pi & anne

I believe the discussion of objectivity in haiku may be an essential one and cannot be discussed without looking at human nature.

Disclaimer.

The following might contradict what famous poets have said about haiku and how to write them… I know. But I want and need to use my own brain to make sense of things, because this is the way I learn.

Can we ever reach true and full objectivity?

Ask a scientist: Not really. Ask a philosopher: Various ideas about that, but let’s agree on that there is an objective world beyond our subjective processing centre aka our brain. Still, we perceive this world by processing data input from our senses. And we grow up learning patterns, structures, ideas, cultures, language/s. All this leaves us with wearing glasses, with filters, even manipulating the input.

Let’s just focus on the aspect that a poet has a brain like any other human, which they use to make sense of the input. (If you want to go down the rabbit hole about objectivity, read the replies on the following quora question: “Is objectivity possible?“)

A poet can look at the world and attempt to strip everything they see from ‘interpretation’. Several questions: Can they do it? If yes: How can they achieve it? And should they do it?

They can move on a spectrum towards objectivity, I believe. How? By observing their own role in the equation. What I mean is: growing aware of their own filters, biases, thought patterns, anything that may alter the ‘input’ towards an interpretation of the outside world. Boohoooo, ‘interpretation’. I was almost tempted to say: their ‘unique’ look on the world. This ‘unique’ filtering may result in a unique output, uniquely expressed—what we call ‘voice’.

Isn’t ‘voice’ a kind of non-objectivity? Is this … bad?!

Which leads me to the last question, is objectivity something we have to achieve in order to write a good haiku? When I think about all the haiku I have read so far,  I mostly enjoyed those that were written in a certain voice as those offered a truly remarkable thing: the opportunity to see the world through the eyes of someone else, with enough room to make it my own as a reader, to feel along, and to be astounded. (So, is objectivity THE answer?)

I have also read a lot of haiku where compassion was expressed, direct speech, philosophical statements.

little snail
inch by inch, climb
Mount Fuji!

Kobayashi Issa (transl. David G. Lanoue)

Issa is very much present in his haiku, talking to animals, choosing to write about it in exactly this way.

Yes, trying to say/describe the things as they are, will result in a less imposed ‘self’ in the poem. Erasing ‘self’ from the poem may also result in a poem so dry, neutral or fact-based, it is no longer enjoyable nor touching.

Maybe we need to take a realistic approach to this: The kindness of acknowledging that we are fallible.

We strive to let objects speak for themselves while ignoring we are objects in that observation too (and to be observed), when we rise to an outer view on ourselves and our learnt filters… but then we should erase the observation of ourselves from the equation, by this creating a blind spot in the observed truth of the world… as if we aren’t a part of it?

How can we be objective without talking about that we are hardly objective? How can we gain a clearer view on the world without exclaiming: Look at us, we fallible creatures! Look at us, trying to get a grip on the world, so challenged by our own mind, part of nature, yet acting as if we are not part of nature!

How do we learn from having these filters when we don’t observe and write about them?

Objectivity Is A False God

look at it without the one who looks at it

bending branches the many weights of many writers

sense   mind     hand        pen                paper

the breath of the hidden snowcapped blossoms

from my sill a wild dove calls I am here I really am

objectivity like Arnold said hasta la vista

observing the tidemark a mad woman

the ghosts in my sometimes limping

depression me kigo

Before anyone starts shouting: please strive for objectivity as much as you want to. Have a different opinion. Art is a wide field, thankfully. There is a lot of space, maybe even indefinitely, and ideas and approaches CAN co-exist.