becoming very self-involved. Finally, it's good to take one's
work, but not oneself, seriously.