The two women told me they were from Kamakura, the medieval capital of Japan, about an hour south of Tokyo by train. They had come up together for the haiku session. The first woman, graceful and of slender build, spoke to me in excellent English. She said she was a historian and her haiku name was Chōon, or “Sound of the Tide.” She had lived in the United States for six and a half years, she explained, having followed her husband there when the Japanese bank he worked for transferred him to New York.
Sound of the Tide introduced me to her friend, whose haiku name was Uono, or Fish Field. Fish Field, brimming with energy, gave me a big smile. She appeared to be one of the younger members of the group, perhaps in her late forties. Fish Field told me she was a caricature artist, a Japanese word I did not understand until she took out one of her calling cards to show me. The card had a self-portrait in the upper right corner—a caricature with a peppy smile, jet-black hair, and bright, intelligent eyes behind huge, round glasses. Fish Field made room for me at the table. How could someone so likeable have such a strange haiku name? Fish Field evoked a field of smelly, rotting fish. In my mind I called her “Field and Stream,” after the fishing magazine—a name that I found just as humorous but that evoked a more pleasant image.
I turned my attention back to Sound of the Tide. She intrigued me. I had always thought of haiku as an art focused on the present moment, where words came from a flash of poetic inspiration or were triggered by a scene, a sound, or even a scent. Yet here was Sound of the Tide, a historian devoted to researching the past, taking up the art. I could not understand why she would be attracted to haiku. I asked and she replied, I love doing historical research. But history is like doing a jigsaw puzzle. It is solitary and demands patience. I was looking for an activity that would involve more people. I was searching for something, but I did not know quite what.
I had never thought of haiku, or any kind of poetry for that matter, as a social activity. I assumed people wrote haiku to connect with themselves, in keeping with my image of the Zen monk writing haiku in the woods. Yet here was Sound of the Tide telling me that she was attracted to haiku because it would connect her with others.
Sound of the Tide explained that at about the time she was looking for something to add to her life, she learned that Field and Stream was starting up a haiku group in Kamakura. She had never written haiku at that point, but she joined Field and Stream’s group. Some months later, when they learned that Dr. Mochizuki was forming a group in Numazu, she and Field and Stream joined that group too. Hearing mention of Dr. Mochizuki, Field and Stream pointed out to me the elderly gentleman I had noticed earlier sitting with Traveling Man Tree and the man with the fedora. That’s him. He’s the organizer of our group. He’s a doctor and an essayist.
I asked Field and Stream why she joined the Numamomo haiku group. Me? I joined because Kuroda Momoko is the haiku master. I’ve read some of her books and I like her openness of spirit. Also, I thought it would be great to do haiku in a place as beautiful as the Goyōtei!
I was nodding in agreement when the sliding paper screen door opened behind us. The room became quiet and I turned to see an exotic woman in her sixties walk in. I knew instantly that this must be the person Traveling Man Tree and Field and Stream referred to as our haiku master. Her salt-and-pepper hair was cropped like a schoolgirl’s—bangs straight across her forehead and then falling in an even cut about an inch above her shoulders, framing a deeply wrinkled, peaceful face. She smiled at us as she entered, and more deep creases broke forth around her eyes. She wore an unusual outfit, which appeared to be a modern variation on the traditional Japanese samue—a cotton wraparound blouse with loose, matching, calf-length pants. Our haiku master’s version of the samue was deep indigo, with white stitching in traditional Japanese geometric patterns. I have never seen anyone in Japan dress like her, before or since.
Our haiku master settled herself in at one of the low tables and gave us all a reassuring nod and bow. Traveling Man Tree leaned over to Momoko and mentioned that several of us were new to the group. She spoke:
It’s good to see so many new faces this month. If this is your first time, do not worry, I am sure you will do just fine. The most important thing for you today is not to think about whether your haiku is “good enough.”
Don’t try to write a haiku that is “like Bashō’s” or “like Issa’s.”
Work on developing a haiku that truly reflects you. If you can write a haiku that expresses you, then you are writing a good haiku.
My job is not to judge whether you have written well or poorly, but to help you write a haiku that is true to yourself.
We can each write haiku because we each have a soul. Every soul is equal in a haiku group, and there is room in a haiku group for every soul.
By listening to the haiku of others, you will learn about yourself and your haiku. And others in turn will learn about themselves through your haiku.
With that, the session began. Someone handed me five long, narrow strips of paper and told me to write down five haiku. I desperately tried to create haiku on the spot but could not even decide which language to write in, much less a theme. I turned to Sound of the Tide, who had just finished writing out:
蝉しぐれ句を練る人等美しく
semishigure ku o neru hitora utsukushiku
the beauty of
people struggling with haiku
cascading cries of the cicada
SOUND OF THE TIDE
Did that haiku come to you right now? I mean, are you receiving some inspiration? I asked. Of course not, she answered. I am only writing down the best five I’ve written over the past two months.
I looked around the room. Silence reigned. People knelt on the floor and bent low over their work, copying out their haiku. I stared at my five blank strips of paper. Now I am really in over my head, I thought. Here was a serious group of poets and I had just come here to . . . well, why had I come here? As an adventure? On a lark? I looked down at my strips of paper, which were as blank as my mind.
Slowly, words began to percolate inside me, and I jotted them down. As soon as I had a string of seventeen syllables, I moved on to the next. In all, I wrote down five haiku that first day: three in English and two in Japanese. They were not even mildly good haiku. Haiku should be spontaneous and come from within, I had read. These were desperate and pulled out of thin air. But that day, they were all I had.
Someone passed an empty cardboard box around the room, and we all put our five strips of paper in the box facedown. As poor as my haiku were, at least they were now out of my hands. I leaned over to Field and Stream and asked her again the name of our teacher.
She whispered back, Kuroda Momoko, but she’s just Momoko-sensei to us. She is very active. She’s written many books on haiku and won prizes for her works. She has a column every Sunday in the Nikkei newspaper, and she often appears on haiku programs on television. But don’t let any of that intimidate you. She is very thoughtful and will be very respectful of your work.
The cardboard box came around again, and this time we each pulled five haiku strips from the box at random. Sound of the Tide, sitting next to me, told me to copy these five haiku onto a single sheet of paper. When everyone finished this task, we passed the sheets around the room. There were a total of about thirty sheets, one for each member of the group, including Momoko. As the sheets came around one by one, we read the haiku, and if a particular haiku struck our fancy, we wrote it down on a sheet of paper. At the end of the session, after reading about 150 haiku, we were to narrow our selection down to our five favorites and read these aloud to the group.
Sound