World Haiku Review Spring 2025
Mt Akasaki on a stormy evening, painting by Susumu Takaguchi
Contents
Editorial – on this page
100 Haijin – part 13, Akutagawa Ryunosuke
Mountains of Japan – paintings by Susumu Takiguchi
Editorial
Quality, quality, quality!
The World Haiku Review has held quality as its supreme guideline since its inception in 2000. Around that time haiku was in a state of flux with conflicting views, different schools of thought and even an altercation which was by no means infrequent. It was a noisy and chaotic place where misconceptions and biased dogmas rubbed shoulders with well-researched views and knowledgeable remarks. My hope was that it was creative chaos in disguise from which true haiku would find its place of honour in the end.
In the chaos described above, there were so many mutually exclusive beliefs and opinions in terms of such questions as the definition of haiku, the difference or otherwise between haiku and senryu, the concepts of kireji, toriawase, kigo, hai-i (haiku spirit) , etc., that to try and find the meeting of minds among dissenting voices was a non-starter. Hearing all these disagreeing voices, the WHR realised early on that to continue to be involved in these polemics which were often pointless, superficial, misleading or plain mistaken, was simply a gross waste of time. As a result, all the restrictions for submitting works to WHR for example were practically removed and the only criterion that has remained to this day is none other than ‘quality’.
The relentless drive for higher quality has generated yet another drastic measure starting from this WHR issue of discontinuing the ‘Zatsuei’ (haiku of merit) section from all three haiku categories (the Neo-classic, Shintai and Vanguard), leaving only the best three and seven honourable mentions for each category, i.e. the best 30 in all three categories from the vast number of submissions.
The ‘Zatsuei’ was a very popular feature but now had to be abolished in the interest of achieving even higher quality. Ascthe number of poems published on WHR will thus be radically reduced, there i now much less chance for poets to have their work selected and published in WHR with extremely narrow gate through which only exceptionally superb haiku poems can pass. But people should not be discouraged by it. It is more challenging for them to try but much more rewarding if they are successful. On their own part they only have to double or triple their effort to raise their work’s quality. That way, poets and WHR will mutually try to raise the quality constantly and surely. Who would oppose to the enhancement of quality?
This measure must not be construed as ‘elitist’. On the contrary, relatively unknown poets or even beginners often have produced amazing haiku poems while the so-called seasoned or famous poets are known to have submitted what can only be described as ‘mediocre’.
Overall, it is a good thing to happen and I am convinced that in time it will prove to be a powerful tool to improve the standards of haiku-writing world-wide and thereby to deepen people’s love for haiku.
Susumu Takiguchi
- WHR 2025 – 100 Haijin part 13
- Mountains of Japan
- WHR 2025 – Haibun
- WHR 2025 – Vanguard Haiku
- WHR 2025 – Shintai Haiku
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