Simply Haiku: An E-Journal of Haiku and Related Forms
September-October 2004, vol. 2, no. 5

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Reprint: Jim Kacian, "Looking and Seeing: How Haiga Works."
Previously Published in Haigaonline

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Page 6: The Relationship between the Haiku and Image

But it is not simply a matter, then, of aiming for openness. Too much openness defeats haiga in quite the opposite way: where there is not some part of seeing defined, then anything might be seen, that is, imagined, and such a work loses the inevitability which is the keen edge that whets us.

Recall the painting by Rothko, for instance: I have chosen several haiku by Tomizawa Kakio, as translated by Hiroaki Sato and appearing in the most recent antantantantant. I have not made any selections based on content here: I chose these poems because they were one-liners and therefore would fit under the painting well, and because the volume came easily to hand (it was on my desk). Consider, then, the following combinations of five different Tomizawa haiku with the Rothko.

Certainly there was a bit of serendipity here, since the colors of image and poem correspond so aptly. You might like any or all of these, but even if you do, it would be hard to argue for any one more than any other beyond your liking. Each poem leads the viewer toward one of many arbitrary interpretations of the painting, none of which is necessarily any more valid than any other. This is merely the random juxtaposition of elements, made possible because the visual element is so open that it easily contains all these poems, and would contain millions more. The field here is one given completely to seeing, and it is inexhaustible, but this is not an argument for any one of the resulting combinations as a successful haiga.

This is a very fine thing to gauge, this degree of closure. And it is the central issue the haiga artist must consider in order to succeed in his work. Almost certainly two sharply lined elements will fight one another, or at least invite the intellect to choose between them. This takes the viewer immediately out of the mindset necessary to enter the experience of the work.

This brings us to the third thing necessary for a successful haiga: besides a sufficiently open visual and a resonant poem, there must be also be space left in the work into which the viewer can place himself. This is really another way of saying the same thing for the ensemble that we have been maintaining for each of the individual elements: it must be open enough for interest, and closed enough for inevitability.

Which is to say that haiga artists must be highly skilled: they must be good enough to accomplish without overstating, and to judge the sort of interactions their image will have with the text. They must be good enough to realize the effect their work will have on the viewer, and then be accomplished enough not to overwhelm, or especially, close the imagination. And they must still create work of visual interest.

So too must all this be true of the poem; and then again, of the ensemble. The most successful haiga, then, are those pieces which can manage this.