1.  "Intent" hokku, verses that show the firm intention of the writer to do something.

2.  "Volition" hokku, verses that show the desire or impulse of the writer to do something, though he may not really intend to do it.

3.  "Exhortation" hokku, verses in which the writer urges or tells other humans (or even non-humans) to do or be something.

"INTENT" HOKKU

We are already familiar with the this kind of thing from Western verse.  It is found, for example, in the the poem by William Butler Yeats:

I will arise and go now, and go to Innisfree,
 And a small cabin build there, of clay and wattles made;
 Nine bean rows will I have there, a hive for the honey bee,
 And live alone in the bee-loud glade.

We see the writer's intent to get up and go to Innisfree, and to live there.  The writer may express such firm intent for "poetic" reasons, not really intending to do it, but as expressed in the verse, we see the intent as fact and firm.

We find such strong intent in this verse by Bashô:

"Traveller"
Shall be my name;
The first rain of winter.

"VOLITION" HOKKU

We are familiar with this concept as well.  We see it in a verse by Gerard Manley Hopkins, though because the speaker is a nun, we feel that the volition, expressed in the past, has been carried out:

I have desired to go
Where springs not fail, 
To fields where flies no sharp and sided hail 
And a few lilies blow.

We find it expressed in this verse by Shiki:

As companion,
I would like a butterfly
On the journey.

EXHORTATION" HOKKU

This "urging" of others is also common in Western verse, as in this from Walt Whitman:

Allons! whoever you are! come forth! 
You must not stay sleeping and dallying there in the house, though you built it, or though it has been built for you.

We find it also in the verse of T. S. Eliot:

Let us go then, you and I,
When the evening is spread out against the sky
Like a patient etherised upon a table;

Exhortation (usually of non-humans) is so common in the verse of Issa as to be almost characteristic of him, and it is unfortunately heavily imitated by novice writers of hokku, who do not realize that because they do not have the spirit of Issa, it comes off as an affectation rather than genuine:

If someone comes,
Turn into frogs,
You cooling melons!

The playfulness of that verse is obvious.  But again, this sort of thing should be done seldom if at all.  Otherwise it leads to the "talk to the animals" syndrome so prevalent among those just learning hokku, who are invariably drawn to Issa because they do not yet understand the deeper aspects of hokku, and think him "cute." 

All three of these categories have their pitfalls, which is why they are infrequently used.  And all three served generally to express the "poet" urges of the writer as somewhat different from those of others, as more in the tradition of the "poet's life" which is why it is all too easy, in using them, to draw too much attention to the "self," and why they should be used little and with care.  Otherwise they come off as much like the posing so often found among would-be poets in Western culture.

Copyright 2007
David Coomler