Kaz Tanahashi: The Way of Haiku: From Pathos to Play (Part 5 of 9)

In part five of Upaya’s The Way of Haiku series, artist, author/translator (whose publications include Treasury of the True Dharma Eye: Zen Master Dogen’s Shobo Genzo and Painting Peace: Art in a Time of Global Crisis), and activist, Sensei Kazuaki Tanahashi tells us about the cultural roots of haiku. The poetic form grew out of a satirical, humorous, and even vulgar style of collaborative poetry in which groups of poets would get together and link verses in real time. While the rhetorical scope of haiku has extended beyond humor and satire, Kaz explains that the device of bringing two seemingly dissonant elements together to surprise the reader has remained a constant of haiku from the beginning. Kaz also talks about: Saikaku Ihara, a poet who wrote 28,500 verses in one day; Basho’s haiku about Holland; and Mitsu Suzuki’s (wife of Shunryu Suzuki) haiku on growing old. To access the resources page for this program, please sign up by clicking here. For Program/Series description and to access the entire series, please click on the link below: Upaya Podcast Series: Dogen: The Way of Haiku: From Pathos to Play 2022