Haiku and Modernist Poetics [Hardcover]

This book examines the genesis and development of haiku in Japan and traces its impact on modernist poetics. This study shows that the most pervasive East-West artistic, cultural, and literary exchange that has taken place in modern and postmodern times was in the reading and writing of haiku in the West. Hakutani roots Y.B Yeats symbolism in cross cultural visions; reveals Ezra Pound s imagism to have originated in haiku; and discusses some of the finest haiku written by Jack Kerouac, Richard Wright, Sonia Sanchez, and James Emanuel.Introduction The Genesis and Development of Haiku in Japan Basho and Haiku Poetics Yone Noguchi and Japanese Poetics W. B. Yeats' Poetics in the Noh Play Ezra Pound, Imagism, and Japanese Poetics Jack Kerouac's Haiku and Beat Poetics Richard Wright's Haiku, Zen, and the African 'Primal Outlook upon Life' Cross-Cultural Poetics: Sonia Sanchez's Like the Singing Coming off the Drums James A. Emanuel's Jazz Haiku

Hakutani's study is of interest to those concerned about haiku poetics or writing original haiku as it traces haiku from Basho to its reception in the English-speaking West (Noguchi, Yeats, Pound, Kerouac, Wright) to contemporary innovative experiments influenced by aspecific cultural focus such as jazz (Sanchez, Emanuel). - Bruce Ross, author of How to Haiku, A Writer's Guide to Haiku and Related Forms and editor of Haiku Moment: An Anthology of Contemporary North American Haiku

YOSHINOBU HAKUTANI is Professor of English and University Distinguished Scholar at Kent State University, Ohio, USA. and author of many books, including Cross-Cultural Visions in African American Modernism: From Spatial Narrative to Jazz Haiku.