an American haiku (spring dance...), a one-liner Options

[Marc-Andre Germa...]

spring dance, robins twitter to the taps of clogs

[Arnfinn]

Well, Mark.

The policy for Haiku at MM is 5/7/5.

I remarked if anyone posted a variation other than the above.

A brief description would be necessary.

I don't think that's unreasonable.

It is an education for all of us.


John

[Marc-Andre Germa...]

Well, Mark.http://forumimages.mosaicmusings.net/style_images/stone22_2/folder_editor_images/rte-bold.png
Bold

The policy for Haiku at MM is 5/7/5.

I remarked if anyone posted a variation other than the above.

A brief description would be necessary.

I don't think that's unreasonable.

It is an education for all of us.


John

John,

Asking for more information is reasonable enough; this is why I've offered all those links

Seeing that the MM policy for haiku is 5/7/5, I guess I'll just stop posting mine here. Is there any other such policy I should be aware of?

You mentioned in another post that there was a place at MM for experimental (avant-gardiste) poetry? Which one would that be? And is there a forum for policy-free forum at MM where we can post non-experimental poetry like American haiku that do not conform to the MM policy go, haibun or prose poetry? Not a vanity show-off thread please, I came to workshop.

As I said above, I took the pain of titling it "American Haiku" to differentiate this from the traditional haiku.

Frankly speaking, John, the more it goes, the less I feel at home here at MM. I've got no complain whatsoever about you or any member here. To the contrary, I think this is a decent forum with a beautiful group of beautiful people. But I'm afraid our views of poetry do not match. Difference is good, and a lot can be learned by exploring them, and I really appreciate that you've engaged into this debate for me. If no one minds, I might stick around for the nice chats. But I'm afraid that little of what I write will conform to MM policies. As an artist, I espouse craft, eschew policy. I welcome all debates on the craft; I couldn't care less for Policy, that enforcerment of conformity.

It's your forum, and your free to moderate it as you like. But these American haiku are probably the last poems I ever post here at MM. And as I came here to workshop, it entails that I will no longer feel inclined to post critiques either. Sometimes, there's nothing left but to agree to disagree.

Before I pack my crayons, I will answer your question about this non-conformist poem

Namely, why one line?

Let's look at this: spring dance, robins twitter to the taps of clogs

And here I am critiquing my own poem again

First, I'll stack it back into three lines:

Spring dance - ........................L1 works fine, the usual kigo
Robins twitter..........................L2 so far so good, besides its non-conformist syllable count.
to the taps of clogs..................to the.....of: this sucks, three weak sounds filling in that short a poem.

Spring dance -
Robins twitter to......................."to" just dangles there.
the taps of clogs

However, I need the three filler words (to, the, of) to avoid pidgin English. The line break bringing in a short pause, the music is loss (the sounds are there alright: twitter, taps). A triple alliteration "twitter to taps" turns the ku (may I call it so here?) into a tongue-twister. By bringing the three fragments, the four successive weak sounds add a rush movement to the lines, without needlessly pausing on them:

spring dance, robins twitter to the taps of clogs
with a natural, mild elevation on the word "to", rather than having an anapestic "to the TAPS" following the weak sound "-ter" of "twitter."

As for the syllable-count, I've placed precedence on the essence of the ku. It has its kigo, "spring." There follows the two juxtaposed images (in a whole American ku, some schools demand two, others three visuals, but never more than that as far as I know of.) The visuals/images are both concrete (robins, clogs) and sensory (twitter, tap.) The "satori" moment is the word "dance."

Yep, I could add words to bloat it up to 5-7-5. But how? Adding another image would overcrowd the ku. Adding an adjective where none is actually needed? Both of these solutions would actually diminish the ku. I could place the robins on a tree, I guess...which would entail a need of an extra prepositional phrase, which is not desirable in any haiku, and certainly not two of them.

Any suggestion about this piece that doesn't dilute it, I'm interested.

Thanks again for the time you've devoted here.

Mark