I have always felt that renku has cohesiveness and worth as a result of its rich traditions. And I started writing haiku partially as a consequence of writing renku, so I think many of my attitudes towards haiku share this origin.
I firmly believe that participation in the haikai tradition (including haiku, renku, etc) by non-Japanese authors is not some excavation of a simplistic, fossilized literature. Nor is it a slavish imitation of the exotic.
Haikai is a vibrant tradition of counterculture, from beggars and nuns to Shiki’s treatment of Bashô and haikai no renga (renku). The sort of naturalist intellectual poetic counterculture that fits so well with Jefferson, Thoreau, and James; with American Transcendentalism and even the fabled 1960s.
The point is that I am a haikai poet engaged in that vibrant tradition and it transcends language boundaries, national boundaries, racial boundaries, gender boundaries, and just boundaries. When it comes to haikai, all are equal. Haiku is the great reconciler as Shiki believed and the very qualities that make haiku unique are the same ones that generate such a strong attraction.
If you disagree with those sentiments, the rest of this probably is not worth your time. We already disagree. Instead, why not read some good haiku?
With that done, let me talk more about haigô.
Participating in the haikai tradition oftentimes includes the selection of a haigô, a penname used by haikai poets. Bashô went through a few haigô in his career, generally changing when he felt he had entered a new stage. This seems the norm as Buson also had several haigô. The point being that haigô are for anyone dedicated to bettering their own work, haigô are not reserved for experts or haijin. And authors often change haigô over time as they improve and before they ever become experts.
And today in Japan there is still a space for listing your haigô when you fill out a membership application for a club or larger organization. While the majority of people use their real names, it is not unusual to use something else .
So, almost from the start of my participation in haikai, I looked for a good haigô. One idea was a term Bashô used to describe “hermit” poets who had retired to write haikai. Since I was retired then and writing haikai, it seemed a good fit. I think of my work from before 2004 as that hermit work even though it is signed Mark Brooks.
Why was your work signed Mark Brooks then? Why not use the haigô publicly?
Even with a tradition of American pennames (American pennames include Mark Twain, my fellow Austinite O. Henry, and modern translator Red Pine, to name a few), the taking of a haigô for public use is very unusual for haiku poets writing in English. I know several poets who use haigô in private and never in public and for a variety of good reasons too. And, frankly, most are hesitant to invest in this aspect of the tradition at all.
Some of the few examples of public haigô now belong to a virtual pantheon of greats including Hian (William J. Higginson of Haiku Magazine) and Tombo (Lorraine Ellis Harr of Dragonfly) and perhaps more recently Tito (Stephen Henry Gill). Even more recently, an’ya and ai li and others began using haigô early in their careers. There are pennames too, from Robert Spiess’s pseudonym Rupert Spear to the lowercase paul m. and vincent tripi. an’ya and ai li are also lowercasers for that matter.
During the time the Haiku Society of America was formed, Hian and Tombo acted as poet-editors whose strong beliefs and perpetual explorations in the haiku tradition were a foundation for their work, their experimentation, and their play. Along their paths, they each adopted a haigô as part of their relationship with the tradition. And, the truth is, they chose to do this relatively early in their careers and before a pantheon of greats really could be said to exist. I respect their dedication as pioneers on a difficult path.
A return after a substantial break is by definition a new phase, so I decided to change my haigô when I returned to haikai in 2004 and then to keep it even though I was not actively publishing. Also, I have come to realize that haigô, like kigo, are not merely part of some distant culture, rather they are aspects of the living and global haikai tradition in which I am engaged.
I make no claims as a haijin, but I am reasonably sure by now that I am on the path of a haikai poet. I do renku and haiku. I study kigo and I practice my craft so that when poetic inspiration hits, I have done my best to be prepared to channel it into haiku, my preferred means of individual poetic expression. If nothing else, my time away helped me on all these things.
So the search was on. For some time, I considered using “tree house”. There were plusses and minuses (tree house is apparently not a normal concept for the Japanese). And then one day I decided to make a decision the next day.
That next morning I saw a silverfish. And he saw me, eye to eye, before he fell and scurried away.
Afterwards I wrote several pieces of silverfish, some admittedly awful. Some are haiku though and some sort of affinity between myself and the silverfish made me place the tree house on hold indefinitely.
I gave Shimi some time to cool and then did some investigation. Silverfish is Shimi and a summer kigo. There are other ways to write silverfish, one “worm-eaten fish” and another “clothes fish” for example. The word, regardless of how written, also translates to “clothes moth” and “bookworm” in English.
Silverfish can go a year without eating and take years to mature. They get their very nourishment from the intellectual tidbits stored safely in garages and attics.
Silverfish, like those involved in exploring the haikai tradition, live through words and books. The maturing time seemed much like that for a haiku poet and the year without eating after a year away from haikai seemed providential. I researched and could not find a previous Shimi and asked others who had the same result.
And the decision was made. Shimi is my haigô. Work written after my return in 2004 will be signed Shimi and not Mark Brooks. Work written before will still be signed Mark Brooks.
Shimi
Spring 2004/Revised Spring 2010
Austin, Texas
and originally from 
