Studio8 - Uniting the Arts

Learn the rules, then forget them...Basho

Despite this, English writes of haiku insist upon the 5-7-5 format which is perfectly acceptable for Japanese but not so in Western haiku. We are a wordy bunch and distilling haiku to bare essence is almost impossible using that form but still it persists. Drives me nuts! Nuts to the point that I don't even want to read the stuff that is out there anymore.

Gosh, I would hate to piss off all the haijin out there, especially those that I love and respect otherwise but that is my feeling on the matter. I am, believe me, no authority on haiku but I know what touches me and I surely don't see much of it. Good haiku is a rare and fine thing, me thinks.

Of course, I know that the ubiquitous 5-7-5 is good practice for the new haijin and can be fun to work on but most just stop there or more likely believe that is what haiku is. It is not.

Okay, I seem to have lost my humor here, I know but after years, most literally years, of writing about haiku and its Western form and the arbiteurs of that form, I guess my exasperations have risen to the surface. Big time... Big enough that I only write haiku in my head mostly like a water strider writes on water or a sand painting by a Navajo medicine man.

Pay no attention to this post...

forget numeration.
ignore digits, numbers, summation.
count your blessings!

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learn.
forget.
sea!

prose, imagery, let it ring

I read ,and I can't quote because I would have to go digging for it, St. Jack write that in keeping with the spirit of Haiku one shouldn't stay with 5 7 5 because the Japanese language is not structured like ours, and in fact doesn't follow that rule. The 5 7 5 is apparently sometghing made up here to make it easier for us to write haiku in a form that would utilize the structure of our language. So to resolve the issue. St. Jack started writing what he called POP, and now we can all write POP and forget about those arbitrary #'s....

ahhh, my friends...how beautiful to 'see' you again and thank you for the succinct replies.

and Artguy, thank you for continuing the conversation. Yes, Jack was certainly one who brought the western concept of haiku to the hip masses attention but he is not the first, by any means. The daddy of modern western haiku is Paul Reps. Here is an article, if you wish, that I wrote originally in 2004 for Litkicks: http://studioeight.tv/phpbb/viewtopic.php?t=4687

Weightless gifts
haiku soap bubbles
POP!