Trends in Japan is featuring foreign residents of Japan. This month we are pleased to carry an essay written especially for Trends in Japan by award-winning haiku poet Carmen Sterba. The author, third from right, with her students at Bunkyo Women's College. HAIKU BLOOMS IN OTHER CULTURES AROUND THE WORLD: An Essay by a Haiku Poet February 15, 2002 Half of my life has been spent living in Japan, and most of that time I was looking for a creative outlet that would mesh with living in this country. Five years ago I began to study and write haiku seriously in English, and ever since then a whole string of positive experiences have occurred. Most of these experiences are connected to the ever growing number of active haiku poets writing in English and other languages outside of Japan. The first time I arrived in Japan was when I was only 18 years old. I came with the musical cast of "Up With People" and stayed with host families in Sapporo, Tokyo, and Odawara while giving concerts around the country. At the end of the month's tour, I was so fascinated with traditional Japanese culture that I was determined to return to Japan once I became a junior in college, and I did. At the age of 21, I was in a year-abroad program at the International Division of Waseda University in Tokyo. My major was Asian studies. It was the era of the student demonstrations, and I was often studying Japanese literature or history in the library on campus while radical students ran around the building shouting protests against America. At the end of the year, I chose to stay in Japan, so I transferred to Sophia University and graduated the next year in 1970. I first wrote a haiku when I was a college student and studied the English versions of Basho, Buson, Onitsura, Issa, Shiki, and others. I was immediately drawn to Issa and Onitsura because of their sensitivity towards small creatures. My first memories are of playing alone outside in the park-sized garden and the beach of our lakefront property near Tacoma, Washington. There was a view of Mt. Rainier and tall Douglas Fir trees. Ducks would waddle up from the lake, squirrels would scoot down the trees, and there were all kinds of flowers, vegetables, and the insects that accompany them. I was always happiest outside. It was no wonder that poetry that is connected with the changes in nature appeals to me in either Eastern or Western culture. The author is the mother of three sons. lapping water . . . back in the boat fishing with grandpa Asahi Haikuist Network 1999 family picnic the youngest child pockets a watermelon seed The Heron's Nest 2001 Poets in Europe, Mexico, and South America began writing haiku in the early 1900s. By the 1950s in Japan, R.H. Blyth, a Britishman who was the tutor of the emperor, wrote extensive translations and commentaries on the Japanese haiku masters. Blyth's books inspired the American beat poets to write haiku. Like so many haiku poets, I read Blyth and many recent books before I started writing haiku seriously. I also have a German friend who was getting her haiku published, so I followed in her footsteps and started sending in my haiku to the English versions of the Asahi Shimbun and Mainichi Shimbun. At the same time in the creative writing classes that I teach in several colleges, I introduced haiku to my Japanese students and then sent some of their work to the Asahi. The next step for me was to break out of my isolation in Japan by meeting haiku poets from other countries. In the summer of 2000, along with people from about 18 countries I took part in the World Haiku Festival 2000 in London and Oxford. Many participants were presidents of a haiku society in their country or editors of haiku journals. After the conference I joined several haiku mailing lists on the Internet in order to be in close touch with active haiku poets from around the world. In 2001 I had the opportunity to help start up a new haiku e-journal called haijinx with an international editorial team. The focus of haijinx is haiku with light humor (http://www.haijinx.com/). That summer I attended the biannual Haiku North America conference in Boston and joined the Haiku Society of America, which was founded in 1968. clear winter sky Mount Fuji whizzes by the train window   Your Name What did you think of this article? It was interesting. It was boring. Send this article to a friend Trends in Japan Home Asahi Haikuist Network 1998 haijinx 2001 I enjoy taking part in a haiku group in Tokyo's Meguro Ward with Japanese who like to write haiku in English. Also, I have been able to start a translation project with the help of Japanese haiku friends from this group. In the future I hope that there will be a greater awareness in Japan that haiku is blooming in other cultures the world around. Even though many Japanese do not consider haiku written in other languages to be genuine, it just makes it a greater challenge for me to keep on studying and composing, because it means so much to me. In the future, I hope to settle in the United States again and be active with other haiku poets there while keeping in touch with those who are precious to me in Japan. a gasp goes up among the waiting crowd first sunrise World Haiku Club New Year's Kukai 2002, third prize Carmen Sterba Carmen Sterba is an award-winning haiku poet who was born in Seattle, Washington in 1946. She has three sons and is presently teaching at three colleges in Japan. She savors the quiet of Kamakura, but she is known to venture out to Tokyo on the weekends to attend church or haiku meetings. Copyright (c) 2002 Japan Information Network. Edited by Japan Echo Inc. based on domestic Japanese news sources. Articles presented here are offered for reference purposes and do not necessarily represent the policy or views of the Japanese Government.