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Although haiku poetry has been present in Serbia for eighty years, it has not been, to this day, able to take the place it rightfully deserves. Yes, there are haiku clubs and associations, organized competitions, special and periodical publications. The haiku bibliography amounts to over 500 titles. Our haijins are well-known in the world and have won awards at prestigious international haiku contests. Haiku poetry in Serbia, however, is still in the margin of literary occurrences. Critics pan the genre. Editors who publish haiku poems shoulder to shoulder with “big poetry” are few and far between. Many so-called men of letters see haiku as a “wordless poem.” And as a wordless poem, men of letters look down on it. It is not uncommon for a local man to say with a chuckle, "Haiku? Anyone can do it!"

Why is haiku so underestimated? Why is a collection of first-class haiku of less significance than other literary genres? It seems that we have forgotten the old adage, "Ordinary but worthy of attention." The problem is complex; it implies both synchronic and diachronic levels. The aim of this article is to set the boundaries of the problem, to open a discussion which would facilitate a multifaceted examination of the genre, and, perhaps, elevate haiku to a more notable position in our large and diverse literary garden.

We all live in times of fashion, fashion trends and brands; in a world where everything has become merchandise, where contemporary book markets acknowledge only novels, whether or not it is good novel is unimportant. It takes longer and longer for contemporary man to make up his mind, to pick up a book, and when he does, he prefers something that is “concrete.” By reading a novel, he quickly gets accustomed to the author's way of narration, enjoys as he leisurely travels through space and time, gets to know distant countries, people and their customs, because he lives for a long time in a parallel world where he does not have to think about tomorrow; about an increase in gasoline prices; or about preparing food for winter. But what matters, yet goes unnoticed, is that a short literary form does not allow him to waste away to such degree, to give in to oblivion and pleasure; because it is non-linear, cannot be read quickly, is charged to bursting, is full of аssociations, unexpected turns, and, what's worse, it often ends before it begins. When confronted with "condensed thoughts", an average reader begins to realize that it takes the same amount of time to observe a mouse or an elephant, yet, for some unexplained reason, the reader prefers the elephant! Short form poetry is exceedingly compressed, аnd thus demanding. There is no empty pace, the reader is expected to be skillful in reading, capable of closely following the author. There is always a small number of such readers, much less than it appears. After all, who cares for thinking, for establishing a spiritual vertical, for working on self-education, when TV, Internet, and supermarkets are at our fingertips? Logic tells us that the novel was brought forth in the nineteenth century to serve the needs of the general populace; to act as a diversion for those who work for little pay. And that a short fragmentary form adapts well to the mentality of today's reader, who is more and more in a hurry, and has less and less time to live. But then again, who cares for logic?

Just as almost anything that is new meets resistance, so does haiku. Isn't it human nature for a lot of people, when confronted with anything new, even subconsciously, to try to negate it, because he or she feels safer in his or her own trash heap? To this observation, one fact should be added – in contrast to other literary short form genres, haiku has a series of specificities which only deepen the problem. It is of exotic origin and has no counterpart in European tradition. At the first encounter with haiku, it is clear that it has to do with poetry, but one gets confused by the absence of the classical poetic procedure to which he/she is accustomed.

If we move upstream, toward the wellspring, we'll see that haiku poetry cannot be spoken about without mentioning Buddhism, more precisely, one of its variations, called Zen. Those more curious among us, who are eager to be familiar with its basics, at least, be forewarned: Zen is neither religion nor philosophy, and every attempt to define it has failed. However, if we have to define it, then it is, in the shortest, one big nothing, which, at the same time, is the beginning and end of any philosophy. Zen is a state of mind implying that the world around us is an inseparable wholeness whose center is not man (do narcissistic ecologists know that they are not original?). One of Zen's emanations is haiku – a specific mental record of an image from nature which is transferred by means of simple words, but with the due care of not slipping into a banal statement. Here, an author has to dissolve himself in nature, to merge with it, to disappear, at least to the degree which does not allow him to interfere with the reader's experience of the image offered. Therefore, the author has to be completely transparent; he is neither supposed to interpret anything nor to speak about himself.

Since haiku poetry is based on the principle, “less is more”, important words protect themselves from unimportant ones or, as a linguist would say, it is essential to shear away semantic dead weight from the text; and those who write know how hard it is. Honed away from "lard, strips and cellulite," words are being born anew, start breading, establishing new meaningful connections. In a good, “dense” haiku, even a pause has its function, as it evokes an effect of prolonged action, allowing one to read what is unwritten yet insinuated. This fact seems to have been forgotten by tendentious critics whose basic remark is that haiku lacks length. They seems to have also forgotten that silence sometimes speaks more than any long narration, that poetry can speak with its clear images, that it radiates those inexplicable meanings hidden between words.

All in all, it comes out that haiku can be written only by those who don't fear to be alone with their own selves, those capable of feeling flickers of life and of being silent, who are endowed with the gift of seeing, not of looking, those who hear the grass growing, who admire the grandeur and perfection of a fly, who can perceive the universe in a raindrop. Haiku is written by spiritual ascetics, those few in number, persistent, patient, for those who are even fewer in number, more persistent, more patient. Haijins discover the universal in the individual, and vise versa. They constantly write and erase, risking to call a poem that which is leftover.

Novi Sad , May 2005

Translation: Saša Važić

Language editor: Robert Wilson