Shaped like a haiku—
words packed tight in foreign breath.
The soul never came.
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This agenda calls for the de-appropriation of haikus in English—a dismantling of a poetic form that, once deeply spiritual and rooted in Japanese culture, has been flattened into a novelty by Western imitation. The 5-7-5 syllable structure, lifted without its linguistic or cultural context, becomes a lifeless shell—used more for kitsch or brevity than meaning.
As a third-generation Japanese American, this critique is not academic or abstract—it’s personal. The haiku, repackaged in English, often feels like a mockery dressed in reverence. It’s cultural cosplay: wearing the form without embodying the spirit. The language lacks the tools to carry the weight haiku was meant to hold—ma, kigo, and kireji don’t survive the translation.
This isn’t rebellion for rebellion’s sake. It’s reclamation. It’s a refusal to let poetic tradition be reduced to a classroom exercise or aesthetic fetish. Through deliberate subversion—anti-haikus, parodies, critiques—the aim is to illuminate what’s been lost and force a reckoning with how easily culture is misrepresented when divorced from its essence.
This isn’t a rejection of haiku. It’s a eulogy for what it becomes when its soul is rewritten in a tongue that cannot speak it.
⟡ Synopsis ⟡
This is not a poem.
It mimics a sacred thing—
but cannot be it.
⟡ Artist’s Intent ⟡
I built this to break.
English wears the form like skin.
No heartbeat inside.
