Clarified Meanings (VII)

Haiku originates from the three-line stanza called hokku, the opening stanza of a linked poem. Endowing it with a kireji — in fact, with a juxtaposition — turns it into an independent poem and can at the same time enrich its content. The joining of the two parts is both a challenge and a suggestion. Initially, this involved a simple interruption of the text, which may be felt as a silence in which the two parts are examined carefully and perhaps emotionally. They are contemplated. Reflecting upon them, more inventive authors dared increasingly often to write two different parts, to allow the autonomy of the parts to unfold. And the blatant discontinuity of the text. There is no question of some text having been cut; from the very beginning, it is conceived as a juxtaposition of two independent divisions — distinct, different, separate to the point of divergence. It is out of the question for there to be any continuity of the text, whether in formulation or in meaning. Thus, the distinctive structure of haiku is functionally confirmed. The discontinuity of the text is deliberate and constitutive. In this way, juxtaposition demonstrates not only its formal presence in the poem, but also the effects that have become an essential requirement in writing it. Corneliu Traian Atanasiu