国際文化学部のマクマレイ教授は英国に本拠を置くガーディアン紙から英語俳句についてインタビューを受けました。同紙は世界中で 3,800 万人の読者を抱え、イギリスの学生の約40パーセントが読んでいる有力紙です。新聞のリンクは次のとおりです。

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/nov/14/lost-to-the-climate-crisis-japan-haiku-poets

 

また、以下は本記事に掲載されているマクマレイ先生のインタビュー内容です。

“With kigo, you’re compressing three or four months into a single word,” says David McMurray, a haiku poet who has curated the Asahi Shimbun newspaper’s Haikuist Network column since 1995. “Take the word mosquito … the entire summer is packed into that one word, and it conjures up so many images.”

The premature first pops of sakura buds in spring and and the arrival of typhoons in the summer instead of the autumn are two notable examples of seasonal dissonance.

“The seasons are important to haiku because they focus on one particular element,” adds McMurray, a professor of intercultural studies at the International University of Kagoshima, where he lectures on international haiku. “But typhoons arrive in the summer now, and we’re getting mosquitoes in the autumn, even in northern Japan.

“The risk is that we will lose the central role of the four seasons in composing haiku, and the Saijiki will essentially become a historical document. The Saijiki is very specific in the way it presents the words. But they no longer reflect reality.”