Haiku Options

[Guest_ohsteve_*]

Breathe in, breathe out, ah...
Autumn never smelt so fresh,
so where is the snow?

Nov. 16, 09
© Steve Pray

[Larry]

Hey Steve,

You are probably right about renaming this form because no matter how hard we try, we will never (due to our language limitations/translations) be able to come close to Basho or Buson and their peers. That doesn't mean we should just quit but perhaps we should look to writers and translators like Lee Gurga's Haiku: A Poet's Guide, William J. Higginson's The Haiku Handbook, or James W. Hackett's The Way of Haiku.

As for the question of 5-7-5; Shigehisa Kuriyama wrote in the Kodansha Encyclopedia of Japan that 5-7-5 by itself doesn't make a Haiku. That arrangement applies only to Traditional haiku in Japanese. Such a set syllabic form does not apply to Western languages because Japanese sound symbols are not equal to syllables.

As Merlin likes to say...There 'tis!

I've read that haiku is a partnership between writer and reader. I know what my feelings are when writing haiku but I should only express things that caused me to have those feelings. The reader may then come to the same conclusions and have similar emotions when reading that haiku.

This is becoming a bit too preachy so I will stop. I do want to let you know about a book I've poured over which has helped me a lot. Higginson's "Haiku World" has a wonderful listing of "Seasonal Words" which denote certain times of the year and those words are recognized universally as pertaining to specific seasons. Heck, you can still name the season if you want to as I have done on occasion but I'm slowly edging over to Higginson's way of letting the reader come to his own ephipany.

A silent morning
Icicles point to the ground
Covered in new snow

This one came to me when watching stories about that weather pounding the Northeastern USA.

Larry