Pop! The Jack Kerouac Haiku Page

Kerouac became interested in Buddhism through a Zen experience, a moment of chance that brought enlightenment. After reading Thoreau's Walden in 1954, Kerouac was intrigued by Thoreau's mention of Hindu philosophy, and Kerouac accidentally picked up The Life of Buddha. This discovery led him to beginning a life of study, meditation, and contemplative and monastic living. In Buddhist philosophy he found that he shared ideas on not only spontaneity, but also compassion for "beat" and down people. Kerouac began writing Buddhist-influenced pieces and eventually met other poets influenced by the East when he attended the 1955 Six Gallery reading in California. He developed a relationship with Gary Snyder, who encouraged Kerouac's practice. Kerouac even envisioned a meditation center without rules, where wanderers could stop in spontaneously to rest and meditate.
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Traditionally, a haiku is a three-line poem of 17 Japanese onji, like syllables—the first and third lines consisting of 5 onji each. The form is short so that it may be read in one breath, expressing the idea of the moment's immediacy in one exhalation. Spiritual reality is reflected in a simple seasonal or natural image, which reflects the Eastern connection of man to nature. A haiku should bring the reader directly to the experience in an intimate sharing of an ordinary moment, presenting the whole of life in that one event. The real experience is conveyed in the present tense, working to promote insight or satori and evoke feelings like awe, surprise, and joy in the reader. Two men who were influential in promoting Buddhism in the West also had specific ideas about haiku:

Daisetz Teitaro (D. T.) Suzuki was born in 1870 in Japan, and he trained as a Buddhist disciple. He was professor of Buddhist philosophy at Otani University, Kyoto, and he taught at Columbia University. Suzuki wrote prolifically and lectured worldwide on Zen's principles and history in a clear and direct way. Suzuki attracted the attention of prominent individuals and regular citizens through his straightforward passages, making him the primary messenger of Zen Buddhism to the West.

Suzuki emphasized the importance of haiku's suggestive nature: When something is too fully expressed, there is no room for suggestion. Suzuki wrote that when the greatest feelings are reached, there is silence because words are not enough for expression, and so even 17 syllables for a haiku may be too many.

Alan Watts was born in England in 1915 and developed an interest in the Eastern religion before becoming an Episcopal priest. He found the Buddhist Society in London, where he met Suzuki and became involved in the society. Watts moved to America in 1938 to try to fit in as a priest, but his exposure to Zen had instilled in him questions about religion. He left the church, and in 1951, Watts moved to San Francisco to teach at the American Academy of Asian Studies. In California, he met Gary Snyder, a poet associated with the Beat Generation who was interested in the ways of Zen and who influenced Watts in connecting the Beat movement to Zen. Watts began forming his own philosophy of Eastern thought and his own experiences. Through his writings and radio broadcasts, Watts reached out to the West, using specific everyday examples to clearly express Zen.

Alan Watts wrote that the haiku seeks to evoke the sense of potentiality—indicating but not explaining. The haiku should evoke the mood of mystery that is yugen. Watts described other Japanese moods that haiku try to bring out of the reader. Sabi is the feeling of being peacefully alone. Aware is a sadness akin to nostalgia, a recognition of impermanence. Watts explained that aware is most powerful in poetry that describes this transience.
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Knowing the basic characteristics of haiku, Kerouac's attraction to this poetic form is clear. Using a short poem to present a simple image or event allowed Kerouac to be spontaneous, to create his own portrait using subtleties and direct thought. Kerouac revealed a true spirituality in this one breath of haiku, like the continuous breath in the jazz passages that attracted him. Using Kerouac's words from The Dharma Bums, "a real haiku's got to be as simple as porridge and yet make you see the real thing."

Just as he changed the standards of prose, Jack Kerouac reworked the definition of the haiku form. He believed that Western haiku need not be 17 syllables, just three short lines that say a good deal, "free of poetic trickery" and "as airy and graceful as a Vivaldi Pastorella." He used dashes for pauses in many of the poems, like a tie in a measure of jazz music. Kerouac even recorded an album of poetry and music called Blues and Haikus, on which he read his haiku and had musicians play commentary interludes of unrehearsed jazz between the readings. So how does Kerouac's haiku hold up to traditional haiku?

The following haiku is Kerouac's best. This poem presents a spontaneous event, a moment in time when the actor is simply reacting. The poem also evokes from the reader a sense of surprise; there is a subtle irony about the door closing regardless of the action of kicking. Finally, the haiku leaves room for suggestion. Without explaining the frustration or futility of the missed kick, the poem intimates, allowing the reader to make his or her own connection to the experience.

Missing a kick at the icebox door It closed anyway.

The next haiku captures a suggestive moment as well. Kerouac records a simple event at the close of a day, a girl's automatic action that means something more to Kerouac.

Evening coming -- the office girl Unloosing her scarf.

Here are more of my favorite Kerouac haiku:

     The moon,        the falling star      -- Look elsewhere Early morning with the         happy dogs--      I forgot the Path      The dog yawned         and almost swallowed      My Dharma Continuing to change literature, Kerouac developed a new definition for American haiku in his journal Some of the Dharma. He termed this American haiku pop, a three-line poem of Buddhist connotation, like a small meditation that may or may not rhyme, leading to enlightenment. Pop is onomatopoeia—a quick, abrupt noise that snaps you to attention. There is an explosive quality attached to the word pop; in reading Kerouac's pop, this explosiveness should thrust you to satori. Some of his pop in Some of the Dharma reflect the a connection to nature. The left pop brings a sense of awe and discovery to the reader; the right pop reflects aware as the season is changing.
              In the sun                        Swinging on delicate hinges the butterfly wings            the Autumn Leaf Like a church window       Almost off the stem Here are other examples of Kerouac's pop:
Rainy night,                     The sun keeps getting the top leaves wave          dimmer---foghorns       In the grey sky                    began to blow in the bay
Not every poet can write great things with each stroke. Here are some Kerouac haiku that, in my opinion, don't quite capture those moods that Watts described or the spontaneity that was so important to Kerouac. By presenting some haiku that are not Kerouac's best, the better quality of Kerouac's other haiku is more obvious.
A big fat flake              The rain has filled     of snow                  the birdbath Falling all alone            Again, almost This July evening,            The summer chair      a large frog                 rocking by itself On my door sill.            In the blizzard
Here are two examples of Kerouac's pop that, similarly, do not have the same effect as his quality pop: The purple wee flower should be reflected In that low water                  Rain's over, hammer on wood         ---this cobweb Rides the sun shine Kerouac experimented greatly with a different kind of prose, and so it is surprising that he wrote haiku and pop so similar to traditional haiku in how they connect the reader to the experience, evoke the Eastern moods, and reflect spontaneity. When Kerouac wrote "No time for poetry but exactly what is," he drew reference to achieving the Zen state of mind in which a poet writes of things as they are. credit head

Jack Kerouac. (1971). Scattered poems (Lawrence Ferlinghetti & Nancy Peters, eds.).
San Francisco: City Lights Books.

Jack Kerouac. (1997). Some of the dharma (David Stanford, ed.). New York: Viking Penguin.

updated 30 may 2006