Non-Japanese Haiku Today

Abstract

This paper is an exploration of the validity of the writing of haiku by non-Japanese poets (NJP), addressing the question of the extent to which it is possible or necessary for NJP to maintain the haiku spirit of its Japanese origins. Commentary from various Japanese scholars and poets, recent and past, as well as Western writers, will be examined as part of an argument positing that the essential nature of haiku, going back as far as Matsuo Bashō, has always been about change and development, and that the taking up of the form across the globe is a natural and valid part of this development.