Minimally Maximal:

Outspoken haiku poet and editor R. W. Watkins

interviewed by Jerome Berglund

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(added 11th January 2025)

 

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Jerome Berglund: Eastern Structures and journals like Haiku Avenue and the 5-7-5 form represent a refreshing rarity in the English haikai landscape in their adherence to meter and the traditional symmetrical structure of classical teikei fixed-form Japanese poetics. What are the looser, freestyle-oriented publications and the majority of English-language haikuists not adhering to such conventions missing out on?

 

R. W. Watkins: Lots.

 

Could they stand to gain by exhibiting more work in the other potent half of the short-form coinage?

 

No.

 

You have established yourself as something of a renegade and dissident in your vocal challenging of organizations and approaches which have coalesced and become largely accepted and taken for granted in the publishing community. Without singling out individuals, presses, journals or contests, how could different parties stand to improve their approaches to promote fairness and inclusivity, and honor the traditions and precepts of haiku and senryu more effectually? What are some constructive places to consider? Possible action steps?

 

Stop publishing.

 

Besides poetry, you possess a particularly wide and ranging knowledge base pertaining to different aspects of contemporary culture and the greater art and critical world. How has this informed your work and unique style of micropoetic composition?

 

Minutely.

 

You’ve recently shared excellent work in some exciting places. Can you describe for readers what different collections you have available and forthcoming, and what particular material each can offer for admiring?

 

Yeah. Poetry and stuff.

 

Besides classical nature verses, you’re especially esteemed and renowned for highly inventive and avant-garde examples of ‘eye-ku’. How do you balance formal experimentation with rigorous fidelity to structure and conventional expectations?

 

By being a poet. It’s what the reading public expects us to be. If you can’t handle syllabics and metre, then you’d best go back to flogging women’s underwear or used cars or something.

 

I would love to learn more about the process and intentions driving a few of your incredible recently published pieces or sequences.

 

Coffee. Beer. Gen-X middle age.

 

You have an impressive background in music theory, history and practice. How have those passions and disciplines intersected with your poetry practice?

 

Easily.

 

Canada socially, politically, climate-wise, etc. represents a very unique nation, which has long been a hotbed for Eastern poets of note. How would you say your citizenship, locale and culture has inflected your writing, and distinguishes perspective and inclinations of countrymen and women compared to the philosophy of short-form poets and publishers in America or Europe?

 

It makes me wish I were an American poet who owns a villa over on the continent.

 

You’ve been practicing thoughtfully for quite some time and interacted with some titans of English-language haikai. What were some of the most interesting and valuable connections, collaborations, and interactions you’ve had in your haiku journey?

 

Drinking beer and writing strange rengas with Robin Tilley in the ‘80s, ‘90s and early 2000s, and then ignoring his letters ever since.

 

Did you have any special mentors?

 

I had poet Tom Dawe as a professor for a couple of courses in uni. He told me I should change my major to Social Work.

 

Have you helped any promising emerging talents find and refine their voices?

 

Yeah; definitely Lorraine Padden. She sent some really nice 5-7-5 haiku to Eastern Structures a few years ago. But then I did a little googling and discovered that she had published a book of free-form poems via Red Moon Press, and had been lauded by the Haiku Society of America and the Modern Haiku crowd and stuff. So I told her that it was probably not in her best interest that we publish her in ES—that a lot of the volatile company she keeps would probably never forgive her. And then she smartened up and ran like a scalded cat.

 

What is a favorite poem you’ve published and why? A favorite collection by another poet? A favorite book teaching haiku, translating classical poems, of literary history?

 

Anything and everything in Eastern Structures No 1. Jane Reichhold—shortly before she snuffed herself—reviewed it on Amazon, stating something like “If you’re really interested in Asian poetry then this is the book to avoid.” So then I knew for certain I was on the right track.

 

Of the four accepted godfathers, do you have the most personal affinity with Basho, Issa, Buson, or Shiki?

 

Probably James Brown.

 

Thanks a lot for the opportunity to chat with you like this, R. W.

 

It was your dime, pal.

 

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R W. Watkins’s latest haiku can be found in Haiku Avenue No. 5. His most recent haiku collections are the companion volumes Insight (2021) and Insight 1996–2005 (2022). The latest issue (#25) of Eastern Structures was published in November of 2024. ‘Of Fabrication through Indoctrination’, his essay in ES 25 criticizing Haiku Canada’s recent assembling of a Maritime haiku anthology, can be read online here.