On Haiku Art

In the human presence is the real salience of life. I’m interested in that—the human resonance really that exists in all things and so in my work, though somewhat modified, somewhat less than obviously descriptive—not too close to the “now,” but as the remembered. To get much closer seems to remove it from the “me” and makes it a part of somebody else. 

Haiku poetry has this quality – the overtones of personal human poignancy. It says a great deal but it really asks a question. Unless one recognizes a question is being asked – and finds an answer within himself – it isn’t complete. In that sense you can’t illustrate such a question, but perhaps that resonance can be made visual. I’ve tried to find, beyond the surface of words or descriptions a valid solution for its abstract resolution. I’d rather make a question-making statement than one of storytelling or recording. 

Robert Marriott

Having sucked deep 
In a sweet peony, 
A bee creeps 
Out of its hairy recesses. 

Basho

A thicket of summer grass 
Is all that remains 
Of the dreams and ambitions 
Of ancient warriors. 

Basho

A farmer’s child 
Hulling rice 
Arrests his hands
To look at the moon. 

Tosei

“I often verbalize in an attempt to find myself. I do the same with drawings. Using my journal, drawings, and verse—or whatever other tools might seem appropriate at the moment—/ lay the foundations to my ideas, scatter them out in front of me so that I can get some perspective to what I really believe and want to say in my sculpture. Consequently, the verse becomes much more descriptive, symbolic, call it what you will, and the sculptural statement is a culminative effort—often a finalization of the idea.”

[Editor’s Note: There are images connected to each haiku in the PDF version below]