Today's (November 10th) per diem:
the blind child reading my poem with her fingertips
-- Elizabeth Searle Lamb
Looks like a statement to me (missing the verb), but if it is a haiku, why is it?
I would say this one is a simple monostitch statement. There are still some rules of engagement regarding haiku that this particular one doesn't seem to meet. JMHO However, in many respects, haiku is losing a sense of identity (genre) and the problem is increasing.
the blind child reading my poem with her fingertips
-- Elizabeth Searle Lamb
Hi :)
Sure, this doesn't have a kigo, or three lines, (probably the count would not be s-l-s, if we place it in 3 lines), and it's only one image, but it's a haiku for me. I read somewhere that the most important thing in a haiku is the transformation - to notice and express a moment when a transformation is happening. And, imo, this poem is all about that.
Now, I am a beginner by any standards and I can be wrong, but here's how I see it:
the blind child reading my poem with her fingertips
"The poem" as it was before this blind child read it is no longer existing. All the previous readers, the author included, have been reading with they eyes. This new reader is literally touching the words. I cannot imagine how that feels. I also cannot imagine the extraordinary experience of the poet, seeing that, seeing her poem transformed through a different sense- the touch.
When someone reads our work, we look at their face, we follow their eyes, eager to guess what they think, even before they say it. One can almost feel the energy in the air. Can you imagine how much stronger would be that energy when the reader is blind and your eyes are jumping from their fingertips to their face (is there a smile, a frown?) and back. Or maybe, you forget all about the face, you just look at the hand literally touching your poem.
That energy, imo, transforms the poem and the author.
:)
Vida
Dear Devora,
I don't know if you are this person, a painter, and amazing artist, but if not, I really like this quote from your shared namesake:
"My art is an intimate practice rooted in spiritual experience. I paint not to sell, I paint because it is divine experience and a meeting with my self in the totality of the moment." Devora Geday
the blind child reading my poem with her fingertips
-- Elizabeth Searle Lamb
All good haiku have sub-text, they have vertical axis, so that the surface meaning is just the pith (still vital for many reasons) before we get to the fruit. It is up to us to peel, or unpeel.
There can be many great compliments bestowed on a poet, and Elizabeth Searle Lamb has had many [see selected weblinks further below]. It's often the simple things that make an open poet feel more blessed, like a small young child who is blind, actually reading a poem that we wrote, and have the priviledge to be able to write because we have sight, and hands.
Before I even mention Helen Keller, and the allusion jumps out at me, as a reminder of how difficult it is to be missing something most of us take for granted, as we are mostly visual artists, it's the quietnesses that this haiku folds that enthralls me.
the blind child reading
There is a feel of quietude, of dilligence, of high appreciation, and that most treasured of most artists who think art before money: connection.
my poem with her fingertips
The innocent sensualness, where a poem of our's is not lightly skipped over with fleeting eyes, but pored over fingertip reading by fingertip reading.
Often braille pages are snowy white, pure white, and as freshly thrown snow is white, slowly becoming darker as we leave our tracks (be it postman, mother getting kids to school, women and men starting early for work, children walking or sledging) we leave our own marks of involvement. So too will the young child as her fingertips revisit this braille page and other pages.
I have a feel of a winter morning, with a fire crackling, perhaps Christmas morning, and this is her first poetry book. Girls are keener readers than boys so this is a huge new adventure for her.
Coming back to the monostich (not stitch), Japanese haiku are written as one line haiku, and Western one line haiku have something of those dynamics, but also their own styles and techniques, from the abrupt techniques I teach, to the "speedrush" and "multistops" that Jim Kacian teaches.
One line haiku, as with gendai haiku, is still controversial, for many reasons, in the West, but 2013 will see a lot of publications regarding this genre or sub-genre, from the American poetry organisation course I'll be teaching, to one publisher bringing out two anthologies. I've also just had my gendai haiku (and other haiku) collection Does Fish-God Know (the first British gendai haiku collection to my knowledge).
One line haiku can also inform our writing in other areas, including three line haiku, as I've learnt myself.
Weblinks to Elizabeth Searle Lamb:
http://www.americanhaikuarchives.org/curators/ElizabethSearleLamb.html
http://sfpoetry.org/bio27.html
http://www.laalamedapress.com/books/acrosswindharp.html
http://performance.millikin.edu/haiku/writerprofiles/lamb.html
Across the Windharp, Collected and New Haiku, by Elizabeth Searle Lamb
Haiku Society of America Merit Book Awards 2000 (for books published in 1999)
Honorable Mention
Helen Keller Throughout Her Life
Images of the champion of civil liberties for disabled persons
http://www.squidoo.com/the-student-helen-keller-WOC
Even before she published my first Frogpond (HSA journal), I was an admirer of her work.
above the mountain
earth's shadow
blocks a moon
Alan Summers
Note: eclipse of the moon, Queensland, Australia, Friday 4th June 1993
Publications credits:
Frogpond (Haiku Society of American journal, Summer 1994) ed. Elisabeth Searle Lamb; Fellowship of Australian Writers, Queensland, Scope magazine (paid) feature (1994); Micropress Yates (Australia 1994); Haiku Friends ed. Masaharu Hirata (Japan 2003)
For me, and I'm sure it was for Elisabeth Searle Lamb also:
"...an intimate practice...because it is divine experience and a meeting with my self in the totality of the moment." Devora Geday
.
Alan, I truly appreciate your willingness to discuss not only your take on the living picture invoked by Lamb's one-liner but also the wider airing of some other aspects of haiku. And while I agree that the response to Lamb's words can support a range of feelings and images (as Vida noted), it is still, to me, a "telling," not "showing," sentence.
And please forgive me if I add that Lamb's good reputation (of which I am familiar and whose work I generally like) would not necessarily make it a haiku. After all, not every haiku works, even one written by a well-known haijin.
I noted Don Baird's agreement, and he is absolutely right when he says that ". . . in many respects, haiku is losing a sense of identity (genre) and the problem is increasing." A subject, I dare say, that is worthy of many serious discussions.
P.S. Nope. I am not Devora Geday. By the way, her last name isn't a play on the Australian "hello," by any chance?
Thank you for your response Devora,
I know Don's stance, and I support his take on hokku.
re your response to Don's comment:
QuoteI noted Don Baird's agreement, and he is absolutely right when he says that ". . . in many respects, haiku is losing a sense of identity (genre) and the problem is increasing." A subject, I dare say, that is worthy of many serious discussions.
Could you expand on this? There have been a lot of statements made, and I've read ones from others, but I'd be interested in your own definition, and why you think it's absolutely right that haiku is losing its sense of identity, giving examples. That would be educational, and we'd get a clearer picture of where you come from as well.
You said:
QuoteAnd while I agree that the response to Lamb's words can support a range of feelings and images (as Vida noted), it is still, to me, a "telling," not "showing," sentence.
Could you give a few examples of what you consider to be non-sentence showing only haiku? I gather you probably do not or will not like Marlene Mountain's style? Her one line haiku is currently at Per Diem.
As you touch on discussions, I welcome more discussions on the aesthetics of haiku, thank you for starting this discussion.
Have you read The Future of Haiku by Tohta Kaneko:
http://www.redmoonpress.com/catalog/product_info.php?cPath=37&products_id=145
There are useful essays on Tohta Kaneko, possibly Japan's greatest living poet of around 75 years at Notes from the Gean: http://www.calameo.com/books/001101822fbea9c25750a
As I personally write and appraise many of the styles of the West and Japan, I embrace all the exciting developments that have galvanised haiku which, without the perseverance of Shiki, may have either completely disappeared altogether, been relegated to a quaint backyard, or purely forced into doggerel that abounds in pseudo-poetry social media territories as joke verses in 17 syllables.
The joke verses that stick to seventeen syllables do contain a strong sense of their genre, and it's interesting that they are rarely criticised.
It is gratifying to hear a new voice in haiku, which often keeps haiku fresh, and for me, far from being in the doldrums, haiku remains as it always has, either as
haiku,
haikai verses,
hokku, pre-Basho to post-Shiki, and that it has been ever evolving.
It's just a shame we didn't have even five more years of Basho as even on his deathbed he was developing yet another approach. He was a modern thinker and met up with many groups who thought differently like him, and he absorbed and refined their challenging viewpoints and methods so that presented well, would be adopted, and later adapted by his students, and other serious haikai writers.
Alan
Quote from: devora on November 12, 2012, 01:46:35 PM
Alan, I truly appreciate your willingness to discuss not only your take on the living picture invoked by Lamb's one-liner but also the wider airing of some other aspects of haiku. And while I agree that the response to Lamb's words can support a range of feelings and images (as Vida noted), it is still, to me, a "telling," not "showing," sentence.
And please forgive me if I add that Lamb's good reputation (of which I am familiar and whose work I generally like) would not necessarily make it a haiku. After all, not every haiku works, even one written by a well-known haijin.
I noted Don Baird's agreement, and he is absolutely right when he says that ". . . in many respects, haiku is losing a sense of identity (genre) and the problem is increasing." A subject, I dare say, that is worthy of many serious discussions.
P.S. Nope. I am not Devora Geday. By the way, her last name isn't a play on the Australian "hello," by any chance?
EDIT REASON: Adding and smoothing out.
Here's another statement which tells us something:
tundra
I think Marlene's essay might be relevant to this conversation:
http://www.marlenemountain.org/essays/essay_oneimage.html
I noted with particular interest the Hosai haiku (English translation) at the very end
scott
Just found this,
"If it takes all sorts to make a world, then, let us have all sorts of haiku ways to build a truly comprehensive and tolerant world of haiku."
-Susumu Takiguchi
:)
:)
Something relevant from the Roadrunner blog:
http://roadrunnerhaikublog.wordpress.com/2012/11/10/seekings/
Just a quick response to some comments on my thinking that Lamb's "the blind child reading my poem with her fingertips" is more of a "telling" sentence rather than a "showing" haiku.
Alan writes, "Could you give a few examples of what you consider to be a non-sentence showing only haiku? I gather you probably do not or will not like Marlene Mountain's style? Her one line haiku is currently at Per Diem."
As a matter of fact, I love Mountain's "pig and I spring rain" and think it is a wonderful example of a "showing" haiku.
So, what do I think is the difference between Lamb's "telling" and Mountain's "showing"?
To answer that, I need to refer to Jim Kacian, one of the best "explainers" on this difference. His essay, "Haiku as Anti-Story (http://www.gendaihaiku.com/kacian/anti-story.html (http://www.gendaihaiku.com/kacian/anti-story.html)), seems to make clear the distinction, and while he may not agree with my examples, I see Lamb's sentence as a narrative ("A narrative is a little story, with its beginning and middle and end, and nothing interrupts its flow"), and Mountain's haiku as an anti-story ("Anti-story is not the opposite of the process. Anti-story is the absence of it . . . It is not cumulative but instantaneous"). Mountain's opens the possibilities, whereas Lamb's limits them.
Re: Scott Terrill's first response: "Here's another statement which tells us something: Tundra."
I did wonder if Terrill meant not ". . . another statement which TELLS us something" but SHOWS us something, because, again, to me, this is a "showing" haiku at its best. It meets Kacian's anti-story criteria, and Marlene Mountain seems to agree, saying in the essay Scott suggests we read, ". . . van den Heuval [has] given us . . . 'a silence of the mind in which one does not 'think about' the poem . . . but actually . . . the sensation which it evokes--all the more strongly for having said so little.'"
Re: Scott Terrill's second response, where he talks about Lamb's and van den Heuval's pieces: "It is almost as if the words themselves, placed as they are become self-adjusting and through that process, self-limiting."
My response: Perhaps self-limiting is not what is wanted in a true haiku (see above).
Re: Scott Terrill's third response. Thanks for the link. It pleases me that Haruo Shirane agrees with me.
Alan asked me to "expand" on my agreeing with Don Baird who, in response to my critique of Lamb's one-liner, said ". . . haiku is losing a sense of identity (genre) and the problem is increasing." I suspect that I would agree with Baird about many of his criticisms, and I would add (if Baird has not talked about this) that, contrary to Vida's quote by Susmumu Takiguchi, "If it takes all sorts to make a world, then, let us have all sorts of haiku ways to build a truly comprehensive and tolerant world of haiku," the genre is not a free-for-all where anything goes, nor is it a genre where any quality suffices. But, quite honestly, that is a serious subject for another discussion.
"Alan asked me to "expand" on my agreeing with Don Baird who, in response to my critique of Lamb's one-liner, said ". . . haiku is losing a sense of identity (genre) and the problem is increasing." I suspect that I would agree with Baird about many of his criticisms, and I would add (if Baird has not talked about this) that, contrary to Vida's quote by Susmumu Takiguchi, "If it takes all sorts to make a world, then, let us have all sorts of haiku ways to build a truly comprehensive and tolerant world of haiku," the genre is not a free-for-all where anything goes, nor is it a genre where any quality suffices. But, quite honestly, that is a serious subject for another discussion." ~ devora
I believe Susmumu has gone off the tracks, so to speak. Possibly, if he ended his comment "build a truly comprehensive and tolerant world of poetry" I might quickly agree. However, ending such a thought with "haiku" doesn't ring well and smacks of the destructive force surrounding the world of haiku - the genre.
Haiku is a Shiki design. He outlined a rather simple guide on what it is and how to write it. His thought of shasei seems to be the core of his idea which simplified the approach to writing it in some ways (as compared to hokku, Basho style). Naturally, as time has its way, haiku has adjusted and adapted to newer and more "up to date" forms. The problem dwells there - "forms".
When asking folks what a concerto is (if they are in music), to this day, they can quickly outline its basic characteristics. When discussing sonnets, sijo, cinquain, sonatas and waltzes, the response as to what they represent (and are) come quickly to the folks in the know of those genres. Yet, haiku no longer has an "identity" of which the general practitioners could quickly outline - the range of answers being almost unlimited or minimally, paired to the number of people that write it.
Haiku is now an anything goes style. It no longer represents hokku and that dna has been lost, primarily, in modern haiku. From one line to concrete; from three lines of any length to short/long/short; from kigo to none to keywords - what is haiku today? Possibly it is simply a mini free verse? Or then again, just a simple short prose but one that puts all of the responsibility on the reader to figure it out - like a puzzle?
Haiku is in an identity crisis. And, at this particular point, I see no return. Its head has been cut off; its arms cut off; its legs cut off; and, its torso is quartered and yet some folks still call it haiku. I don't have much hair left to scratch, but I try anyway when I ponder this any longer than 5 minutes.
Don
I read more than I write. I have only one published poem. You can see it in the registry. I have my preferences, but I enjoy all kinds of work. In Roadrunner and in The Heron's Nest, to give two very different examples.
I do not think haiku is losing its identity. There are plenty of people writing the kind of thing which I believe Don Baird would think of as haiku. I don't doubt that they will continue to do so, and that others will come along and do the same. I don't believe that people who publish in Roadrunner, for example, are attempting to convince anyone that they've got it right and The Heron's Nesters have it wrong.
As far as E.S. Lamb's poem goes, for me it's simple: it just isn't very good. It's sentimental. And that's a problem that plagues a lot of poems I read, even ones that meet all the criteria for "haiku".
Adam Traynor
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/worldkigolibrary/message/247
This is the place, where I got the quote from Susumu Takiguchi. I am not commenting, just thought that it wasn't right to post before only the last sentence.
I personally am a little uncomfortable with this notion of 'show don't tell' as a/the defining characteristic of 'true' haiku (whatever that may be) and to bang on about it is a dead end. I think there exist degrees of both in all haiku.
I think it may be the case that 'tell' is being mistaken for 'spell it all out'. To tell is to communicate, to impact upon another, and I know it is possible to communicate without spelling it all out.
To show without degrees of telling I don't think is possible. Even in a poets choice of what to show they are telling us something about themselves.
scott
Agree with you, Scott. I haven't come across any true study of hokku where something like "show don't tell" is stated as a rule. Basho was very clear however, that there should be much for the reader to do and that hokku, in particular, should bring about the unsaid just as much as the said (if not more so). The reader completes the poem.
teetering grass . . .
just moments ago
a dragonfly
This hokku when broken down "teetering grass" absolutely states something and it does so clearly. When moving on to the second part "just moments ago a dragonfly" you will see that it is another statement. But, when combined, they produce room for the reader to enter and begin to ponder - to read/misread/continue to read for meaning. There is significant "dream room" in this poem. It is birthed from the pairing of L1 and L2/3 (toriawase) which leaves the reader in a resonant atmosphere of meaning(s).
朝顔は下手の書くさへあはれなり
asagao wa heta no kaku sae aware nari
morning glory:
even when painted poorly,
it has pathos
Tr. Barnhill
.
Written in summer of 1687 貞亨4年夏.
posted to facebook by Gabi Greve
This Basho hokku is paired excellently as fragment and phrase but seems to operate from a single subject instead of two. It still works amazingly well in encouraging the reader to read and read again for meaning - dwelling in the resonance of the unsaid.
I believe when most critics say "it's a statement, show don't tell" they are actually referencing the poem as being complete in and of itself without the need of a reader to "fill in the blanks" so to speak.
the blind child reading my poem with her fingertips
-- Elizabeth Searle Lamb
This poem is what I call closed off (to me). It is the classic statement versus showing - meaning that once you read it, there isn't anything left to do ... not even read it again. There is no reading/misreading/reading again process that should exist in a haiku (hokku) that is paired well for resonance.
the blind child reading my poem with her fingertips (not haiku meter either, s/l/s)
These are the three statements. They remain that way with little to nothing for the reader to do but possibly imagine the scene itself - like a photograph. So now, is this a shasei and therefore a haiku and not a hokku? Is this a Shiki style haiku? The answer to that could be a resounding yes. ahhh ... so now we might know what Shiki stylists could be shooting for versus what Basho stylists are shooting for - definitive differences as to compositional aesthetics. Shiki stripped the hokku to bare existence creating an accessible poem he referenced haiku. Basho delved into writing hokku based on zoka and karumi ... with yugen, ma, kigo, kokoro and so forth which became a rich study of artful creation of hokku (something that seems to be missing from Shiki style haiku even when written well). The hokku engine is zoka; the haiku engine just might be image with kigo.
Then again,
example 1:
it's raining outside
the moon is full tonight
autumn clouds
example 2:
autumn clouds –
the full moon washes
from the window
#1 leaves much to be desired ... employing lines of imagery and descriptive writing but not much for the reader to do or place to enter the poem as a reader. #2 consists of 2 primary statements but directly draws the reader into the poem's "left unsaid" area to ponder and enjoy. The first one, once read, the reader is done. The second one, the reader is left to "bounce around" the internal meanings of meanings - expanded or contracted more and less according to the reader's connection to the poem. It is a zoka engine hokku leaving much for the reader to do.
The Searle poem above has no apparent engine other than imagery. Therefore, it is a statement with little for the reader to do (what I think is the definition of "statement" is when another poet uses the word in a critique).
Just thinking out loud. Not trying to be right; just sharing what I'm pondering in regards to the subject(s) at hand.
Thanks Don,
I greatly enjoy and agree with your ponderings and thank you for the examples
Re Lamb's poem:
the blind child reading my poem with her fingertips
all I can say is it stirs something inside my body
As human beings our orientation to the world often begins with and lives off of the fuel of our bodies; images of the world are absorbed by our bodies. But we are also narrative creatures.
I think there is a totally understandable drive within the species toward understanding those images of the world, particularly something that is written down — words and phrases being, as they are, the tools of logic. I suppose one way of looking at it is that narrative provides purpose and meaning in our lives, which may be considered the cognitive default of the human condition.
For me haiku, experiential or otherwise, are always narratives, but incorporate narratives that function on different registers. The recording of an experience would primarily be an exercise of the intellect, whilst the experience itself, operating not in the regions of cognition primarily, but rather on a pre-cognitive, imaginative register, is an engagement in our world at a level that is fundamentally aesthetic; an aesthetic that is intimately linked to our bodies and through our bodies, our minds.
Our bodies are just as much a part of interpreting our space as is the intellect and our imagination enables us to absorb a fundamental orientation of the world that has a more visceral quasi-logic about it. Imagination provides a narrative, which allows for a sort of pre-intellectual way in which we perceive and move through this world.
I suppose you could call it a bodily way that, at least for me, primarily functions ahead of the intellect. It is here that I feel haiku imparts most of its raw power; as an entwining of body and story, of kinetics and poetics. But it is always still a narrative.
I think Lamb's ku could be viewed as just a written record of events and if it were primarily to stop there it would fail as a haiku but I sense, I think as Alan did, something so tactile that my imagination and body cannot help but be activated. Though I am aware that this is a very personal response as the poem obviously does not work for everybody.
In fact, I think a haiku succeeds or fails based in large part on our ability to contort this imagination into an intentional form without appearing contorted, forces and obvious. This may be why I like to think of haiku as existing without lines.
I would like to think also that this is why Haruo Shirane draws attention to: Bashō, like his great rival, Saikaku, felt that it was not form that counted [but] what was called haikai spirit.
Hi Devora, I think this quote by Jerzy Grotowski, which is one of the most articulate descriptions of what actor training should be is relevant and might help explain what I meant when I said,
"It is almost as if the words themselves, placed as they are become self-adjusting and through that process, self-limiting.":
"The actor no longer lends his body to an exclusively mental process but makes the mind appear through the body, thus granting the body agency. In training the actor, we attempt to eliminate his organism's resistance to this psychic process. The result is freedom from the time-lapse between inner impulse and outer reaction in such a way that the impulse is already an outer reaction. Impulse and action are concurrent: the body vanishes, burns, and the spectator sees only a series of visible impulses. Ours then is a via negativa — not a collection of skills but an eradication of blocks."
I think this could also be a good description of haiku and what haiku is.
I have this vague sense that for haiku to truly succeed the words in some way annihilate themselves and we are left with only a series of visible impulses.
just bumbling around inside my own head, trying to make some sense of it all :)
scott
Enjoyable post, Scott!
Don, I don't see haiku as an "anything goes" style. As a newbie to haiku, I can only say that for years, haiku meant nothing to me. It was like reading a foreign language. It was only after discovering scifaiku (science fiction haiku, for those unfamiliar) -- poems truly removed from any semblance of their Japanese heritage -- that I had an intimate "aha!" moment with a poem (ending in the line "eye to eyestalk" as I recall) that opened my eyes to haiku. Once I saw what the form could do -- start on L1, lull you into complacency with L2, and then flip a 180 on L3 -- I fell in love with haiku. So I came to haiku through scifaiku. Without that experience, I wouldn't be happily reading along here now, learning about the history of this wonderful form, with a book about Basho at my bedside. Different forms may speak to each of us, but I believe that there is something constant at the heart of haiku.
Hi Julie,
Yes, it has become an anything goes style. I'm glad you've found your center in it all and that Basho is at your bedside. Your many steps ahead of the game! Excellent! Keep on enjoying.
blessings,
Don
I find the comments about having nothing to ponder in Elizabeth's haiku a tad harsh.
Let's try to break it down.
We know there's a child and that the child is blind, female and can read braille. This is all information which is within the poem.
So going with just that information can anyone actually picture this child? Or say for sure how old the child is?
Perhaps the fact that the child can read braille rules out the possibility of it being an extremely young child, but even so this child may be 7 or 17. The reader is left guessing, and what of the relationship between the child and poet?
Reading someone's poem is an intimate matter. I would never walk up to a stranger and ask them to randomly read a poem of mine. I believe that there must be some sort of relationship betwen the child and poet, but again it is something that has to be guessed at by the reader.
Are these not intentional gaps left by the poet for the reader to fill in? Are they not appropriate bits of information that a reader needs to fully complete the scene?
I think the one flaw the poem has, is the lack of a break which I think actually exists between 'child' and 'reading'
I don't actually see this as the child reading the poem, I think it's the poet who is reading it in braille with the help of the blind girl who is guiding the poet's fingers with her own. This is just my reading of the poem. It may well be very wrong, but that's what I got from it.
here's how I would have presented the poem . . .
a blind child—
reading my poem
with her fingertips
warmest,
John
Wow, John, thanks for that rearrangement. I saw this poem completely differently after your revision and liked it much better - it moved it from a passive experience to an active one.
Hi Julie, cheers for the thumbs up on my rearrangement.
warmest,
John
Hello, John,
You are a good poet with a fine reputation, and so people like me listen to what you say. However, I'm not sure that your "I find the comments about having nothing to ponder in Elizabeth's haiku a tad harsh" is accurate.
The gist of the original comment by Devora was about whether Lamb's one-liner was a true haiku. Some readers, because they could visualize and/or fill in the blanks – as you did – found it to have merit as a haiku.
Others, like Devora, thought it was a more of a "narrative," a "telling," or a simple sentence that did not meet the criteria of a genuine haiku. In other words, for some, there was nothing to ponder, but the critique was an objective observation, not a personal attack.
I have gone through the comments, and I didn't see anything that rose to the level of "a tad harsh." In fact, I thought the discussion was interesting and informative.
Please let us know what you thought was "a tad harsh" (maybe we didn't see it) so that we can ensure any serious exchanges of ideas are always free of such characterizations.
Hi Lulu, firstly thanks for the compliment. You're too kind.
I found these comments to be a bit harsh, perhaps unfair or dismissive would of been better words to use.
Don said . . .
the blind child reading my poem with her fingertips (not haiku meter either, s/l/s)
These are the three statements. They remain that way with little to nothing for the reader to do but possibly imagine the scene itself - like a photograph
**********************************************************************************
Adam said . . .
As far as E.S. Lamb's poem goes, for me it's simple: it just isn't very good. It's sentimental. And that's a problem that plagues a lot of poems I read, even ones that meet all the criteria for "haiku".
**********************************************************************************
Devora said . . .
I see Lamb's sentence as a narrative ("A narrative is a little story, with its beginning and middle and end, and nothing interrupts its flow"), and Mountain's haiku as an anti-story ("Anti-story is not the opposite of the process. Anti-story is the absence of it . . . It is not cumulative but instantaneous"). Mountain's opens the possibilities, whereas Lamb's limits them.
**********************************************************************************
Now, I have no problems with Don, Adam or Devora and I actually have no problems with their opinions. We are all entitled to form and express our own opinions and if they decide Elizabeth's poem is not doing anything for them, then so be it.
I do find the comments which I have copied above to be somewhat dismissive of the poem's potential.
It seem from her post that Devora didn't bother to consider there may be a break in the haiku.
Adam tells us the poem is sentimental. In what way? I'm failing to see it.
Don says the poem is closed off and criticizes the meter. In what way is it any more closed off than any number of succesful and famous haiku, here's one with a similar meter for a quick example . . .
spring breeze—
the pull of her hand
as we near the pet shop
Michael Dylan Welch
warmest,
John
Actually, it is a sentence ... :)
the blind child reading my poem with her fingertips
It is all said... there is nothing left unsaid - a Basho admonishment. I don't see much dna of hokku the progenitor of haiku (the Shiki invent).
I wasn't intending to be harsh or unfair, by the way. Critiques are what they are and criticizing the person for a critique instead of addressing the critique itself seems unreasonable, frankly, to me. ;)
Sometimes I cut corners in my comments. :) People know me and can handle that. :) I hope.
I'll tip-toe on my way quietly. Blessings.
Michael's poem is much different in all levels:
spring breeze—
the pull of her hand
as we near the pet shop
I won't even critique it. It stands clearly as a modern haiku (free meter), to me. Well heck (I will comment on it); it has a clear kigo, yugen, kire-ji and qualifies as a shasei. It leaves much room for the reader to enter. There ya go. Much more of a haiku aesthetic than the one liner sentence. I like Lamb's poem; it's touching ... and world class. But, haiku? Not to me. Just a fine poem. And, frankly ... we need fine poems and I enjoy them immensely - another subject.
:)
And, tip-toeing out again. Blessings.
:)
Hi Don, please don't think I was criticizing you. I really wasn't.
You know I have a lot of time for you as a man and a poet.
I was asked by Lulu to explain what I found to be harsh about the critiques, which I tried to do in a non offensive way. I apologise if I offended you, that was not my intention.
warmest,
John
No worry John. Thanks for your clarification!
blessings,
Don
I think Don hits the problem with Lamb's poem right on the head when he says, "there is nothing left unsaid." I agree that the poem is full of emotion, but I don't think that emotion makes a poem a haiku. And that's what the question was in this post: it is a haiku? Not, is it a short poem that I can find emotion in? But, is it a haiku?
To me, this feels like half a haiku. It is a statement. This poem is missing a second part that I as a reader can engage with... to find the meaning between the two parts, or more specifically, to find my meaning between the two parts. As it is, the poem paints an emotional scene, but all I am is an observer of the scene. The power of haiku is that it makes the reader a participant in the experience.
Lamb's poem is much like the second half of Michael Welch's that is quoted above:
"the pull of her hand as we near the pet shop."
This is very similar to Lamb's poem and I can argue we get an emotional response from it. But note the difference between that one line and what we get when we add "spring breeze" as a first line.
As far as "tundra" goes, I have always felt that the second part of that poem was the blank white space of the page.
My two cents
Paul
As a note on Tundra ... Cor removed it from his later addition of his anthology. I wonder why?
I did get a chance to hear him read it, however! It was short but emotional. (HNA 2011)
:)
Don –
As you saw, I loved Tundra, and so, now that you mention it, I, too, am curious as to why Cor van den Heuval withdrew it from later anthologies.
It is possible, I believe, to ask him. I heard him speak last on a Haiku Chronicles segment called "Sequences," which aired on July 14, 2012. The site is hosted by Donna Beaver and Alan Pizzarelli, so perhaps if anyone knows them well enough, they could be contacted for an email address for him.
Devora
Hi Devora
I did find this on a recent search:
https://www.google.com.au/url?sa=t&source=web&cd=3&ved=0CDgQFjAC&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.simplyhaiku.com%2FSHv2n5%2Fhaikuclinic%2Fhaikuclinic.html&ei=GfurUJfiH_CeiAfWl4DoBw&usg=AFQjCNH-mBuNzquVan6GPgJoLt1-v9qvqw
Haiku Clinic #3:
From One-line Poems to One-line Haiku
Part One: The Invitation
"Van den Heuvel experimented with all lengths of brevity, and had already written his famous poem "tundra"—the ultimate one-line haiku. (11) (Evidently, van den Heuvel did not recognize the one-line aspect of "tundra", for in a footnote in his introduction to the second edition of his Anthology, he says "The first edition had only a single one-liner, Michael Segers' 'in the eggshell.'" (12) Accordingly, I will consider "one-word poems" as a different category from "one-line poems" for the purposes of this essay.)"
— Bill Higginson, Haiku Clinic Editor
I think Cor can be found and messaged on Facebook
Hope this helps
Scott
Going back to the point Don made about Lamb's poem that "there is nothing left unsaid" I think something like this would offer an ordinary reader like myself more of an opening:
the child reading my poem with her fingertips
The blindness being 'suggested' rather than 'stated' and at yet another level, offering the possibility of the poem being a piece of art like a sculpture or a face or even being engraved on a rock.
I've enjoyed the fantastic discussion here. :)
Snow Leopard
Yes, I agree with this.
"the child reading my poem with her fingertips" ........ is a much more open poem even though it states much it leaves something for the reader to ponder in the "unsaid" (Basho).
I like this edit very much. Good eye!
Thank you, Don. :)
I am still learning.
A thought - do poets edit a published poem and publish it again?
Snow Leopard
Thanks, Scott, for that link to Higginson's "Clinic" on one-line haiku, which I have read many times, and always learn something new.
I wasn't sure, though, that the quote you quoted answered the question as to why van den Heuval didn't include his Tundra in future anthologies. Did I miss the answer (i.e., that van den Heuval didn't consider Tundra a one-line poem, and thus should not be included in anthologies that contained one-line poems?).
Oh, Facebook as a place to contact van den Heuval. By choice, I don't have a FB account, so it never occurred to me to go there. If you "do" FB, perhaps you could ask him – or someone else.
Yes, Snow Leopard, I like your suggestion about Lamb's one-liner very much, it has places to "ponder." Don said it well.
John McManus's take on the Lamb poem, where "reading" is both "she is reading" and "I am reading", definitely helps. Each version juxtaposes the other, and gives a sense of communion between the author and the blind girl.
However, the average reader coming across this poem will probably not be sensitive to the haiku convention (code) of implying an "I" where it is unstated before a verb. Is this a problem?
It is hard for me not to regard the subject of a "blind child" as sentimental. Maybe I'm being a "tad harsh" with this. I would prefer
blind reading my poem with her fingertips
but I don't believe this is the kind of poem ESL would have written.
What Paul Miller says about Tundra makes sense to me, that the blank page juxtaposes the word. Seen this way, the imagination can project itself endlessly on the field around the word.
It is also true, however, that even a "statement" is juxtaposed by the silence surrounding it and calling it into question.
Adam Traynor
Not to start an argument, just thinking aloud. I have hard time to believe that a poet like Elizabeth Searle Lamb did not consider the possibility to have the poem with or without "blind." Maybe if we knew more about the circumstances that led to creating the poem, or about the world in which the blind people live, we would understand it better.
In any case, this is very interesting thread. :)
Best,
Vida
Adam, I thought your point about sentimentality might have been in relation to the fact that the girl was specified as blind. I think you might be confusing sentimentality for vulnerability.
To say a child is blind is not a sentimental statement. It is stating what is, although I will admit that it's an emotive statement.
I for one am very interested in haiku that deal with dissability in a respectful and honest way, but I am probably biased due to my profession.
warmest,
John
No, not confusing sentimentality with vulnerability. I don't have the ability I think to convey why I feel the tone of this haiku is sentimental. Feels like a line from a Victorian song or something to me. But I am probably alone in thinking this.
Respectfully,
Adam Traynor
I have not been visitiong for a long time ... sorry, Old Man Bananas is taking up my time.
As for the question, And this is a haiku because . . . ?
I find it difficult lately to use the word HAIKU without any qualifying adjective, since there are so many different kinds of HAIKU . . .
It seems a "haiku jungle" out there :-\
.
Adjectives are used to define types of Japanese haiku
in ABC order
Association of Japanese Classical Haiku -
Nihon Dentoo Haiku Kyookai 日本伝統俳句協会
Traditional, Classical Haiku - Dento Haiku 伝統俳句
Essential Haiku - Kongen Haiku 根源俳句
Experimental Haiku - Jikkensei Haiku 実験性俳句
Free Autonomous Haiku - Jiritsu Haiku 自律俳句
free form haiku
Modern Haiku - Gendai Haiku 現代俳句
Muki Haiku - Haiku without a season word 無季俳句
Neo-classical Haiku
New Style Haiku - Shintai Haiku 新体俳句
New Trend Haiku - Shin Keiko Haiku 新傾向俳句
Objective sketching from life - Kyakkan Shasei 客観写生
Vanguard Haiku - Zenei Haiku 前衛俳句
Young and New Haiku 新興俳句 shinkoo haiku, Shinko Haiku
New Style Haiku
muki haiku 無季俳句 haiku without a season word
. Muki haiku and Kaneko Tohta .
eigo HA.I.KU 英語ハイク English Haiku
(spelled with katakana to show they differ from 俳句)
Anglo-Western haiku-like poems :
ELH - English Language Haiku
WLH - Western Language Haiku
one-line haiku, monostitch
Japanese hokku 発句
English language hokku - Hokku
free-style haiku
anything-goes-haiku
new ku
haiku-like short poetry
haiku-like free verse
sangyooshi 三行詩 Sangyoshi, poem with three lines
gogyooshi 五行詩 Gogyoshi, poem with five lines
Gogyōshi - invented by Taro Aizu in May 2011
© More in the WIKIPEDIA !
You find more if you google!
.
http://wkdhaikutopics.blogspot.jp/2007/02/haiku-definitions.html
.
And this is a haiku because . . . ? The author says so.
But the reader is free to think something else, add his/her own lable
or just enjoy it as is !!.
.
Greetings from Japan
Gabi
.
LOLL Gabi! ;D
I say it's a Ford; it doesn't matter that it is a Chevy! I hear ya my friend. From now on education just became easier.... all answers to any question redefine truth and the answer becomes the fact. It makes it so much easier to take tests in high school. Everyone is a A student now as they define truth on an "as needed" basis! Wow... I want to go back to school ... improve my grade average with absurd answers that become truths. Of course, that has never changed. Most absurd answers did become truths and now we're dealing with that re-alignment today - pluto no longer a planet etc. truths change as perspective changes.
A haiku is anything anyone says today! Rap is a haiku ... I saw a chopstick haiku the other day ... and soon there will be a car called a haiku! And when I sneeze, I say HAIKU!!!
Just for fun ... and sillies. But poor Shiki!
Don
the person, not the mod! hahaha! modku!
my cat is called HAIKU kun ...
;D
and I sneeze HAI-CHUM !
:-* :-* :-*
Greetings from a cold morning in Japan.
Gabi
Hello, Gabi,
I love Don's answer to your post – it's akin to Colbert's "truthiness"* – so I hope you don't mind my take.
First, thank you so much for that meticulous list of the different kinds of haiku; who knew?
Thing is, though, I would like to think that some of the more well-known types of haiku on your list have rigorous criteria – a pedigree, so to speak – which distinguishes one from the other and which is recognizable to the reader and writer. In other words, each form is not – or should not be – expressed without some compliance to the paradigm; otherwise, we get back to the question of "anything goes" – which it doesn't (despite such a category on your list).
Re: "this is haiku because the author says so." I am so admiring of your work, Gabi, but here I must respectfully disagree with this assertion. To me, that is just a reiteration of the "anything goes" assumption and does not suppose adherence to any guiding rules and whether they have been met, nor to the internal quality of the haiku, both of which were the original intent of this discussion.
With respect,
Devora
*Truthiness is a quality characterizing a "truth" that a person claims to know intuitively from the gut" or because it "feels right" without regard to evidence, logic, intellectual examination. Source: Wikipedia.
A quote from one of my essay rants:
"First we discover the river banks and accept its banks. We just might splash over the top of them occasionally but we contain our water (our haiku/hokku) within the banks and search for freedom within the construct of it all. The banks hold inward; the water expands outward. There is an interplay. But to destroy the banks is to deplete the water to nothing ... leaving the land, in the end, barren in a drought of no return. To not push the banks is to stagnate and water becomes stale and unhealthy to body and spirit. It's a balance - a perfect balance that gives birth to perfect haiku/hokku while remaining within the bounds of their respective dna.
In a way, while we are poets, we are protectors of an art. We are students; we are teachers; we are explorers who go up and down the river a thousand times looking for new and wonderful places to explore. There is no boredom. There is no need, in some esoteric way, for excitement either. There is only searching the banks of the river for evidence of a leaf falling and then discovering within oneself a way to convey it without disturbing what really happened - at a physical, spiritual, emotional and zoka level." ~ don
I agree with this following thought one hundred percent: "I would like to think that some of the more well-known types of haiku on your list have rigorous criteria – a pedigree, so to speak – which distinguishes one from the other and which is recognizable to the reader and writer. In other words, each form is not – or should not be – expressed without some compliance to the paradigm; otherwise, we get back to the question of "anything goes" – which it doesn't (despite such a category on your list)." devora
When you are asked to a dance/gala event and the person asking suggests that it is a night of waltzing, you have a reasonable expectation that the music will be primarily waltzing. There may very well be a "break" in the style of music, but mainly, the waltz will be the guide of the night. That's a fair assumption.
Later in the evening, you arrive. All you hear is Rap. It's loud, poetic ... aggressive ... and you're wondering, "where is the area for waltzing?". Then, the startling news, "this is our style of waltzing and its music." You're stunned, in a tuxedo and your date in a long, gorgeous dress - ready to waltz. However, you arrived on a fair assumption that there would be waltz music "as understood by the general public (as to what a waltz is). You discover that the sponsors of the evening have "their own take on the waltz" . . . having nothing to do with a waltz, actually.
Communication breaks down completely once the renegade concept of anything is anything someone wants it to be: a ford is a chevy; a tennis racket is actually gatorade; a piano is a cello; the sun is a light bulb; a haiku is a concerto; and, Basho, is a fine wine! The essence of communication is the agreement as to what it is and how to do it - and of course, that language is, today, the primary aspect of it. We have a general agreement as to what words mean and how they are used.
In a discussion, what does haiku mean (what is its dna?), what does hokku mean (haiku's dna), what does tomato mean, what does filet mignon mean, there is a general agreement amongst folks that words have meaning (the river banks) and that expansive creativity lies in how we use them. Haiku/hokku is not outside of that expectation. We can use new and vigorous names for variations of these forms; that's dandy. But, to transform any form from concerto to rap to sonnet and say, "it's anything the composer or poet says it is" is outside of "what's generally considered communication".
We must be careful here. We are the guardians of these old and respected forms of music and poetry and we should take that charge seriously - respecting the amazing folks that either created them (the form) or perpetuated them through their lifetime efforts. Anything less is self-centric.
I offer this with the greatest respect and have no intention to cause an argument or dissonance. I'm just pondering out loud and have been for years! :)
Don
Ps ... and thanks to Kala for here river bank metaphor of which I have grabbed and run with. It's very similar to things I teach in martial arts and have for years.
Thanks Devora ...
I do disagree with myself sometimes ... but "anything goes"
is a statements you can find when reading online . . .
As for traditional Japanese haiku, you can find the definition from here
Inahata Teiko:
It is very important that you feel free to Write a haiku your way.
But there are certain basic conditions which you as a haiku poet are supposed to observe. .
.
And they are 5 7 5, one season word (kigo), one cut marker (kireji) .
Haiku is a poem born from a "season word."
Read it all here
http://www.kyoshi.or.jp/inv-haiku/inv-haiku.htm
.
Greetings from a cold morning in Japan
Gabi
.
This is the haiku river banks:
"And they are 5 7 5, one season word (kigo), one cut marker (kireji) .
Haiku is a poem born from a "season word." ~ Gabi
Haiku is a Shiki development/creation and based on the dna of hokku. Of course, he radically changed things up, as we know.
This is creativity within the bounds! :) ... and in English we often see s/l/s in place of the natural 5/7/5 "on" (sounds like 'own') meter in Japanese. This is creativity with in the bounds! :)
My poems resemble the bread of Egypt-- one night
Passes over the bread, and you can't eat it anymore.
So gobble my poems down now, while they're still fresh,
Before the dust of the world settles on them.
Where a poem belongs is here, in the warmth of the chest;
Out in the world it dies of cold.
You've seen a fish-- put him on dry land,
He quivers for a few minutes, and then is still.
And even if you eat my poems while they're still fresh,
You still have to bring forward many images yourself.
Actually, friend, what you're eating is your own imagination.
These poems are not just some bare statements and old proverbs.
the natural 5/7/5 "on" (sounds like 'own')
ON is pronoucned with a short o (btw, AEIOU in Japanese are the same sounds as in the German language... good for me)
I think it is better to compare the sound with the beginning of
ongoing ONgoing
音字 onji
http://happyhaiku.blogspot.jp/2000/07/theory-5-7-5.html
.
Greetings from a cold morning in Japan.
Gabi
.
It's the same a spanish a,e,i,o,u as Japanese. Didn't know they had a "short" O in Japanese. I figured it was always a,e,i,o,u without variation. But I don't study the language. "ongoing" seems like it, but I'm not sure. That would be the same as saying go ON down the road. Our simple sound for ON - än, ôn. I wonder if it sounds truly like English "on". ? Interesting stuff. But, honestly, I'm not sure I care! LOLLL
In Japanese
all the vowels come in long and short versions ...
a and aa
e and ee
i and ii
o and oo
u and uu
and the pronounciation is different for each one.
zoka in Japanese is different from zooka
.
my husband is my shujin, but not a shuujin (a prisoner)
.
It is the fine difference that is important in spoken language understanding.
.
Gabi
Touching back to devora's original question, I thought I should clarify why I found John's edit so powerful.
To me, Elizabeth Searle Lamb's original --
the blind child reading my poem with her fingertips
is a passive observation of the writer watching the child. As a reader, we simply watch the child too, and the poem has no entry point.
However, John's suggested line break
the blind child --
reading my poem
with her fingertips
opens a door for the reader. Both the reader and the blind child are reading the poem now. Since the child can not read the printed word, the poem must be in raised print or Braille. And since I can't read Braille, the blind child must use her fingertips to guide my fingers over the bumpy Braille. Her hands over mine provide an unexpected, active experience. The writer (and reader) marvel at the feel of the poem in Braille. Perhaps the writer recognizes -- in a very concrete way -- that without the reader, her words lie dormant on the page. Whether or not this meets the definition of a haiku, this poem expresses a beautiful, intimate moment.
So, were I to critique this poem, I would agree with John and say that it suffers from a missing line break.
For those who found the poem "flat", so to speak, I hope this helps.
Quote from: Don Baird on November 16, 2012, 06:47:56 PM
Agree with you, Scott. I haven't come across any true study of hokku where something like "show don't tell" is stated as a rule. Basho was very clear however, that there should be much for the reader to do and that hokku, in particular, should bring about the unsaid just as much as the said (if not more so). The reader completes the poem.
teetering grass . . .
just moments ago
a dragonfly
This hokku when broken down "teetering grass" absolutely states something and it does so clearly. When moving on to the second part "just moments ago a dragonfly" you will see that it is another statement. But, when combined, they produce room for the reader to enter and begin to ponder - to read/misread/continue to read for meaning. There is significant "dream room" in this poem. It is birthed from the pairing of L1 and L2/3 (toriawase) which leaves the reader in a resonant atmosphere of meaning(s).
朝顔は下手の書くさへあはれなり
asagao wa heta no kaku sae aware nari
morning glory:
even when painted poorly,
it has pathos
Tr. Barnhill
.
Written in summer of 1687 貞亨4年夏.
posted to facebook by Gabi Greve
This Basho hokku is paired excellently as fragment and phrase but seems to operate from a single subject instead of two. It still works amazingly well in encouraging the reader to read and read again for meaning - dwelling in the resonance of the unsaid.
I believe when most critics say "it's a statement, show don't tell" they are actually referencing the poem as being complete in and of itself without the need of a reader to "fill in the blanks" so to speak.
the blind child reading my poem with her fingertips
-- Elizabeth Searle Lamb
This poem is what I call closed off (to me). It is the classic statement versus showing - meaning that once you read it, there isn't anything left to do ... not even read it again. There is no reading/misreading/reading again process that should exist in a haiku (hokku) that is paired well for resonance.
the blind child reading my poem with her fingertips (not haiku meter either, s/l/s)
These are the three statements. They remain that way with little to nothing for the reader to do but possibly imagine the scene itself - like a photograph. So now, is this a shasei and therefore a haiku and not a hokku? Is this a Shiki style haiku? The answer to that could be a resounding yes. ahhh ... so now we might know what Shiki stylists could be shooting for versus what Basho stylists are shooting for - definitive differences as to compositional aesthetics. Shiki stripped the hokku to bare existence creating an accessible poem he referenced haiku. Basho delved into writing hokku based on zoka and karumi ... with yugen, ma, kigo, kokoro and so forth which became a rich study of artful creation of hokku (something that seems to be missing from Shiki style haiku even when written well). The hokku engine is zoka; the haiku engine just might be image with kigo.
Then again,
example 1:
it's raining outside
the moon is full tonight
autumn clouds
example 2:
autumn clouds –
the full moon washes
from the window
#1 leaves much to be desired ... employing lines of imagery and descriptive writing but not much for the reader to do or place to enter the poem as a reader. #2 consists of 2 primary statements but directly draws the reader into the poem's "left unsaid" area to ponder and enjoy. The first one, once read, the reader is done. The second one, the reader is left to "bounce around" the internal meanings of meanings - expanded or contracted more and less according to the reader's connection to the poem. It is a zoka engine hokku leaving much for the reader to do.
The Searle poem above has no apparent engine other than imagery. Therefore, it is a statement with little for the reader to do (what I think is the definition of "statement" is when another poet uses the word in a critique).
Just thinking out loud. Not trying to be right; just sharing what I'm pondering in regards to the subject(s) at hand.
Don, I have cataracts and I read Searle's poem without my glasses like this:
the blind child leaving my poem in her finger tips
Honest...but other then not having the rhythm doesn't this have a little hokku in it?
Just trying to understand... ;D
Quote from: Julie B. K. on November 25, 2012, 10:12:26 PM
Touching back to devora's original question, I thought I should clarify why I found John's edit so powerful.
To me, Elizabeth Searle Lamb's original --
the blind child reading my poem with her fingertips
is a passive observation of the writer watching the child. As a reader, we simply watch the child too, and the poem has no entry point.
However, John's suggested line break
the blind child --
reading my poem
with her fingertips
opens a door for the reader. Both the reader and the blind child are reading the poem now. Since the child can not read the printed word, the poem must be in raised print or Braille. And since I can't read Braille, the blind child must use her fingertips to guide my fingers over the bumpy Braille. Her hands over mine provide an unexpected, active experience. The writer (and reader) marvel at the feel of the poem in Braille. Perhaps the writer recognizes -- in a very concrete way -- that without the reader, her words lie dormant on the page. Whether or not this meets the definition of a haiku, this poem expresses a beautiful, intimate moment.
So, were I to critique this poem, I would agree with John and say that it suffers from a missing line break.
For those who found the poem "flat", so to speak, I hope this helps.
Bear with me; it's interesting what you said, but the pivot in the 3-line poem L2 "reading my poem" continued to L3 "with her finger tips" meaning the girl guiding Elizabeth's fingertips over the Braille as Elizabeth reads it shows room to explore. However, with that understanding, doesn't it show in...?
(the blind child) (reading my poem) (with her fingertips)
the blind child reading my poem with her finger tips
Thanks for Your Patience,
martin
A fascinating read all these months later.
Pond
err ing
hike-ku
--Peter
heat (lightn)ing (blossom)ing (r)egret
"the blind child reading my poem in her finger tips" ~ searle
I would have to say, no, Martin ... this poem does not have the qualities of historical hokku (Basho era). It seems more like a sentence/statement without much for the reader to do. It's all said and done. Anyone that is blind must read with their fingertips. This is the frank and clear truth (about reading). It's a sweet moment that has a haiku-like quality but not that of hokku.
Just my ponderings - out loud. :)