Ever since I knew about the creative project, I knew I wanted to create something using video. I was especially drawn to the haiku of Matsuo Basho and Masaoka Shiki, and initially wanted to create a short film depicting what it might look like today to have someone creating haiku similarly to either poet. However, after discussing with Professor Watanabe, I realized how difficult of a task that would be, and how it would massively shift the focus away from the haikus. Nevertheless, my wish to convey haiku through video in a modern sense remained. After reading many haiku from both Basho and Shiki, I decided to spend just one day observing my surroundings and taking videos of the subjects of my haikus. 

Regarding the compositional practice, the value of only writing for one day was in a shift in my perspective. It forced me to confront the pressure I felt to seek novelty for inspiration, and instead to turn to my seemingly ordinary events of my day and find inspiration therein through a new perspective. When we initially read Basho’s haiku, the one that stuck out to me the most was the haiku, “Fleas, lice, a horse pissing just outside” (Basho 23). Initially, I was confused: why would Basho feel the need to write a haiku for this happening? It contrasted with his other poems regarding the beauty of the environment, a Buddhist or profound message, or a rare instance of something abnormal occurring. But as I read more haiku and researched the core values of Basho and Shiki, I realized that this seemingly random haiku represented the strong exposure of the senses to and in the now. The smell, sound, the feeling must’ve all been striking to Basho. By limiting my writing to just one day, I was forced to be significantly more attentive to everything around me. What sounds, sights, tastes, etc. had I not contemplated or distinctly thought about beforehand? I took this into consideration when choosing to write my haiku, while mostly following all my usual routes. At one point, I did think of going to a specific spot that I believed might help me produce another haiku, but I was not able to think of one to write. I suppose in that manner, my haiku connects more with Shiki’s. Although not quite as creative nor restricted as Shiki, I still appreciated his advancement of haiku in face of difficult constraints. An article I found representative of this idea in my research–“Hana Wa Sakuragi: Discourse Analysis of Cherry Blossoms in Haiku of ‘The Great Four’” by Muhammad Nadzif Bin Ramlan–presents an interesting comparison of Basho and Shiki when he says, “These two antithetical perspectives are based on the relative view of the interlocutor, whether the individual acts as an observer of routine occurrences such as sunrise and sunset, or a discoverer in which new experience has been received” (11). Another thing that struck me was the difference in approach and circumstances between Basho and Shiki, Basho continuously traveling while Shiki remains confined to his room. Basho’s constant travelling allowed him to experience many different and interesting things while Shiki’s routine required keener observation and more appreciation of his limited surroundings. Therefore, I knew beforehand that my haikus, intentionally or not, would most likely end up being more in line with Shiki’s due to my own routine and lack of adventure as well as the modern and less spiritual context he, like me, was placed. 

The other aspect of the setup I needed to consider was how I would handle representation of these haiku through video. Originally, I thought I would present them through highly edited, cinematic angles that directly focused on what I was writing about. However, as I considered the purpose and structure of haiku, I changed my line of thinking to reflect what I believed a video haiku would look like, that being a still and wide shot reflecting everything that I as the poet was seeing and attempting to convey to a reader. Another article I came across, “Ordinary Aesthetics and Ethics in the Haiku Poetry of Matsuo Bashō: A Wittgensteinian Perspective” by Tomaso Pignocchi, proposes, “Things are what they are, and in this, in their very impermanence and absence of meaning to be revealed, in the lack of their ulterior hidden nature, it is possible to grasp their serene beauty: something we are unable to do as long as we try to find meaning in them” (6). Had I framed the videos extensively, adjusting how long you would focus on one shot or the subject of each shot, then I would be taking away the autonomy of interpretation in haiku. In that case, my feelings would come between the viewer and the scenery. Giving the viewer room to breathe and absorb their surroundings, and in turn find their own beauty within their surroundings is what I considered essential going into this project. 

In the writing of the haiku themselves, I often found myself drawn to landscapes and sounds. Although I’m not as spiritual as Basho, I still enjoy seeing beautiful nature and architecture. My process for writing the haiku usually entailed either getting a strong feeling about something specific, or a slowly developed haiku based on an initial, vague attraction to my surroundings. I may have been on the lookout for inspiration and attempted to be keenly aware of sensations I hadn’t noticed before, but in the end the subject usually found me. I wouldn’t say I encountered many challenges when attempting to write my haiku. The real problem I faced was clarity in my haiku. I didn’t want to go back and “fix” my haiku, losing that initial feeling, but clarifying the purpose, the description, and adjusting the flow were some of the changes I sparingly made. This process made me wonder how much Basho and Shiki would edit or change their haiku (a question which warrants further investigation), and further beyond that, the value in every word of a haiku. I knew, before engaging with the project, the importance of word choice, but partaking in the creative process hammered that home for me. I also realized that some of my haiku (as well as all poetry) required understanding its cultural context—in my case, that of the United States, or in a couple cases, Wesleyan itself. In two of my haiku, I mention Exley, which to anyone outside of Wesleyan, would be meaningless. Perhaps I should’ve restructured them to be more accessible to universal human experiences due to the purpose of haiku being intricate description rather than flat explanation. This does parallel the experience I had reading Basho and Shiki in the compilation The River of Heaven: The Haiku of Basho, Buson, Issa, and Shiki (titled after one of Basho’s haiku) that includes extensive commentary from Robert Aitken, without which the American reader would be lost. Many haiku by Basho and Shiki revolved around or at least had elements of Japanese culture that wouldn’t be clear to someone from outside of Japan. This is natural, but the number of references made me reconsider the diaries and haiku we read for class, as well as how personal and tailored a haiku can (or should) be. Some of my haikus involve American culture or are potentially only understandable to a college audience, such as the end of sports games after the fall and the constant construction of new buildings on campuses across the country. After looking back on Shiki’s poems, even his can be extremely personal, most likely not making sense to someone who doesn’t know the story of his life. So, although there might be a societal or cultural gap between a haiku poet and the reader, they can still express broad feelings even within the specific circumstances. One pattern I noticed in my haiku was the similar structure of opening with the subject of the haiku. I probably fell into this habit due to the small period of time and little practice of haiku that I had. This also made me go back to Shiki and Basho’s poems to see if and where I had picked up this habit from them. Shiki also tended to start his haiku similarly to mine, which makes sense from his “observer” perspective that was previously mentioned. I find it ironic that this formulaic pattern was more present in Shiki’s works, as he is considered the innovator and is known for ushering in extended creative freedom for the form of haiku. But again, his documentation of routine, the seemingly ordinary, makes this style understandable: through his form of haiku, he immediately draws specific attention to these small details and then adds further depth to them in the rest of the poem.

For the videos, I mostly stuck to the flat, still, landscape shot that I initially thought to stick to. I believe the landscape shot and the videos worked better for some haikus than others. The importance of videos and their distinction from photos consists of the change they can capture, even in relatively still shots. Motion and sound are two important things that can be observed in video alongside the image itself. Sound was especially alluring within my haiku whether it be rolling leaves, rain, snow, construction noise, or voices. Anyone watching gets to see what I saw and hear what I heard, accomplishing the goal of haiku and in a way, expanding on it. The flat and still nature of most of my videos gives viewers the opportunity to relate the specific imagery of my haiku to the overall image. The exceptions to this were my videos on the winding hallways and my grandma’s cookies. I chose to violate my initial rules because in the case of the hallways, it couldn’t be accomplished without showing how they were “winding” and continuing for an extended period of time. The reason I had a panning angle for the cookies is because I wanted to at first focus on the cookies themself, then the taste and crunch of them. It also is the result of my video on eating dinner, which I shot prior, being what I consider to be my worst video, and incapable of capturing the spirit of haiku whatsoever. If I could go back and shoot that video again, I would focus more on my friend rather than trying to balance the environment or change up the angle to be fitting of both, although that simultaneously betrays my vision of keeping it to POV shots. However, I still found the cookie video to not accurately portray its corresponding haiku. I ended on a rather introspective note, so representing that through someone else casually consuming the cookies did not make sense in retrospect. I feel my haikus on the Exley’s lights and the trees could have both been effective as photos. Neither focuses on any movement or sounds and would evoke the same emotions as photos. Overall, I think the videos can work in tandem with the haikus to clarify certain images; however, I don’t believe that it’s possible for them to replace haiku entirely. Words can convey feelings even deeper than video, at least explicitly.

To build off of my own creative endeavors, I would like to propose how I believe Basho and Shiki would express themselves now through my modern, western perspective. Firstly, I believe that an online visual platform is how most information is conveyed now. Therefore, to reach others and share their experiences, Basho and Shiki might potentially be influencers with social media accounts. For Basho, the most effective way to communicate his experiences would be through vlogging. Vlogging is essentially a manner of publishing a video diary online, and I think with his travelling experience and publication of his diaries in the past, this format would best fit Basho. The combination of his haiku and written experiences could represent a split between the videos he makes: long-form videos chronicling a majority of his experience and short-form videos not too dissimilar to the ones I took for this project. These shorter videos would be specific parts of his journeys (and vlogs) that he found most striking. A beautiful sight, a funny moment, a strange experience, anything a viewer could understand and follow in less than a minute. Meanwhile for Shiki, I believe he would follow a path of photography and videography shared online. Unlike Basho, Shiki is confined to his room, so he would focus on just the smallest moments, angling his confined space in a manner that can be visually appealing. Shiki will focus on specific objects to create new perspectives from a limited room. Many of the objects, people and experiences in his home can be captured in a single frame, but some he might want to share will require video. A resounding noise, the delicious crunch of food, or a lack of sound itself might be one of the moments in which he chooses to take a quick, well-framed video. Perhaps both Shiki and Basho would accompany their visual art with poetry? Or maybe witty captions? It’s impossible to know as video expression ascends into the limelight and pushes literary art further into the shadows, though haiku were also initially considered less formal.

All-in-all, this project has solidified to me the dynamic between Basho, Shiki, and someone in the modern day in a western setting. While haiku and video are two clearly different forms of expression, there is potential to overlap and share the same feelings across art forms in a similar manner. Not only can they accomplish similar goals, but they can complement each other by recontextualizing one another.

Works Cited

Aitken, Robert. The River of Heaven: The Haiku of Basho, Buson, Issa, and Shiki. Counterpoint Press, 2011. Accessed 8 December 2024.

Pignocchi, Tomaso. “Ordinary Aesthetics and Ethics in the Haiku Poetry of Matsuo Bashō: A Wittgensteinian Perspective.” Open Philosophy, vol. 6, no. 1, 2023, pp. 17-33.

Ramlan, Muhammad Nadzif Bin. “Hana Wa Sakuragi: Discourse Analysis of Cherry Blossoms in Haiku of ‘The Great Four.’” Japanese Research on Linguistics, Literature, and Culture, vol. 4, no. 1, 2021, pp. 1-15.