"Words on Poetry," reviews of poets by Miriam Sagan from the Santa Fe New Mexican.
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Jack Kerouac, Book of Haikus

English poetry, like the English language itself, is wide open to the enriching influence of other languages and cultures. Many poetic forms we think of as quintessentially English, such as the sonnet, came from elsewhere--in this case the Italian. The twentieth century in particular showed the influence of poetic concepts from Asia, notably the haiku. The haiku is the three line Japanese form which has migrated around the world and is now written in countries from the United States to China to New Zealand. The haiku is deceptively simple in that it is short--seventeen syllables or less arranged in three lines with a pattern that is approximately five syllables, then seven, then five. It aims to capture a moment, a fleeting sensation, but is much more than that. Traditional Japanese haiku contain a season word, and a wealth of conventions and references.

Like all successful émigrés, the haiku has proved to be adaptable. English is not Japanese, and English language haiku has become its own form. There are essentially two schools of American haiku. The first is represented by the early pioneers of the form who became the American Haiku Society. These practitioners’ strength is their reverence for the original Japanese rules of the form, their weakness is an occasional tendency towards a hobbyist view, or treating haiku like a rare flower rather than a living tradition. Fascinatingly, the Beats--known for their rolling no holds barred style--were also practitioners of haiku.

Gary Snyder introduced the form, along with the study of Buddhism, to Phil Whalen, Allen Ginsberg, and Jack Kerouac. Ginsberg pioneered a successful one line haiku--partially an attempt to maintain the flavor of writing in lines of characters. It was Kerouac, however, who most deeply explored the form. In a productive paradox, Kerouac--who was famous for claiming never to revise and who typed his outpourings on a continuous roll of paper--was also committed to the miniature delicacy of haiku. His haiku are now collected in Book of Haikus (Penguin Poets) which is thoughtfully edited and introduced by Regina Weinreich.

Many of these are suburban in feel, written from the backyard. Kerouac wasn’t just a poet of the open road--he looks at his cats, the birdbath, and the neighbors in a way that is both fresh and poignant:

Cold crisp October morning
--the cats fighting
In the weeds
***
As the cool evenings
make themselves felt,
Smoke from suburban chimneys.
***
When the moon sinks
down to the power line,
I’ll go in.

Kerouac also called haiku “pops”. His “Desolation Pops” were written in 1956, from his isolation on Desolation Peak:

A stump with sawdust
--a place
to meditate
***
The mountains
are mighty patient,
Buddha-man

And there are angrier poems, from the end of Kerouac’s life, during is descent into alcoholism:

At night
The girl I denied
walking away

As well as ones of pure beauty:

Moon in the
bird bath--
One star too

Kerouac’s haiku are not always conventional, but have remained highly influential on American writers of haiku. The work shows true poetic understanding--and a penetration of human life. Jack Kerouac can said to be the first American master of haiku.

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