calligraphy- haiku

Rolling the throttle
peg lifting from the macadam
Highsiding to eternity.

signature!

5
7
5
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Haiku are not meant to be counted. Like a painting, they are meant to be experienced. Do you count the brush strokes in a painting?

perhaps you have been unaware of what is happening in english language haiku for the last 35 years. You are not alone.

Japanese haiku are mostly written in a single column of groups of "onji". Japanese "sound units". they do not correspond with the english notion of syllables. You cannot write 17 syllables in english and approximate a Japanese haiku. Example: "Ice cream" in Japanese is a four syllable word. So is "Elvis."
East is east west is west, never the twain shall meet etc. If you write seventeen syllables in english you end up with a "haiku" that contains twice as many words in it as a Japanese haiku. Too wordy. the laguages don't dovetail. Here's an unadulterated translation of Basho's famous frog:

old pond a frog jumps in water sound



in three lines if you'd like-


old pond
a frog jumps in
water sound

Early english translators who were struggling to reconcile what cannot be reconciled padded their trans. with unnecessary words of their own. Though for the sake of flow a good modern trans usually goes like this

old pond---
a frog jumps in
the sound of water

Can you improve that by adding more words? Or will it just be diluted? Here are a couple by widely respected and much published english haiku poets

sudden shower
in the empty park
swing still swinging
-Margaret Chula



Can you "improve" that by adding words?

How about this one by haiku editor, historian and award winning haiku poet Lee Gurga

his side of it.
her side of it.
winter silence

-Lee Gurga

another

park chessboard:
rain fills
the empty squares

-peggy lyles

Does that not say it all? What would adding more words to fulfill an arbitrary syllable count achieve but distract from the clear and sharply etched imagery ms. lyles has conveyed?

The majority of americans are unaware of what is being published in leading haiku journals and cling to the misguided 575 mantra as if it were gospel. In actuality, it was in error from the very beginning. 575 is based on a misunderstanding of Japanese and english. I wouldn't take my word for it

here's a couple links to haiku authorities

also see World Haiku Club and Haiku Society of America. Their definitions state "seventeen syllables or less" but take a look at their annual award winning haiku and you will see that "less" is really what they mean.

http://www.webdelsol.com/Perihelion/acmarticle.htm

http://www.baymoon.com/~ariadne/form/haiku/haiku.aesthetics.gurga.htm#2



I oppose haiku falsely called. Why do I care? Because I love haiku. I want it to be well represented by American poets. It is a true and legitimate literary form. to find imposter verse labeled "haiku" annoys me.

"The sounds of the two languages are obviously
different, and preserving just the "number" of sound units has no
inherent universal linguistic value. As a consequence, in
English, 17 syllables is almost always too long for the
"one-breath" form of successful haiku. The best English haiku
are invariably shorter, and the more mature themes are usually
developed in poems that have grown beyond the relatively
superficial aspect of counting syllables. A review of the two
most prominent English-language haiku anthologies, "Haiku Moment"
edited by Bruce Ross (Tuttle, 1993) and "The Haiku Anthology"
edited by Cor van den Heuvel (Touchstone, 1986/1991), quickly
verifies this assertion"

Micahel Dylan Welch, haiku poet, historian, journal editor etc full article here;
http://www.haikuworld.org/dogwood/11/vii.html

Have you ever ass/u/me'd you knew all about something and been wrong? I have. :)

That's what haiku suffers from in America. The one thing most practioners" know" about haiku is wrong. For the most part 575 should only be applied to Japanese not english.

If you are Japanese, it is difficult NOT to write them in 575 (though several of their haiku poets were freeversers ) if you are an english language writer, you don't need to count syllables, you need to know what haiku should contain and how they function.

Sadly, the majority of Americans who think they are writing haiku hold this belief based soley on their ability to arrange 17 syllables into three lines. They don't seem to read any of the haiku journals, anthologies, critical texts and are surprised to find out books about haiku even exist. Its that way for all genres.

Forum poetry suffers from "poets" who rely on their own "I feel therefore I am" technique and forego getting deep into any critically acclaimed poetry or availing themselves of the most basic texts on how to write. They have no examples to follow save those supplied by others who suffer a similar ignorance of the form they claim to embrace.


But it is our nature to dispute, resist, deny when our long held beliefs are challenged. I held the same view of haiku as everyone else till I read The Haiku Anthology (Cor Van den Heuvel) The works were startling and fresh. They involved my intuition and made something happen in me. I recall thinking "These are haiku??? They don't have the right amount of sylllables!"


I don't know why school teachers continue to malign the form with a false definition. If I were emperor they would be brought up on charges. ;)

It appears jeana has more issues with me than how many syllables I write.

http://www.gather.com/viewArticle.jsp?articleId=281474977071459

ha ha. Honestly, it's been a long time since someone tried to insult me by calling me a girl. And this from a female? Isn't that some kind of deep rooted gender based self hate? ;)