by Robert Epstein
John Welwood was a respected transpersonal psychologist, living and working in the San Francisco Bay Area, who died in 2019. In a paper that appeared in Awakening the Heart (1983) titled, “Vulnerability and Power in the Therapeutic Process”, he wrote something that caught my attention at the time.1 I wish to quote at length the passage I found intriguing:
The interplay of meaning and meaninglessness is a dialectical process. We develop meaning structures as a child to help us make sense out of the world and navigate through it. But there is often a period around adolescence or early adulthood when we start to question those meanings. And this may lead to the sense of meaninglessness that the existentialists talk about. Existential therapy helps people unfold the implicit meaning in their lived experience.2
Welwood pivots and continues: Beyond the search for meaning, another step we could take is to discover some kind of meaning-free-ness (rather than meaninglessness in the existential sense), where we are free of the struggle to find meaning. The open ground is meaning free. We create meaning and structure out of it. [emphasis added]3
At this point, Welwood pauses to highlight a potential complication: But these structures can get too dense and thick unless we can let them dissolve back into the meaning-free open ground. Zen koan practice is designed to break down our attempts to find meaning. If you struggle to find the meaning of a koan, [a riddle] it does not work. Giving up that attempt to find the meaning of the koan opens up another kind of awareness.4
There is a lot here to contemplate and digest. As human beings, we appear to be naturally disposed to make meaning as a way to navigate the world we were thrown into at birth. Meaning facilitates order, direction, understanding. Viktor Frankl, a Holocaust survivor of World War 2 and founder of Logotherapy – an existential approach to psychotherapy – ardently maintained that we humans can bear any hardship or adversity so long as we able to discern meaning within and beyond our suffering.
However, there are times when we may become overwhelmed to the point of experiencing what existentialists call a world collapse. We are vulnerable to sinking into to depression or despair due to a profound loss of meaning, putting us at serious risk of not only psychic numbing but suicide in extreme cases. This is cause for great concern for individuals, as well as society as a whole.
But Welwood suggests that meaning and meaninglessness are not the only two choices humans have at their disposal. He proposes a third, rooted in a Buddhist perspective; namely, what the author of Toward a Psychology of Awakening terms meaning-free-ness.
What is the relevance of meaning-free-ness for haiku? This is what I wish to explore. Charles Trumbull contributed an excellent paper on the subject of meaning in haiku, for which I am very grateful.5 I have no desire in any way to challenge what he has put forward in that essay. I simply wish to inquire into how meaning-free-ness might enrich our understanding of haiku, especially in light of the gendai movement in English-language haiku with its (over-)emphasis on disjunction and other abstruse literary techniques deliberately designed to disrupt, if not negate, conventional meaning. But let me be explicit: In no way am I equating meaning-free-ness with the gendai movement, which I consider a serious threat to the heart and soul of nature-oriented haiku, whose enduring roots date back to Basho’s time.
Open Ground
To appreciate what Welwood is suggesting with respect to meaning-free-ness, it is important to understand his reference to open (or basic) ground. This is a term that the Tibetan Buddhist teacher, Chogyam Trungpa, coined. In a key passage from The Sanity We Are Born With (2005), Trungpa observes:
. . . [I]t would be good to discuss briefly the basic ground. . . The basic ground does not depend on relative situations at all. It is natural being which just is. Energies appear out of this basic ground and those energies are the source of the development of relative situations. Sparks of duality, intensity, and sharpness, flashes of wisdom and knowledge — all sorts of things come out of the basic ground. So the basic ground is the source of confusion and also the source of liberation. Both liberation and confusion are that energy which happens constantly, which sparks out and then goes back to its basic nature, like clouds emerging from and disappearing back into the sky.6
Pema Chodron, a prolific Buddhist nun and longtime student of Trungpa, adds to our understanding of open ground in The Places that Scare You (2001). Chodron observes:
At one time the Buddha gathered his students together at a spot called Vulture Peak Mountain. Here he presented some revolutionary teachings – teachings on the wide-open, groundless dimension of our being. . . The Buddha had already been teaching on groundlessness for some time. Many of the students there on Vulture Peak Mountain had a profound realisation of impermanence and egolessness, the truth that nothing – including ourselves – is solid or predictable. . . . But the Buddha knew that our tendency to seek solid ground is deeply rooted. Ego can use anything to maintain the illusion of security, including the belief in insubstantiality and change.7
In other words, Chodron makes the point that open ground actually refers to the groundless nature of human existence. The awareness of impermanence, which gives rise to the realisation that there is no external security upon which a separate self (the I) can rely, is the open ground. This insight has far-reaching implications, which haiku poets, including Bashō, Issa and others, apprehended. It is far from an exaggeration to suggest that their finest poetry – that which endures to this day – is informed by open ground, whether it is explicitly identified as such, or not.
Consider anew these well-known examples:
old pond
a frog jumps in
the sound of water8
this world of dew
is a word of dew
and yet and yet. . . 9
Conditioned to search for explicit and implicit meanings, readers will naturally endeavour to “explain” what these master poets sought to communicate. Volumes have been written over the past four centuries to explicate the first poem, perhaps the most famous poem in the realm of haiku. I am not proposing that these efforts are misguided or useless; far from it. There is certainly a place for meaning in haiku poetry as Trumbull and others have contended. That said, inspired by Welwood, I wish to suggest that there is also a place for meaning-free encounters, especially in nature-oriented haiku, and this meaning-free understanding is both vital and enlivening.
And, as it turns out, Welwood was not the first to stumble upon meaning-free-ness. Centuries ago, Yang Wan-li, a Chinese poet, gave eloquent voice to the inestimable value of stretching beyond meaning. Consider his poem, “Now, What is Poetry?”:
Now, what is poetry?
If you say it is simply a matter of words,
I will say a good poet gets rid of words.
If you say it is simply a matter of meaning,
I will say a good poet gets rid of meaning.
“But,” you ask, “without words and without meaning,
where is the poetry?”
To this I reply: “Get rid of words and get rid of meaning,
And there is still poetry.” 10
On the question of meaning-free-ness, former Haiku Society of America president and co-author of Take a Deep Breath (2002), Sylvia Forges-Ryan, comments on Wan-li’s poem in the writing of her book of haiku, What Light There Is (2016):
As to the poem by Yang Wan-li, it is one that I spent a lot of time contemplating. At first I found it somewhat puzzling, but with each deeper dive into it I discovered it to be filled with more and more wisdom. . . The goal of a good poem is not to stop at the point of making meaning (and in fact a poem can even omit meaning altogether!). Yet it seems to me that the poem’s ultimate job is to point toward something more mysterious, something in fact that eventually abandons words and meaning to point toward the ineffable, for which there can be no words.11
Forges-Ryan continues:
And as Tony Suraci, my first haiku teacher, often said to me, a haiku poem is like a glass filled with wine. Words and meaning are in that glass, but once one drinks its contents, the glass is no longer needed and can be thrown away. The most essential and valuable thing a reader should be left with is neither the glass nor its contents, but a sense of something far more astounding … Maybe it’s what Gerard Manley Hopkins referred to as “the force that through the green shoot drives”; or Wordsworth’s “Spots of Time”, when, wordlessly, we see with our inner eye and feel deep into the heart of things; or Virginia Woolf’s “Moments of Being”, or Forster’s “Only connect”, to list just a few ways poets have articulated this concept of that which cannot be named, and which transcends any mere human verbal meaning – That finger which points at the moon!12
Haiku as Koans
In the light of open ground, haiku can be viewed as poetic “riddles” that nudge us beyond our everyday or conventional thinking. Gendai poets, engaged in linguistic experiments in order to disrupt our habitual preconceptions, consider themselves at the cutting edge of haiku innovation. In actuality, these appear to be little more than acts of ego-driven rebellion that preserve the very status quo they are seeking to disrupt. The nett result is insular, incomprehensible, vacuous and forgettable word appetisers that impress mostly like-minded poets and readers. Nature-oriented haiku poets from Basho on have sought to transcend the limitations of the thinking mind and the abstractions it relies on, whereas gendai poets only reinforce intellectualised and linguistic turns of phrase which separate us from intimate connections with ourselves, others and the world we inhabit.
Haiku is not about intellectualisation, primary process ramblings or stream of consciousness effluence; it is about being fully engaged in life-as-it-is and sharing with others what we discover in the world. While imagination may play a limited role in haiku poetry, it does not replace the open ground of nature, broadly conceived.
Suchness
The notion of suchness originates in Buddhism. It refers to things-as-they-are beyond one’s intellect, analysis, ideas, and beliefs. One might argue that suchness itself is an abstraction precisely because it is an impossibility. Humans do not experience things-as-they-are because we are meaning-makers: Because we perceive, we inevitably make meaning out of what we perceive. This is a kind of tautology, which precludes the possibility of clear seeing based on bare attention or mindful awareness.
Buddhists and transpersonal therapists like John Welwood question this fundamental assumption. So did Eric Amann, a physician by training and a well-respected Canadian haiku poet. In a small, but significant chapbook, The Wordless Poem (1978), Amann emphasises the significance of suchness in haiku poetry. He cites a poem by Shiki to illustrate suchness:
Among the grasses
an unknown flower
blooming white . . . 13
In his remarks on the poem, Amann notes:
Shiki’s haiku is “wordless” in the sense that it consists of only a single visual image: a nameless flower blooms in a field of grass. Aside from this image there is nothing in the haiku. There are no ideas, no
expression of emotion, no intellectual commentary. Shiki merely points to something, but leaves it undisturbed.14
Suchness itself is simple and unadorned; it also reflects emptiness. Emptiness is not a vacuum. Emptiness is space; it is open ground. Amann succinctly and straightforwardly summarises what suchness is in the following assertion:
“In haiku leave things just as they are” –– in other words, keep your rationalising, moralising, mind out of the poem, do not clutter up the poem with your thoughts, feelings and explanations, but show all things in their uniqueness, their own particular state of being, their‘suchness.’15
What does access to open ground offer? First and foremost, it offers freedom from conditioning and all that that implies. Open ground facilitates a channel to intuition, which is a pre-reflective form of knowing that leads to freshness, insight, discovery, learning and revelation. All poetry – and haiku, in particular – is a means of relaying truths that lie beyond everyday consciousness; it therefore has the potential to convey timeless wisdom that is no less inspiring to contemporary generations as it was to poets long gone. Therein lies the extraordinary gift of connection that is the heart of haiku.
Being free of meaning is not synonymous with having no meaning. Meaning-free-ness has to do — as Amann says — with seeing things as they are. If one thinks this is impossible, then the notion of meaning-free-ness serves no useful purpose; it conveys nothing; that is, no-thing. Dwelling on it would feel like a waste of time.
I have to allow for this possibility. Without needing the reader’s tacit or explicit agreement, meaning-free-ness is anything but a useless exercise or a waste of time. On the contrary, I find it both significant and enriching. Meaning-free-ness, in fact, reflects the breath of life that is haiku, as odd as this may sound to the meaning-bound reader. More than this, meaning-free-ness opens the way to poetic engagement with the world in a radically different key that is immediate, deep and enriched by spontaneity and aliveness.
Meaning-Free Haiku
What fosters meaning-free haiku? First and foremost, a genuine, simple and open-hearted interest or curiosity in what is. One approaches the world as if for the first time, though this is not an act of will or a function of the thinking mind. I am inclined to call it a sense of wonder. By its very nature, haiku written with a sense of wonder is intrinsically fresh. There is nothing “normative” about meaning-free poems.16 (See R. Epstein “Freshness is Never Normative: A Reply to Lee Gurga”.)
Bare attention or mindful awareness fosters a sense of wonder. Since the time of Basho to the present, many haiku poets have bracketed their assumptions, beliefs and preconceptions. I am alluding to emptiness here, as mentioned above. What is emptiness? The 20th century Eastern philosopher, Alan Watts, emphasises in Out of Your Mind (2007):
Emptiness essentially means “transience” – nothing to grasp, nothingPermanent – and it specifically refers to the ideas of reality, meaning that reality escapes all concepts.17
Listen to what Watts observes here: Is this not, in effect, an eloquent description of the nature-oriented spirit of the haiku poet?
When you discover that there is nothing to cling to and that there isn’t anybody to cling to them, everything is quite different. It becomes amazing. Not only do all your senses become more wide-awake and you feel almost that you are walking on air, but you also finally see that there’s no duality – there’s no difference between the ordinary world and nirvana. They are the same world, and the only difference between them is a point of view.18
In addition to bare attention or mindful awareness, a number of qualities emerge as characteristic of meaning-free haiku poetry. I will mention a number here, though the reader ought to bear in mind that this is not, by any means, an exhaustive list: Care; comprehensibility; depth; freshness; ineffability; inspiration; mystery; poignancy; sincerity; significance; wisdom.
By and large, haiku poets are sensitive souls; that is, they broadly care about fellow-humans (as well as non-humans), the world around them, and the planet. Naturally, individual haiku poets will focus their attention on what each personally cares most about, writing with passion and/or compassion.
Comprehensibility
A poem may be comprehensible without necessarily being the fruit of bare attention or meditative awareness. Even so, it is important to make mention of comprehensibility because the gendai movement has injected incomprehensibility into the realm of haiku poetry, which is why it should not be taken for granted. A poem that is meaning-free must, by definition, be understandable, intelligible to the reader. This intelligibility should be readily accessible, though the reader may need to ponder or contemplate a given poem as his or her intuition is engaged in an unforced way.
saying good-bye
snow melting
from the roof tiles19
the uncharted faces
in the pumpkin field
diagnosis day20
spring day
one twirl before the girl
settles in line21
Depth
Meaning-free haiku is generally both simple and comprehensible, while at the same time deep. That is, a poem may be multi-layered or textured, which enriches the reader with each succeeding reading. Still, depth does not in any way diminish, obscure or supplant the comprehensibility of a given poem. Rather, poetic depth enables the reader to see in to the precious or sacred nature of life-and-death.
Deep within the stream
the huge fish lie motionless
facing the current22
summer night
we turn out all the lights
to hear the rain23
quiet rain
the deeper quiet
of uncut roses24
Freshness
As mentioned earlier, freshness reflects aliveness but also a sense of wonder like that of a child encountering something or someone for the very first time. Because the poet is unencumbered by preconceptions or conditioning, they see things anew. Even if the subject of one’s poetic observations is familiar — such as the moon, the wind in the pines, or one’s beloved — the poet’s intuition discovers a truth or revelation that is without precedent.
Bitter morning:
sparrows sitting together
without any necks25
pulling her
into sunlight
in my old sled26
pig & i spring rain27
Late August
I bring him the garden
in my skirt28
Individualised Universality
Transpersonal psychology maintains that each of us is unique and yet we are all part of the human (and nonhuman) family. When writing haiku, a poet may hone in on his or her individuality or that of another. Another poet may be enchanted (and/or humbled) by a momentary dissolution of the self; that is, a merging with the One. This is what individualised universality refers to. Before we are male or female, Christian or Buddhist, American or Japanese, young or old, we are human. To paraphrase the late spiritual teacher, Ram Dass: “There is only one of us. One being in many forms.”
hot afternoon
the squeak of my hands
on my daughter’s coffin29
finding myself
in the night sky
star by star30
temple ruins. . .
pieces of a buddha
still praying31
Ineffability
That which is ineffable relates to the great mystery at the centre of existence. Notwithstanding the valuable discoveries made by science over millennia, life-and-death are beyond our understanding. Still, we humans are capable of glimpsing the heart of this vast mystery, which may fill us with wonder. Intimate encounters with the Immeasurable are humbling and awe-inspiring. As Lao Tzu eloquently declared in the opening lines of his classic text, The Tao te Ching:
The Tao that can be told
is not the eternal Tao.
The name that can be named
is not the eternal Name.32
Regarding the ineffable or the inexpressible, as R. H. Blyth puts it, “When we are grasping the inexpressible meaning of things, this is life, this is living. To do this twenty-four hours a day is the Way of Haiku.”33 The haiku poet accesses the inexpressible meaning of things via the open ground of being beyond the thinking mind.
a kingfisher call
from out of nowhere
everywhere34
I stop to listen;
the cricket
has done the same.35
the temple bell stops
but the sound keeps coming
out of the flowers36
Inspiration
The word in-spire means to breathe in. A haiku poet breathes in a truth or discovery, which manifests as a poem that is shared with others. In turn, the reader breathes in what the poet has realised, which inspires — stimulates — the reader’s intuition, thereby expanding the circle of insight, understanding, truth.
a poppy. . .
a field of poppies!
the hills blowing with poppies!37
seeding the cosmos
the stillness after the rain
soaks into everything38
Mystery
Science endeavours to explain things by breaking them down into their component parts; to analyse means to break down. There is no denying that much has been learned via the scientific method. Even so, we do not understand the simple house fly or California poppy, let alone our vast universe. No one on the planet has the power to “create” either of these living organisms from scratch (as distinct from a test tube). In other words, life-and-death remains a mystery, at heart. Like science, religion attempts to help humans make sense of this mystery but, in contrast, poetry accepts mystery as a given and contents itself with reporting glimpses into that which is immeasurable and ineffable. (See above.)
beyond
stars beyond
star39
still reflecting
upon creation
dragonfly eye40
seance
a white
moth41
Naturalness
As Asian studies scholar, Peipei Qiu, discusses in Bashō and the Dao (2005), naturalness (along with spontaneity) was a key component in the development of haiku that was drawn from Taoist teachings. Professor Qiu quotes Bashō on the critical importance of zoka, a Japanese term related to the Taoist notion of creativity grounded in naturalness:
Those who pursue art follow zoka and have the four seasons as their companions. Nothing they see is not a flower and nothing they imagine is not the moon. If one sees no flower, he [or she] is the same as the barbarians;. . . follow zoka and return to zoka.42
Regarding Bashō’s emphasis on the importance of zoka, Qiu notes:
By saying that those who follow zoka see nothing but flowers and think of nothing but the moon, Bashō frames the grand premise that following zoka is the precondition for artistic perception: When one follows zoka one has the artistic sensibility to capture beauty in everything.43
To those who wholeheartedly embrace life in the age of the internet, the notion of naturalness sounds quaint, at best, but certainly outdated. For others who aspire to live authentically in connection with nature — and with our own essential nature — naturalness continues to be a significant aspect of daily life. In other words, naturalness does not require one to live in a cave or hike into the backcountry for weeks at a time. Living naturally has to do with knowing who one is and being true to an ethics of care with regards to oneself, others and the planet as a whole. In so doing, aligning with nature, broadly conceived, gives rise to deep, significant, poignant, timeless poetry.
back from vacation
letting traces of sand
remain in the car trunk44
in her sun hat
gardening, she hums
our song45
the world a blossom
I make up a song
for my dog46
Poignancy
A haiku poet does not report lifeless bits of information that elicit no reaction in the reader. Quite the contrary: An astute, open-hearted poet who relates to the world with care will arouse in the reader something akin to what he or she has felt, understood. The reader, like the poet, feels what the poet felt to one degree or another.
Even more than this: Through the poignancy inherent in the poem, the reader may sense how much the poet cares; a genuine feeling of the preciousness or sacredness of life that comes through, which in turn touches the reader’s own heart.
subway woman asleep
picked daisies
in her hand47
eulogy
the brother i never knew
i loved48
coffee
in a paper cup ––
a long way from home49
dead cat. . .
open-mouthed
to the rain50
Significance
While classical arts in general sought to showcase beauty, R. H. Blyth, the 20th century British haiku scholar, contends that haiku emphasises significance. As he writes in Haiku: Eastern Culture (1947): “Haiku does not, like waka, aim at beauty. Like the music of Bach, it aims at significance …”51
What is the nature of significance in the context of haiku? That which is worthy of our attention, because of some truth it reveals, renders the subject notable, important, to us as poets and, by extension, readers. When we are deeply moved by an event, an insight or realisation, a new discovery, or experience some kinship or affinity with another being, this encounter is bathed in significance, which may last a lifetime.
graduation day –
my son & I side by side
tying our ties52
broken bowl
the pieces
still rocking53
lunch with a friend
how so few words
hold me up54
Sincerity
As I have written elsewhere55 about sincerity (or makoto in Japanese), I will simply say here that nature-based haiku poets communicate truth authentically and without artifice. The sincere poet is not motivated by grandiosity or self-aggrandisement. He or she only wishes to connect with others within the realm of mutual care for one another. The Buddhist teacher, Chogyam Trungpa talked about the tender heart and this quality of being is certainly discernible in much of nature-based haiku.
The last kid picked
running his fastest
to the right field56
October light
I open my ribs
to pray57
ashes in the flowerbed. . .
the last thing
he could do for me58
Spaciousness
If one is unconstrained by the narrow scope of concepts, habits of mind and conventional thinking, a poet’s awareness widens opens, expands. His or her poetry in turn reflects a quality of spaciousness that may be enlivening, inspiring, uplifting or consoling. Often, both poet and reader broadens his or her perspective, which one may liken to the vast sky, ocean or landscape — literally or figuratively.
between the twirlers
and the marching band
the missing child59
the night
so silent
i can hear it breathe60
Wisdom
Awareness, compassion, and wisdom go together. Where awareness is, so too will be wisdom and compassion. Wisdom is awakened understanding, the fruit of mindful awareness and accompanying discoveries or realisations. I have written about the place of wisdom in haiku and refer the reader to this essay for further discussion.61
the river’s mouth
no end to the end
of the journey62
the answer to why
no longer important
autumn equinox63
starry night
what’s left of my life
is enough64
Conclusion
Meaning-free-ness is not synonymous with meaninglessness nor is it another way of conceptualising the intellectualisation and primary process ramblings of gendai poetry. On the contrary, meaning-free-ness reflects an open-hearted and mindful connection with oneself, others and the world, doing. Even more than this, meaning-free-ness accords with a poetic life that embodies love, fulfilment and a naturalness which quietly embraces the Whole. It is the invisible stream running through all of nature-based haiku from Basho to the present.
Footnotes
1. John Welwood, “Vulnerability and Power in the Therapeutic Process”, in John Welwood, Awakening the Heart: East/West Approaches to Psychotherapy and the Healing Relationship. Boulder, CO: New Science Library, 1983.
2. Ibid., p. 160.
3. Ibid., p. 160.
4. Ibid., p. 160.
5. See Charles Trumbull. “Meaning in Haiku.” Frogpond, 35.3, Autumn 2012.
6. Chogyam Trungpa. The Sanity We Are Born With: A Buddhist Approach to Psychology. Boston, MA: Shambhala Publications, 2005; pp. 95-96.
7. Pema Chodron, “Groundlessness”, in The Places That Scare You: A Guide to Fearlessness in Difficult Times. Boston, MA: Shambhala, 2001.
8. Bashō, in The Sound of Water: Haiku by Bashō, Buson, Issa, and Other Poets. Sam Hamill, tr. Boston: Shambhala, 1995.
9. Issa, in The Sound of Water.
10. Yang Wan-li, quoted in Sylvia Forges-Ryan, What Light There Is. Jonathan Chaves, tr. Winchester, VA: Red Moon Press, 2016.
11. Personal communication via e-mail, 8 Feb 2026.
12. Ibid.
13. Eric W. Amann, The Wordless Poem: A Study of Zen in Haiku. Toronto, Canada: Haiku Society of Canada, 1978; p.14.
14. Ibid., p.15.
15. Ibid., p.16.
16. Robert Epstein, “Freshness is Never Normative: A Reply to Lee Gurga.” Modern Haiku, 52.3, Autumn 2021.
17. Alan Watts, Out of Your Mind: Tricksters, Interdependence and the Cosmic Game of Hide-and-Seek. Boulder, CO: Sounds True, 2017; p.172.
18. Ibid., p.169.
19. Margaret Chula, in The Haiku Anthology. Cor van den Heuvel, ed. New York, NY: W. W. Norton, 1999; p.23.
20. Alice Frampton, The Heron’s Nest, 13, 2011.
21. Alison Woolpert, The Heron’s Nest, 15, 2013.
22. James W. Hackett, in The Haiku Anthology, p. 62.
23. Peggy Lyles, To Hear the Rain. Decatur, IL: Brooks Books, 2002, p.45.
24. Roberta Beary, The Unworn Necklace. Great Britain: Snapshot Press, 2007.
25. James W. Hackett, The Haiku Anthology, p.61.
26. Charlotte Digregorio, Modern Haiku, MH, 38.3, Autumn 2007.
27. Marlene Mountain, The Haiku Anthology, p.129.
28. Alexis Rotella, The Haiku Anthology, p.198.
29. Lenard D. Moore, The Heron’s Nest, 6, 2004.
30. Renee Owen, Alone on a Wild Coast. Great Britain: Snapshot Press, 2014.
31. Stanford M. Forrester, a motley sangha. Windsor, CT: bottle rocket press, 2005.
32. Lao Tzu, The Tao te Ching. Stephen Mitchell, tr. New York, NY: Harper Perennial, 1988.
33. R. H. Blyth, Haiku: Eastern Culture, v. 1. Japan: Hokoseido, 1949; p.xi.
34. Renee Owen, Alone on a Wild Coast.
35. Arizona Zipper, The Haiku Anthology; p.327.
36. Bashō in Robert Epstein, ed., The Temple Bell Stops: Contemporary Poems of Grief, Loss and Change. Baltimore, MD: Modern English Tanka Press, 2012; p.17.
37. Michael McClintock, The Haiku Anthology; p.118.
38. John Brandi, Seeding the Cosmos: New & Selected Haiku. Albuquerque, NM: 2010.
39. L. A. Davidson, The Haiku Anthology; p.29.
40. paul m., The Heron’s Nest, 13, 2011.
41. Raymond Roseliep, The Haiku Anthology; p.165.
42. Peipei Qiu, Bashō and the Dao: The Zhuangzi and the Transformation of Haikai. Honolulu, HI: University of Hawaii Press, 2005; pp.128-129.
43. Ibid., p.129.
44. Robert Epstein, in The Haiku Anthology, p.39.
45. William Scott Galasso, The Heron’s Nest, 9, 2007.
46. david boyer, The Heron’s Nest, 14, 2012.
47. Raffael De Gruttola, The Haiku Anthology, p.31.
48. Ernest J. Berry, Haiku Presence Award, 2003.
49. Gary Hotham, in The Haiku Anthology; p.81.
50. Michael McClintock, The Haiku Anthology, p.121.
51. R. H. Blyth, Haiku, v1., p. x.
52. Lee Gurga, in The Haiku Anthology; p.57.
53. Penny Harter, in The Haiku Anthology; p.70.
54. Randy Brooks, Frogpond, 36:3, Autumn 2013.
55. See Robert Epstein, Sincerely Yours: Haiku in Honor of Onitsura. Independently published, 2025; p.xix.
56. Mike Dillon, in The Haiku Anthology, p.33.
57. Randy Brooks, The Heron’s Nest, 10, 2008.
58. Bud Cole, Frogpond, 35:1, Winter 2012.
59. Bruce Derrick, The Haiku Anthology, p.32.
60. miriam chaikin, Frogpond, 35:2, Spring-Summer 2012.
61. See Robert Epstein, “The Place of Wisdom in Haiku Poetics”.
62. Michele Root-Bernstein, The Heron’s Nest,14, 2012.
63. wanda cook, in The Sacred in Contemporary Haiku. Robert Epstein, ed. n/p: CreateSpace, 2014, p.68.
64. Ron C. Moss, Bushfire Moon. Tasmania, Australia: Walleah Press, 2017.
Editor’s note: This essay has been written for Haiku NewZ.
Robert Epstein is a licensed psychologist and published haiku poet who lives and works in the San Francisco Bay Area. He has edited many anthologies of haiku with his latest publications being Sincerely Yours::Haiku in Honor of Onitsura (2025), Memo to Warhol::Art & Haiku in Color (2023), A Hummingbird Still: Haiku & Senryu in the Spirit of J. Krishnamurti (2021), and The Signature Haiku Anthology (2020). All are available on Amazon.