Kristin Boryca • Boryca's Haiku • Essay on Haiku Aesthetics

Two Cultures, Two Females, Two Styles: A Comparison of Haiku by Karen Sohne and Yoshiko Yoshino After attending the Global Haiku Festival, I began wondering what the differences are, if there are any, among female writers. For this global haiku essay, I decided to examine the similarities and differences of one contemporary English language haiku writer and one contemporary Japanese language haiku writer, both female. After some consideration, I chose Yoshiko Yoshino as my female Japanese writer and Karen Sohne as my female English writer. One thing that I have noticed while examining the work of these two writers is that often times they would write about similar themes or images, but they approach them differently. Let's take these two haiku, for example. the men on both sides have taken my armrests —Karen Sohne a man came in and messed up the fragrance of wild narcissus —Yoshiko Yoshino In Sohne’s haiku, I imagine a woman at a movie theater where two men (possibly a husband and a son) have each unconsciously taken over the armrests, leaving her without any. While the haiku is humorous, it also depicts the unconsciously inconsiderate nature of the two men; but more than that, it depicts the especially perceptive nature of the female caught in between. Likewise, Yoshino’s haiku illustrates how men interrupt what could be good experiences. In her haiku, she is peacefully smelling the narcissus when a man enters and his cologne (or natural stench) interrupts her smelling pleasure. The women in both haiku have been pulled out of an otherwise concentrated moment because of the action of men. However, while the theme of the haiku is the same, the methods through which each writer depicts this theme is different. Yoshino stays in the more traditional Japanese method of always using a nature word or seasonal element in her haiku. The man does not interrupt her, he interrupts her smelling of the narcissus, he interrupts nature. On the other hand, there is neither a nature word or seasonal element in Sohne’s haiku. Sohne chose to focus on the daily lives of Western women when she placed her haiku in a movie theater setting. American women, I think, can relate to Sohne’s haiku even though it is not season specific because the underlining theme is defined but, while American women might be able to image Yoshino’s scene (with an added bonus if they’ve ever smelled narcissuses), they probably have not had as much experience with it. And this statement may be reversed for Japanese women in reference to reading Sohne’s haiku as opposed to Yoshino’s. Another set of haiku that have similar themes are as follows: driving to work past the woods and the wild roses —Karen Sohne along barren fields a truck races with a load of paper cherry blossoms —Yoshiko Yoshino In both of these haiku, there is work to be done, but Sohne’s haiku is the one that states this directly in the line "driving to work," whereas Yohsino states it more indirectly (by illustrating a truck "rac[ing]" along with the bed full "of paper cherry blossoms." The main difference between these two haiku is that in Sohne’s haiku, she takes the time during the drive to work to notice nature in its full beauty. On the other hand, in Yoshino’s haiku, the work that has to be done involves nature, so the need to stop and admire nature while driving along is not necessary since they will be doing that in their celebration later on. The priorities of the people in each haiku is different: one pauses in their daily life to remember nature and one uses nature as a vehicle for doing things. It isn’t surprising, therefore, that the person who pauses momentarily during their day to take a look at nature is the English language writer and the one who always seems to be doing something in nature is the Japanese writer. I also examined two haiku that possess similar images within them. For example: No moon tonight Our eyes are drawn To the white chrysanthemum —Karen Sohne ducks call in the night a woman’s white body sinks into her bath —Yoshiko Yoshino There are a couple of reoccurring images in these haiku. For instance, they both depicts a deep night as the setting. Also, in both haiku the reader is drawn to a glowing white image in the night: in Sohne’s haiku it is a "white chrysanthemum" and in Yoshino’s haiku it is a "woman’s white body." The tone of both haiku is peaceful and serene and embedded in nature; however, in Yoshino’s haiku the author watches the scene, while in Sohne’s haiku the author is depicted in the scene. This placement of the people involved is important to note because few of Yoshino’s haiku portray herself at all, but many of Sohne’s do. In this haiku, for example, Sohne uses the phrase "our eyes" to illustrate herself in the haiku. Yoshino, however, never uses such images. Even in haiku in which Yoshino may be present (such as the previously mentioned haiku about the man interrupting the smell of the narcissus) she never states it in a direct way. One reason for this may be because of the differences in the two languages (there really is not a translation for I or we into the Japanese language); however, when Jack Stamm translated Yoshino’s haiku from Japanese into English he could have inserted such pronouns because they are often times understood in the Japanese language. I feel that Stamm did not insert such pronouns into Yoshino’s haiku because he realized that her ability to write rests in her ability to convey universal images, which do not need to have a pronoun. Sohne, I think, often uses pronouns and such because she grew up writing in the English language (possibly even writing in other genres) and is used to putting herself in her writing. Although the haiku of these two women share some of the same themes and images, there are some indisputable differences in the style of their writing. Whether it is due to the use of pronouns or to the inclusion or exclusion of nature words or seasonal elements, English language writers and Japanese writers have very different ways of expressing the same thoughts or feelings, even though both authors are female. —Kristin Boryca