Today, perhaps for the first time in all the years I have read and practiced writing haiku, I feel as though I am standing before a work of art, a masterpiece, in today's Per Diem poem, Jim Kacian's one line haiku of a December night.
I just stand there as if held to the expanse of the thing itself, December night, as if it were there and I had the privilege of seeing it unfold with the statis of its truth. It is art, not artifice, and I have to admit that I have never felt this before any other haiku, my own included.
This only happened once before to me when I stood before a triptych of Japanese screens of cranes (I'm afraid I can't find the reference of painter's name) and found I had entered the painting and was moving with the group of cranes.
Does anyone else feel as I do?
I found the reference. I feel as I stand before today's Per Diem poem much as I felt at the Metropolitcan Museum of Art when I viewed Flock of Cranes, Edo period (1615–1868) Ishida Yutei (1721–1786)
Pair. The same sense yet different because the cranes are quite kinetic in Yutei's work, whereas the December night in Kacian's haiku is static, with the movement being inherent in the long one line as expansiveness.
I'd also like to add that for me this haiku is the first one I have read that had to be written in one line, that no other format would have served it. While other one line haiku might have their justification, to me they could have been reformatted witout any loss of impact, meaning, etc.
Hi Jack,
i think you have a good point when you discuss the one line format and that sometimes other
formats could serve without loss of "impact, meaning,etc."
I'm intrigued by your claim that Jim's poem is the first one you've read that had to be written in one line, that no other format would serve it.
Could you explain more your thoughts about this one.
I'm going by memory because you didn't post the poem here again, but I did read it that day.
but one could do something like this as a four liner-- if I am remembering it correctly:
Stars
drilling holes
into darkness
December
Of course it is changed, and I don't like it as well, but think there are many other poems
that would show the same degree of difference.
In fact many one liners could work as four parts (as well as in three lines)
when they combine two phrases such as
Matsuo Allard 's snow by the window paper flowers gathering dust )
or
Philip Rowland's warranting the stillness the Latin labels on the trees .
There is a dramatic change in how I read these as one line vs. with line breaks.
Maybe one liners are more acceptable as haiku than four liners???
And even though one might be able to break up many one liners into three lines, I still think that the choice to use one line can create huge impacts on rhythm and grammatical disorientation that would lose their impact and meaning otherwise:
like
pig and I spring rain
Marlene Mountain
just doesn't do the same trick as:
pig
and I
spring rain
somehow the between-ness (the mud) gets a bit lost
or when the "casualness"' of a simple grammatical phrase in one line emphasizes the common speech attribute of it and asks us to stay longer with the experience because of the understatement created:
like
throwing my voice and any old thing will catch it
Jim Kacian
at dusk hot water from the hose
marlene mountain
uneasy things grow wings underground
Peter Yovu
or for the visual impact that perfects an image:
the sun lights up a distant ridge another
dusk from rock to rock a waterthrush
John Willis
or for opening up the way a poem could be read rhythmically in multiple ways
wild geese parting the blue northern yearnings
Clare McCotter
or to create startling imagery through unexpected language:
her one breast its own theory of poetics
Lee Gurga
leaves blowing into a sentence
Bob Boldman
Curious to hear what you think, Jack...
and I guess it's time for me to order Jim's book about it.
Eve, thank you for your extensive and thoughtful response to my rather bold, incendiary remarks about this haiku:
as though the stars drilled holes through the darkness December
I can't possibly take each of your examples of haiku you suggest would be different or less impactful if written in other than one line; I can only choose a couple ( and no criticism is intended to the authors).
Firstly, let me say that the above haiku relies for me on expansiveness: this is its essence and if it was compressed, well, the vastness of a December night would be stuffed into a box. Also, for me the solidity, frozen quality of the night is enhanced by the choice of the word drill; it brings out the sparkling quality of diamond like drill bits of stars; yet, because it begins with "as though" it also gives us the fluidity, the dream like quality of the clearest of times-December (winter).
All that said, but what about all those other fine poems that you cited that were cast in one line, surely they are correctly written.
I can only say maybe so, but not for me. I have never written a one line haiku, so perhaps I am prejudiced; but let's just take a look at a few.
Pig and I spring rain
And admirable haiku and perhaps the equality of things is conveyed by keeping them out of hierarchy, out of 3 lines. Yet, for me all the images are centrally verticals, perhaps with the exception of pig (bless their horizontal spiines), so how does one line suit the vertical falling of rain, the verticality of a human?
Boldman's leaves swept into a sentence would be the nearest to needing one line, because that is what the haiku is and is telling us what it is a "sentence;" but this is clever, to me, and while I wouldn't think of rewriting it in 3, it doesn't have the same impact as the poem I was praising.
Let's take another by Jim Kacian, the one you include about throwing his voice; I don't have it in front of me, going on memory, but in my opinion it would have worked equally as well in 3 lines. After all, sounds travels always in 360 degrees, not as we imagine in a straight line from speaker to listener. 3 lines would have suspended meaning more and this to me would have strengthened the poem.
I'm afraid that's it for now Eve.
Speak to you later.
Hi, Eve. I'm back for a bit.
I want you to understand that I was not throwing down a gauntlet for challenging the validity of one line haiku in my earlier remarks. They were merely a genuine response to the poem at the time I read it.
I can see that in some of your examples the one line form more approximates the content and hence we could say it is more artful and aesthetically pleasing.
We can also find that in one line ambiguity is highlighted more (although I think the ambiguity would remain however the poem was formated; just my opinion).
The real intent of my remarks was to give a genuine response to a poem on the Per Diem site and in the hopes that this might encourage more people to do the same.
After all, the daily poems are not a box on the masthead, like all the news that's fit to print.
I mean I'm just surprised at the lack of impromptu, meaningful response to the great variety of poems that appear daily.
Ah, Jack,
I understand your comment much better now. Thank you for taking the time.
I love that you consider form so spatially and in a concrete way as function. Yes!
(though I might have a different take on how this might manifest best in individual poems.)
i remember your comments about my per diem poem in regards to space / time
and was happy to hear your comments since that interplay manifests itself
clearly in my video installation work and might now be creeping into the poems.
I very much like Per Diem, THANK YOU! for all your work on it.
I wish I had more time to respond to many of the poems in written form,
as I'm sure it would make me consider each poem more deeply,
but it's just the busy-ness of my days
and the demands of juggling too many things that keeps me from posting much.
Jack, perhaps you could make a "formal" invitation to folks, maybe asking for one
response per month. Many of the people posting on the mentoring boards are regulars
and this might be a great thing for them or you could email a few editors or .....
Thanks again.
When I write a poem of more than one line, I absolutely "honor" the line breaks-- I always pause to some extent after each line. When I write a poem in one line the intention is to allow the reader, including me, to find his/her own way through various possibilities. Sometimes this will require several readings. This can be done with poems of 2, 3 or more lines, of course, but I don't see the point of breaking a short poem up into lines unless it is to give rhythmic direction to a reader, among other uses.
This plays with some of what I understand from reading Iain MacGilchrist's The Master and His Emissary, an ambitious look at the what is currently known about the different perspectives of the right and left hemispheres of the brain, and how these differences have shaped our culture. The right hemisphere takes what it is given, so to speak, all-at-once. Nothing is explicit. The left hemisphere then takes it apart, looks at the pieces, analyzes, labels, etc., and if it does not function too rigidly or jealously, (apparently its wont) hands back the pieces to the right hemisphere where a new understanding is formed-- a new and greater whole.
So though it is not its exclusive province, I tend to see the one line poem as something which emphasizes this play of the hemispheres, and a reader may find him/herself going rapidly between these functions of wholeness and part, and going back to a new wholeness, occurring as continual shifts of nuance, never settling as something fixed.
Hi Jack, I was just looking at today's per diem offering
dancers of
invisible fish are
you awake
Christopher A. White
and must admit I don't particularly get it. I'm not saying it's a bad poem or anything, I am just curious to hear how it works and resonates for you as a reader.
warmest,
John
Hi, John.
For me this haiku works by sheer imagination, by substituting the pat, hackneyed ways we have of saying someone is the most amazing, beautiful being they've ever seen with an entirely "impossible," "fantastical" expression of the person in question. And this new, fantastic expression, at least for me, actually expresses just how amazing the person is.
What I particularly found pleasing was the strong contrast between the author's saying "is you awake," implying the "real," "conscious" world and the incredibly phantasmical image of "the dancers of invisible fish."
What would be the "dancers of invisible fish?"
Firstly, the author does not say invisible fish are dancing, but that there are dancers belonging to invisible fish. Let's just look at the words for a moment: dancers are rhythmic, sensual (usually), very bodily and muscular in movement, motion itself. And, invisible fish, well, fish are also very muscular and sinuous in their movements and "invisible" as a quality, as a modifier, places them in a sphere beyond the senses; it is rather paradoxical and impossible to put your conscious mind to, right? I mean it describes in a very physical sensual way and yet removes it from the real: that is just how magical and wonderful and beyond description this person is-this "you awake." What a lovely love song it is.
What do you think?
I'd also add, John, that the author has intentionally broken certain rules of poetic line, letting prepositions,etc dangle as end lines and the whole thing ends up running around in a circle unto itself; I appreciate the rupture from expectations this produces; it adds to the unfathomable quality of the person described and to let us say the unfathomable quality of everything.
That this poet used to write very traditional haiku made this one all that much more special for me.
Hi Jack, firstly I'll give my initial responses to the poem, before I had the benefit of your reply.
I noted that the dancers were an owned group, but owned to whom. I felt myself being pulled in to this equation.
The middle line really caught me off guard, I understand fish can be invisible due to the nature of their environments, but the hanging preposition of 'are' seriously threw me. Invisible fish are what? I went back to the first line, dancers of invisible fish. What are they? It seemed like a riddle of sorts.
Then the last line going on the assumption that the first two lines were a riddle, I felt the poet was asking me what is taking me so long to figure it all out.
I do see now how it works for you and your reply has helped me understand and see the poem from a different angle. So I thank you for that!
warmest,
John
I have read some of Christopher's haiku. Which are as you say quite traditional, so I think that might have thrown me as well.
Hi, John. I appreciate your initial take on the haiku and just how exasperating such a poem can be.
I would point out to you that another reason for choosing this poem is to fulfill the goal of Per Diem, which is to post as varied a sampling of haiku as possible.
White's poem could be linked to the modernist trend we see in works by Metz, Pleuger, Gordon, Martone (to a lesser degree), Grant Hackett, and now even some of the "oldies" are beginning to take up the experimentalist haiku.
We don't want a rule-bound haiku that leaves out the many untapped possibilities of the form.
I must admit I am very interested in what all those guys and journals like roadrunner in particular are doing. The idea that haiku or short poems or what ever one wants to call them can be events within themselves and not merely trying to show an event is appealing and challenging.
warmest,
John
Very glad to hear it, John.
Best,
Jack
Okay, in the hope that this will spark others into action, here is my take on today's per diem offering.
kite flying day
colored squares patch
the holes in the sky
Gautam Nadkami
For me the opening invites us to create a picture of numerous kites, each with it's own distinct colours, designs and shapes, it creates a sense of freedom and child-like innocence. I am instantly swept up in the colour and the playfulness.
Line two gives us a specific detail to focus on, it feels like a zoom effect. I now have my eye fixed on a kite that I favour over the others on offer to me. The last word patch mirrors squares, since we associate a patch as being square. But what else do we associate squares with? Squares are equal sided, which would equate to something being even (eveness is connected to fairness and equality) squares are also boxes, I sense a strange historical irony and am reminded that for a long time people believed the world was actually square. There are other things that spring to mind but I'll move on for now, as I feel I could go on for a while.
Line three, could just be the way the poet is describing breaks in the clouds, but it comes across to me as a reference to the ozone layer, and thus reminds me of how in our ignorance we have plundered and damaged our natural habitats.
All of this is my subjective take on this poem, and I apologise if anything I have said is confusing, but I hope to hear others feelings and thoughts on this haiku.
warmest,
John
At first, I thought the author surely was Japanese, because of the lively use of saijiki rather than our ELH equivalent of a seasonal word or reference. It turns out the author is from India, but there apppears to have developed there something akin to the saijiki. What I mean by this is that the seasonal reference is largely a long shared and cherished cultural/literary entity, not a mere reference to a season.
There is such a great deal of enthusiasm and energy in "kite flying day," something I cannot imagine in the USA. A day so perfect for kite flying? Yes, we all have our memories of flying kites (for me mostly bad, running to start it and it flopping or tearing to the cement, or it getting stuck on a power line or tree, or never reaching a great height). And there is a communal feeling in the haiku right from the start-that is what saijiki is, something shared by a people at a particular time and place. Perhaps the USA is so divergent and demographics have changed so much that it is hard to imagine Americans as a people and them sharing the excitment of a great day to fly kites.
Then, you have a sky full of color, of different kites, a shared experience that enlivens the sky and it is only then that you realize that the sky was empty, a void, a gigantic hole or holes if you will until these kites, box-kites, fighter kites, all sorts of kites are like patches on the empty torn space of the sky.
I think it is a charming haiku; it brings the lighter side of the art to the fore and binds a people to one another.
At least for me that is something unavailable in the USA. OF course, we have our national holidays, but they are celebrated individually; that is typical of America, this individualism.
Kite flying goes back thousands of years in China. Without the need for practical purpose.
NOt to underestimate the scientific value of Ben Franklin's discovery of electricity in lightning by flying a kite, we tend to see things in a pragmantic way, not as mere social amusemenet. Of course, we do have our amusements, but at the moment I cannot think of any.
.
Hey Melissa, it's great seeing you around these parts ;)
I enjoyed your thoughts on Guatam's ku.
Okay on to today's per diem offering.
An evening seashell
with its pearly glow
lights the fisherman's way home
Ernesto Pangilinan Santiago
As Jack has already said, the goal of Per Diem is to offer as wide a range of haiku as possible, and if Christopher.A White's ku from a couple of days ago was an innovative, contemporary haiku then ernesto's most definately has it's roots in the more traditional nature sketch.
The first line is something that one has come to expect in a haiku, it sets the time of day, and offers us an objective peice of nature. The second line is a beautiful description, and for me injects a sense of hope into the poem. With the introduction of the fisherman in the third line I get the feeling that it may be that the author is recalling a moment in childhood perhaps and is waiting for his father to return from catching fish or that he is observing some child or wife of a fisherman waiting hopefully for their loved one to return to them. Overall I would say it is a charming poem that realistically depicts the life of fishermen and their families.
warmest,
John