the surreal, avant-garde, experimental, eccentric, disjunctive, other, enjambed, irruptive, mythological, magical-realist, collagical, almost-silent, visionary, scientific, found, fragmentary, edgy, innovative, new, 21st century modern
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"The dialogic nature of haikai determines that the establishment of a new style depends more on reinventing the existing poetic conventions than on individual talent. In order to reinvigorate the existing poetic conventions, including images, themes, vocabulary, codes of expressions and interpretations, as well as the audience's expectations, have to be changed or infused with new connotations."
-from Basho and the Dao (The Zhuangzi and the Transformation of Haikai) by Peipei Qiu
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"As time moves on, the art of haikai will go through its own thousand transitions and ten thousand changes, but all transformations based on makoto (genuineness) will be part of the master's art. The master said, "Never content yourself with the drivel of the ancients. Just as the four seasons change, all things become new. Everything is that way."
-TohÅ, disciple of BashÅ (translated by David Landis Barnhill)
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".... while there may be eternal verities, one moment is not the same as another, as one era is not the same as another; there is progression. As a result, in order to properly articulate reality, the poet must necessarily inhabit the era, the contemporary zeitgeist. If "fashion" were not significant, one could simply curl up with Basho and never compose another poem. This idea seems decidedly contrary to his radical spirit. In each era there are new developments necessitating unique articulations that in turn serve to inform later generations."
-Richard Gilbert, Poems of Consciousness
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"To the difficult question 'what is new?', I will answer: the new means how the emotions of today's society and people are expressed to fit the times. The haiku must be innovative in any time. So we should begin and continue to express the emotions of the people of this time and generation."
-Sanki Saito, Gendai Haiku, S.21.10
(translation Akiko Takazawa)