human: an anthology of bulgarian haiku

“Every art and literature serves to express ideas, including haiku literature. When choosing poems, my main task was to look at those ideas and select them based on their originality and emotional depth. I constantly had in mind the two criteria already determined by Bashō: “poetic truthfulness” and “additional meaning” (metaphor). When defining the form of haiku, I adhered to the basic standard of cultural exchange prescribed by the International P.E.N.: “all forms are universal, all cultures are equal”. Which means, I considered haiku to be a form of 5-7-5 syllables with mandatory respect for the institution of “poetic license” which allows each author to adapt the form to their expressive needs. It is clear that Japanese cultural stereotypes, such as senryū, kigo or shasei cannot be decisive in considering Bulgarian haiku, especially since these stereotypes are not part of thedefinition of haiku in Japan, but more or less represent aesthetic trends characteristic of different cultural policies (for example, senryū does not exist at all in the Bashō era, kigo is a marginal technique, and even the very term haiku originates many centuries later).” — Dimitar Anakiev (editor)