More musings on Haiku

[sooZen]

more personal musings on haiku:

Haiku is the most misunderstood of all the poetry forms, for it is not dependent on meter, rhyme or any other poetic devices.

Haiku should not just paint a picture but take the reader beyond the picture to the canvas, the essence of the paint.

Haiku should leave one wondering, a hint of the mystery in life but yet clarify or exemplify a moment in time within life.

Haiku should be simple yet make one smile or sigh, always in present tense without tension.

Haiku is fun, yet it can, if it is done well, make the reader pause and reflect on that moment and perhaps create an epiphany or enlightenment...light bulb moment.

Haiku form, especially western haiku is arguable and few agree on format...it still rages.

Haiku shoulds should be ignored...even those by this writer.

How do you know a good haiku when you see it?

If you read haiku on the internet or here or in books...do you know what an effective haiku is? Is that subjective or does a good haiku stand alone?

Bad haiku is fairly easy to spot...I write some bad haiku myself and many times I wonder if what I write is even haiku or would pass muster with the haijin of today. But then, I write it anyway, damned or not...

I think haiku, unlike most poetry is evolving, constantly growing and changing. A reference to nature or season is not necessarily applicable in our modern (so we think) society. We live in cities and suburbs...not the farms and fields of Basho or Issa. We use computers, phones...time passes quickly, we don't walk for hours or days to see our neighbors, noting what the cat is doing, the frog, the bees. We get into cars, get out, go into buildings without glancing at the sky. The subjects of haiku needs change too.

...

writing haiku
a bug searches the screen
light subject



Peace,
SooZen

[stilltrucking]

We live in cities and suburbs...not the farms and fields of Basho

I don't know jack shit about Issa, but every time I go to my local drive thru bank with the phneumatic tubes and loud speakers, on sunny days I can still see Basho's shadow on the black top.

Bad haiku is fairly easy to spot...I write some bad haiku myself and many times I wonder if what I write is even haiku or would pass muster with the haijin of today. But then, I write it anyway, damned or not...

sometimes I have to read them a couple of times to realize somethng is wrong, mousey1 sneezes haiku, they sound good, a shared experience, but sneezes like yawns, contagious. The picture painted in a ku reminds me of the shadows on the walls in two cities in Japan. A nuclear shap shot. This ain't litkicks, the haiku board there had many more good ku. (present company excluded) Do you ever try to figure out what is going on in a stranger's life? Judih haikus are flower petals in the wind blowing through my mind.
Linear KU?
Mouusey I like them whatever they are, sneezes a form of erotic ku I think.

still dodging
Dianne Rheims talking
nothing getting done

I wonder why she don't write no more haiku here anymore?
and I tell you this that it is more fun to read them then write them, I fell asleep one night counting sylables on my fingers. I used to like Haiku because I am so lazy. I think I may have five hundred or a thousand, a drop in the bucket to you and cecil, so if I sound like a poser it is probably so. this is all like baby steps for me. haiku security blankets, phenomenology just a two bit word for zenn.
so phenomenologicaly speaking out of my five hundred, maybe a couple have been haiku.
good morning to you all

[e_dog]

some thoughts on haiku

haiku is an attempt to bridge the gap between image and poetry.

use as few words as possible. no metaphors. no figures of speech unless onamatopeia (Plop!). maybe an unavoidable anthropomorphism here and there.

the best haiku would be one word. or maybe wordless. the limit of itself is the time when there is no need for haiku. the haiku that can speak itself is not the eternal Tao. or something like that.

[sooZen]

Good day Jack...(sometimes I get lost in the stream of your thoughts and wonder what is being said. Hah!)

Seeing Bashos' shadow at a bank drive-in window sounds wonderful. I have had no such experience but wish I did. (When I think of him carrying that banana tree around, it makes me smile.)

Issa is a favorite of mine...check him out if you get the chance or 'google' him. He had a certain wistfulness and humor that I appreciate.

Since Basho created the form of haiku, he is of course the master but in our western society, there is much debate (as usual) about who was the first to introduce haiku. Some say Blythe, some Reps. Although I appreciate the former, the latter is my love. Even inspired me to write my only article on the Litkicks of old on Paul Reps and his 'weightless gifts' (the last article they accepted, I think, before the door closed.) He was a haiku rebel and never really accepted in the circle of haijin and thus never given credit where due.

Haiku (and ku'sts) can be snobby...when it should be a gift of one's experience and observation.

e_dog...thanks for the thoughts, I have given them some consideration. I think Reps, who 'illustrated' his haiku did bridge that gap but some may disagree and say it shouldn't be done or was an artifice and not acceptable. I find him delightful and his brush work alongside his haiku enlightening.

Jane Reichhold who has been kind enough to stretch the boundries of modern haiku (I have great respect for her efforts) and is a fine haijin disagrees that metaphor is never appropriate and sites Basho himself as using it. Again, very debatable...

One line haiku in the west is becoming more acceptable and I have experimented with this myself. I wonder if one word will ever pass muster or be effective. Maybe you are right but I cannot achieve that as of yet.

Recently a book club I belong to announced a haiku contest, the best haiku would receive a years worth of featured books. They defined haiku as to what Webster's said..."5-7-5 syllables, three lines with a nature theme." Ahh well, I am hopeful that definition will go the way of any outmoded or archaic way of doing things but not likely soon...

thanks for the thoughts.

SooZen

[stilltrucking]

Seeing Bashos' shadow at a bank drive-in window sounds wonderful. I have had no such experience but wish I did. (When I think of him carrying that banana tree around, it makes me smile.)

I had this discussion with jimbo about drive in banks with pheumatic tubes and tiny little speakers. I wondered what basho would write about it, of course it sucks but there is some human connection there that i think he could see feel compassion for our technological bubble of aileniation from each other. Basho a feeling of seeing nature in the un natural world we live in.

I need to slow down. I am in a panicked state sometimes, no excuse for my careless writing.

going to take it easy on you guys

[e_dog]

hey stilltruckin',
you in Moab! that's one hell of a place. the Arches NP is one of the most beautiful and erie places on earth (or in the continental U.S. at least).

buddha...: the one word haiku is sort of an ideal limit, that one can try to assymptotically approach, but i agree it would be difficult to find occasion in which it could be effective; probably not for the page but maybe for moments, oral poetry. as for one line haiku, Kerouac has a few good ones, tho not necessarily in his collections of "haiku".

[stilltrucking]

moab
no
here
j
i move around a lot

you all have lost me, I tell you what a haiku is
verbal aspirin
analgesic
a verbal shot
sister morphine
a judih ku