Kenneth Yasuda

Kenneth Yasuda (June 23, 1914 – January 26, 2002) was a Japanese-American scholar and translator.

Life and career

Yasuda was born on June 23, 1914, in Auburn, California. His poetry studies at the University of Washington were interrupted by World War II, and he was interned at the Tule Lake War Relocation Center following the signing of Executive Order 9066. He was later transferred to the Jerome War Relocation Center in 1943. After the war, he returned to the University of Washington where he received a BA in 1945. Yasuda earned his Doctorate in Japanese Literature from Tokyo University.

In the same book, Yasuda contended that 'the underlying aesthetic principles that govern the arts are the same for any form in Japanese or English' and would ensure the possibilities of Haiku in English being as popular as with its Japanese audience.

In Yasuda's haiku theory the intent of the haiku is contained in the concept of a "haiku moment," 'that moment of absolute intensity when the poet's grasp of his intuition is complete so that the image lives its own life', (seventeen syllables corresponding to that 'moment', divided into three lines within 'one breath length' ). This notion of the haiku moment has been defined as 'an aesthetic moment' a timeless feeling of enlightened harmony as a poet's nature and environment are unified 'The passing momentary experience that comes alive through the precise perception of the image.'

Yasuda's indirect influence was felt through the Beat writers; Jack Kerouac's The Dharma Bums appeared in 1958, with one of its main characters, Japhy Ryder (based on Gary Snyder), writing haiku.