Hello,
Looking at today's re:viral, which is dandelion antsronauts by Tom Sacramona,
I'm curious how many current editors of haiku magazines would say that they have expanded what
they accept to include short poems which may not be haiku, but which are interesting anyway. I know there is ongoing debate about what is and is not a haiku, but it does seem that there are poems which would be hard to fit into any category except maybe haikuesque or something. I personally think this is a good thing, and besides, where else are these strange little poems going to go?
Meg
Hi Meg,
dandelion antsronauts
Tom Sacramona, bottle rockets 18.1 (2016)
http://www.thehaikufoundation.org/2016/09/09/revirals-52/
I have no idea if this is an experiential haiku, although as an observer of nature, prepared to sit still for hours, I've witnessed things not always even caught by wildlife documentary makers (my wife is one).
This photo is true but the photographer has created the experience, not let it be entirely natural:
https://nz.pinterest.com/pin/533395149591210655/
Here are natural phenomenons:
QuoteI kept noticing that where there were Dandelions there were ants.
http://benjaminellis.org/2013/05/06/ants-and-dandelions-co-dependance-and-missing-links/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Myn5Ept-9vQ
There has been a long trend in poetry and in haiku to accept a word within a word poem:
http://www.thing.net/~grist/l&d/grumman/egrumn.htm
LeRoy Gorman is probably the longest and most famous practitioner of these within the haiku canon.
e.g.
http://bonesjournal.com/no1/bones1-final.pdf
And I am a co-founder of Bones Journal. :-)
Yep, we need outliers in haiku to keep us all on our toes. Although I write a wide vein of haiku from classic hokku, traditional haiku with or without a 5-7-5 count (in English-language syllables) I do feel we need experimental and avant-garde work too.
Although my own collection is perhaps avant-garde to some, it's surprising how many haiku readers and writers from all corners do like the usual work: http://area17.blogspot.co.uk/2012/10/does-fish-god-know-haiku-collection-by.html
It is a delightful work isn't it? It brings a smile, there needs to be lots of smiles in this world at times.
Thank you so much for posting.
warm regards,
Alan
Quote from: meghalls on September 09, 2016, 12:55:57 PM
Hello,
Looking at today's re:viral, which is dandelion antsronauts by Tom Sacramona,
I'm curious how many current editors of haiku magazines would say that they have expanded what
they accept to include short poems which may not be haiku, but which are interesting anyway. I know there is ongoing debate about what is and is not a haiku, but it does seem that there are poems which would be hard to fit into any category except maybe haikuesque or something. I personally think this is a good thing, and besides, where else are these strange little poems going to go?
Meg
I was hoping an editor or two would jump into this. So I'll ask them directly, in hopes one will stop by: have you expanded (or would you expand) what you accept to include short poems which may not be haiku, but which are interesting anyway, and are connected to haiku in some way?
Thanks.
Meg
Dear Meg,
I am an editor. :-)
Do you want an editor from a specific journal?
Both Roadrunner and Bones Journal accept short poems that needn't be attempting to be haiku.
My own collection Does Fish-God Know contains standard and experimental haiku and short poems/micropoems.
Of course as a founding editor of Bones Journal, now Emeritus Editor, myself and the others were interested in good writing, a requirement, and either haiku or something that could take from haiku and yet be its own thing.
re Bones Journal:
http://bonesjournal.com/submission.html
roadrunner:
http://roadrunnerjournal.com/pages_all/archive.htm
is/let:
https://isletpoetry.wordpress.com
otata:
https://otatablog.wordpress.com
warm regards,
Alan
Quote from: meghalls on September 26, 2016, 10:22:22 AM
I was hoping an editor or two would jump into this. So I'll ask them directly, in hopes one will stop by: have you expanded (or would you expand) what you accept to include short poems which may not be haiku, but which are interesting anyway, and are connected to haiku in some way?
Thanks.
Meg
https://noonpoetry.com
NOON: journal of the short poem also accepts short poems outside of haiku.
Also, i did not know Roadrunner was still in production. I've been looking at an outdated link this whole time. Thanks for this news!
Alan,
Are you the only person on this forum, apart from itinerants like me? :)
I see that Bones is a "journal of contemporary haiku" which would lead people to think that whatever
is accepted will be considered haiku. Maybe my question is pointless-- would the editors of Frogpond or
Modern haiku accept poems which they don't consider to be haiku? Doesn't seem so, even if they are fairly liberal in what they do accept. So that leaves Otata or Noon: Journal of the Short Poem and maybe a couple of others whose editors are not constrained. Still, it might be an interesting thing to talk about if some of these editors might chime in. But thank you Alan for talking about this.
Meg
Hi Agnes,
Roadrunner has ceased alas, that's just archived material.
warm regards,
Alan
Quote from: AgnesEvaS on September 29, 2016, 10:15:11 AM
https://noonpoetry.com
NOON: journal of the short poem also accepts short poems outside of haiku.
Also, i did not know Roadrunner was still in production. I've been looking at an outdated link this whole time. Thanks for this news!
Meg,I tend to be mostly the only one currently who enters into discussions. :)
re:
Quote from: meghalls on September 29, 2016, 10:20:43 AM
I see that Bones is a "journal of contemporary haiku" which would lead people to think that whatever
is accepted will be considered haiku.
Different journals give an impression of what the editors perceive to be haiku.
Bones journal was in part a response to the demise of a popular online magazine Notes from the Gean; and also not giving into peer pressure, so there are just a few haiku for every issue.
None of the founding editors, myself (UK), Sheila Windsor (UK) or Johannes Bjerg (Denmark) held any interest in creating yet another haiku magazine of yet a regular approach. We wanted to give people regardless if they were known or unknown a chance to have their voice, and poetry, published. Bones is also a voice for those outliers out there who do not bend to a perceived norm in haiku (although many of write in a variety of approaches).
Jim Kacian (USA) recently said this:QuoteIt's worth saying that as far afield from classical haiku as [this] work might seem to traditionalists, it is still nowhere near as various as that which is to be found in Japanese haiku in the present time. Such perturbations there result, for a host of reasons, in schisms, exclusive schools and personal enmity, whereas here we have a more homogenized approach, with various approaches filtered through a handful of editors into our few collective journals. Such an approach invites ontological process. Perhaps this melding is our gift back to haiku.
Now Kacian writes regular, standard, haiku like so many of us, but also experimental work. What I will pull out of this is that if you read contemporary Japanese-language haiku it is very different from what non-Japanese people feel is the normal real way to compose them.
Two of the shortest Japanese-language haiku are here:
http://area17.blogspot.co.uk/2014/04/more-than-one-fold-in-paper-kire-kigo.html
So there is precedent of a sort.
Quote from: meghalls on September 29, 2016, 10:20:43 AM
Maybe my question is pointless-- would the editors of Frogpond or Modern haiku accept poems which they don't consider to be haiku? Doesn't seem so, even if they are fairly liberal in what they do accept.
Well, those magazines have turned down and accepted both traditional and experimental/free verse haiku. They are good magazines but obviously more mainstream, which goes back to the fact that Roadrunner was so important as well known and respected general/mainstream poets and commentators would often select haiku for the Scorpion Prize. Bones journal, as well as Otata and is/let etc... also give voice to those who know how to write standard haiku but wish to push boundaries, a common theme in both art, science and industry.
Quote from: meghalls on September 29, 2016, 10:20:43 AMSo that leaves Otata or Noon: Journal of the Short Poem and maybe a couple of others whose editors are not constrained. Still, it might be an interesting thing to talk about if some of these editors might chime in. But thank you Alan for talking about this.
Meg
Ah it would indeed. Why not approach the founder of The Haiku Foundation (Jim Kacian) as we have had highly successful discussions in the past where editors and long known haiku poets have commented?
QUOTE IN FULL:Quote from: meghalls on September 29, 2016, 10:20:43 AM
Alan,
Are you the only person on this forum, apart from itinerants like me? :)
I see that Bones is a "journal of contemporary haiku" which would lead people to think that whatever
is accepted will be considered haiku. Maybe my question is pointless-- would the editors of Frogpond or
Modern haiku accept poems which they don't consider to be haiku? Doesn't seem so, even if they are fairly liberal in what they do accept. So that leaves Otata or Noon: Journal of the Short Poem and maybe a couple of others whose editors are not constrained. Still, it might be an interesting thing to talk about if some of these editors might chime in. But thank you Alan for talking about this.
Meg
Alan brought up Noon Journal. Here is something you should read Meg: http://www.modernhaiku.org/essays/RowlandFromHaikuToShortPoem.html
and when it comes to the strange little ones... I think it is a matter of acceptance, excuse the pun.
Would it not be wonderful if some of the prominent haiku magazines would encourage the strange little ones bu adding just a page, maybe two or three of them in the magazines with a comment by an editor or assistant editor. Editors have fairly attuned haiku minds, even when it comes to the strange critters...
I may be an year old in the haiku world, but I have been reading poetry for long. Haiku is form poetry. The craft skills are to be appreciated. Even, if the composition is deviant art.
So which of the magazines you have mentioned can and will come up with the leap of ...faith in Basho and the present day haijin world? I don't know, but I do hope that the frogs are all happy to land in the...big tub.
That said, now that the monsoon is gone, where the hell do I find a frog? I guess I will ask Basho's ghost.
And I mean no offence to anyone and everyone.
Croak
ann
Thanks Anna for bringing up that piece from Philip Rowland. I don't if there was a part two in the making, but five years later he produced:
New Directions in English-language Haiku: An Overview and Assessmenthttp://iafor.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/Article-3-iafor-librasia-journal-volume2-issue2-2-3.pdf
That is a great idea to include an editor's or editors' thought on the more unusual or experimental haiku.
I love this quote from you:
QuoteHaiku is form poetry...the composition is deviant
lifted from:
Quote from: Anna on September 30, 2016, 10:22:44 AM
Haiku is form poetry. The craft skills are to be appreciated. Even, if the composition is deviant art.
I think the fact that people are overly influenced by the pre-haiku art of Basho that they get shocked with current writers, and even immediately post-Shiki writers from Japan and elsewhere stop writing hokku and pre-Industrial/post-Agrarian poetry.
I am also greatly relieved that I am seeing/hearing more artists and poets who cannot or will not explain their art/writings. Sometimes my stuff comes from some mind zone outside my logical everyday existence and I can barely recognise that I am the originator, especially if it's really good for some unfathomable reason. ;)
And we have to remember that Basho was forever inventing or at least taking a group's idea of something and running with it. Even on his deathbed he was starting on karumi which he never got to complete or create a particular strategic verse such as he did with frog+pond and branch+crow.
Love this too! :)
Quote from: Anna on September 30, 2016, 10:22:44 AM
That said, now that the monsoon is gone, where the hell do I find a frog? I guess I will ask Basho's ghost.
warm regards,
Alan
Quote from: Anna on September 30, 2016, 10:22:44 AM
Alan brought up Noon Journal. Here is something you should read Meg: http://www.modernhaiku.org/essays/RowlandFromHaikuToShortPoem.html
and when it comes to the strange little ones... I think it is a matter of acceptance, excuse the pun.
Would it not be wonderful if some of the prominent haiku magazines would encourage the strange little ones bu adding just a page, maybe two or three of them in the magazines with a comment by an editor or assistant editor. Editors have fairly attuned haiku minds, even when it comes to the strange critters...
I may be an year old in the haiku world, but I have been reading poetry for long. Haiku is form poetry. The craft skills are to be appreciated. Even, if the composition is deviant art.
So which of the magazines you have mentioned can and will come up with the leap of ...faith in Basho and the present day haijin world? I don't know, but I do hope that the frogs are all happy to land in the...big tub.
That said, now that the monsoon is gone, where the hell do I find a frog? I guess I will ask Basho's ghost.
And I mean no offence to anyone and everyone.
Croak
ann
I suppose the "strange little poems" I'm thinking of are not attempting to "push the boundaries of
haiku", advance the cause, bring it into the 21st century or anything like that. They make no claims on haiku, but might be inspired by haiku, I guess. I bet a bunch of things like that have been written with no other place to go than to the haiku mags, because they're very short and maybe have a thing or two in common with haiku.
Anyway, good thing for writers like that that there's now Otata and Noon, which are the "other places" where good, very short poems might be published.
Alan, wouldn't you say that by calling Bones a "journal of contemporary haiku" that it is basically saying
that whatever is published there is . . . haiku-- maybe experimental, maybe controversial, but haiku nevertheless?
Thanks,
Meg
I'm an
editor emeritus of Bones journal which went through one or descriptions so you would be better contacting the managing editor Johannes Bjerg: http://bonesjournal.com/submission.html
It's more in line perhaps with the ongoing Japanese haiku experiments that allow things to be tested out and are a success even if they fail. :)
Alan
Quote from: meghalls on September 30, 2016, 12:01:31 PM
I suppose the "strange little poems" I'm thinking of are not attempting to "push the boundaries of
haiku", advance the cause, bring it into the 21st century or anything like that. They make no claims on haiku, but might be inspired by haiku, I guess. I bet a bunch of things like that have been written with no other place to go than to the haiku mags, because they're very short and maybe have a thing or two in common with haiku.
Anyway, good thing for writers like that that there's now Otata and Noon, which are the "other places" where good, very short poems might be published.
Alan, wouldn't you say that by calling Bones a "journal of contemporary haiku" that it is basically saying
that whatever is published there is . . . haiku-- maybe experimental, maybe controversial, but haiku nevertheless?
Thanks,
Meg
QuoteNew Directions in English-language Haiku: An Overview and Assessment
http://iafor.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/Article-3-iafor-librasia-journal-volume2-issue2-2-3.pdf
Thanks Alan, for the link.
QuoteThat is a great idea to include an editor's or editors' thought on the more unusual or experimental haiku.
I hope it materialises. Rome did not happen immediately...I hope I got that right. But the visual is clear I guess...
QuoteI love this quote from you:
Quote
Haiku is form poetry...the composition is deviant
lifted from:
Quote from: Anna on Today at 09:22:44 AM
Haiku is form poetry. The craft skills are to be appreciated. Even, if the composition is deviant art.
You framed it. But I guess it is, considering that the normative haiku do not celebrate metaphor and is yet such a metaphorical statement ...
and yes contemporary haiku is deviant given: "and are
seen to involve the freer use of metaphor and opaque language than is found in
normative haiku." From the abstract - New Directions in English-language Haiku: An Overview and Assessment by Philip Rowland
Do excuse my humor, the essays and papers are serious enough, and this is a discussion.
Hello Meg, thanks for an interesting thread. I do wish more haijin would join the discussion. Happy Weekend.
Is there anything more to be wrung out of this discussion, short of asking editors of Modern Haiku, Frogpond, The Heron's Nest, Acorn, etc, questions like: in order to publish a poem, do you have to feel
personally satisfied that it meets your own criteria for what is a haiku, or are you willing to publish something which not only pushes boundaries, but goes beyond?
And what would be some examples? Is dandelion antsronauts an example of going beyond boundaries?
Meg
Hi Meg,
It would be a great idea to email various editors of haiku journals:
http://www.poetrysociety.org.nz/haikunews/haikupublications#Haiku
Toward an Aesthetic for English-Language Haiku by Lee Gurga
http://www.poetrysociety.org.nz/node/323
http://www.baymoon.com/~ariadne/form/haiku/haiku.aesthetics.gurga.htm
Do Something Different by Peter Yovu (March 2009)
http://www.poetrysociety.org.nz/node/400
TRUSTING THE COMPASS OF STRANGENESS: PETER YOVU'S SUNRISE
by Paul Pfleuger, Jr.
http://www.roadrunnerjournal.com/pages111/Sunrise_review.pdf
Sunrise by Peter Yovu; book review
http://www.poetrysociety.org.nz/node/553
http://www.modernhaiku.org/bookreviews/Yovu2010.html
The Haiku Foundation Readings: Peter Yovu - YouTube
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=znJ05U0ngps
Disordering Haiku by Peter Yovu (October 2009)
http://www.poetrysociety.org.nz/node/426
Jack Galmitz is a great reviewer and commentator as well as a haiku poet who stretches boundaries further than most in haiku: http://www.gendaihaiku.com/research/galmitz/index.html
http://livinghaikuanthology.com/readings/haiku-readings/2737-jack-galmitz-reads-a-selection-of-his-haiku.html
And of course who can write haiku that are not haiku but they are, aren't they haiku than Marlene Mountain: http://www.marlenemountain.org/intro.html
Poetry is language beyond conversations we hear in shops, pubs, bars, train and police stations, but then again perhaps some poets pull from the street and call it literature too. :)
If we push boundaries perhaps we are better at keeping within them later on, or never reach the boundary in the first place if we don't push for them?
I think a type of survey amongst editors would be great. Perhaps use the THF contact message page to put forward a proposal: http://www.thehaikufoundation.org/contact/Here's a different way that was used to question these prominent editors:
UNDERSTANDING MODERN ENGLISH-LANGUAGE HAIKU
by Tracy Koretsky
http://www.poetrysociety.org.nz/node/505
Quote from: meghalls on October 01, 2016, 03:50:42 PM
Is there anything more to be wrung out of this discussion, short of asking editors of Modern Haiku, Frogpond, The Heron's Nest, Acorn, etc, questions like: in order to publish a poem, do you have to feel
personally satisfied that it meets your own criteria for what is a haiku, or are you willing to publish something which not only pushes boundaries, but goes beyond?
And what would be some examples? Is dandelion antsronauts an example of going beyond boundaries?
Meg
wonderful reading links in there, will last me a month and more ...
QuoteIs there anything more to be wrung out of this discussion, short of asking...
wow, some carpet dusting that... ;D
Quote...do you have to feel
personally satisfied that it meets your own criteria for what is a haiku, or are you willing to publish something which not only pushes boundaries, but goes beyond?
What is your own opinion on this, Meg?
My answer:
We all live our lives in our own little realities, and every kind of answer to your question is justified.
It is like this: After eating at a rated restaurant which was supposed to serve authentic Hyderabadi food, the chef defended his reason from deviating from the recipe to cater to the tastes of clientele. I had only this to say, if you never serve the original, who will remember it and how will anyone know whether your rendition is a success?
In other words, what is the bench mark, what do I measure my work against? Not only as good or bad, but also as how further off is my push the boundary stuff?
But then again without the help of Gauguin, how much further (could and/orwould) Gogh have gone on?
Or from more recent lot: What makes Tjalf Sparnaay's fried eggs and burgers on canvas so massively successful given their commonplace themes?
Meg, Anna,
Or David Cobley's spilt milk?
http://www.davidcobley.com/still-lifes-c5jd?lightbox=i5669
Do we seek the ultra realism of the Sculpture of a baby by superrealist artist, Ron Mueck?
I think we seek beyond the snapshot or details in a report and perhaps dandelions are piggybacked by ants as astronauts:
dandelion antsronautsAfter all we call sports grass 'astroturf'? A term that changed it from chemturf to AstroTurf by John A. Wortmann when used at the Houston Astrodome stadium in 1966. We have a fascination for the word and term 'astro'
Alan
Quote from: Anna on October 02, 2016, 03:05:21 AM
wonderful reading links in there, will last me a month and more ...
QuoteIs there anything more to be wrung out of this discussion, short of asking...
wow, some carpet dusting that... ;D
Quote...do you have to feel
personally satisfied that it meets your own criteria for what is a haiku, or are you willing to publish something which not only pushes boundaries, but goes beyond?
What is your own opinion on this, Meg?
My answer:
We all live our lives in our own little realities, and every kind of answer to your question is justified.
It is like this: After eating at a rated restaurant which was supposed to serve authentic Hyderabadi food, the chef defended his reason from deviating from the recipe to cater to the tastes of clientele. I had only this to say, if you never serve the original, who will remember it and how will anyone know whether your rendition is a success?
In other words, what is the bench mark, what do I measure my work against? Not only as good or bad, but also as how further off is my push the boundary stuff?
But then again without the help of Gauguin, how much further (could and/orwould) Gogh have gone on?
Or from more recent lot: What makes Tjalf Sparnaay's fried eggs and burgers on canvas so massively successful given their commonplace themes?
Quote from: meghalls on September 09, 2016, 12:55:57 PM
Hello,
Looking at today's re:viral, which is dandelion antsronauts by Tom Sacramona,
I'm curious how many current editors of haiku magazines would say that they have expanded what
they accept to include short poems which may not be haiku, but which are interesting anyway. I know there is ongoing debate about what is and is not a haiku, but it does seem that there are poems which would be hard to fit into any category except maybe haikuesque or something. I personally think this is a good thing, and besides, where else are these strange little poems going to go?
Meg
spilt milk
oil on canvas
still ...life?
There is a long history of painting food, and making still life something akin to its molecules vibrating.
Quote from: Anna on October 02, 2016, 06:17:32 AM
spilt milk
oil on canvas
still ...life?
Spilt milk:
oil on linen
http://www.davidcobley.com/still-lifes-c5jd?lightbox=i5669
David Cobley says:
"Still lifes
"I see another painting almost everywhere I turn. Things in the studio take on a significance they might not otherwise have, and become metaphors for something else. They remind me of conversations with friends, of things I have heard on the radio or read in books.
There is a beauty and a kind of visual poetry in simple objects placed one against the another. Each speaks to the other of an absent human presence in a silent language of its own."http://www.davidcobley.com/still-lifes-c5jd
As molecules are entities with a sense of humour nothing really stands still or isn't life I guess.
Alan
Alan,
QuoteDavid Cobley says:
"Still lifes
...
...There is a beauty and a kind of visual poetry in simple objects placed one against the another. Each speaks to the other of an absent human presence in a silent language of its own."
http://www.davidcobley.com/still-lifes-c5jd
that is very much like the original thought behind haiku, ....no?
QuoteAs molecules are entities with a sense of humour nothing really stands still or isn't life I guess.
;D makes sense in a subatomic way ...
Maybe I should have said there is not much more to be wrung from me on this matter. In one of those links Peter Yovu said something about writing that takes the risk of "not being haiku". My opinion is that I
understand this (I think) and I like writing I find sometimes even in some of the haiku magazines mentioned before that seems to have taken this risk and maybe what the writers have come up with is or isn't haiku but it doesn't matter.
Paul Miller said Monday bleeding down to money probably isn't a haiku, but I say maybe it doesn't matter.
So looks like a thing or two still to be wrung from me.
Meg
Meg,
I just wanted to thank you so much for creating this discussion and being so patient. I am hoping you get more responses, either here, or in other ways.
warm regards,
Alan
Quote from: meghalls on October 02, 2016, 08:27:42 AM
Maybe I should have said there is not much more to be wrung from me on this matter. In one of those links Peter Yovu said something about writing that takes the risk of "not being haiku". My opinion is that I
understand this (I think) and I like writing I find sometimes even in some of the haiku magazines mentioned before that seems to have taken this risk and maybe what the writers have come up with is or isn't haiku but it doesn't matter.
Paul Miller said Monday bleeding down to money probably isn't a haiku, but I say maybe it doesn't matter.
So looks like a thing or two still to be wrung from me.
Meg
Alan, Meg, I found this very interesting link: http://www.graceguts.com/essays/the-seed-of-wonder
Hi Meg / Alan,
I think "dandelion antsronauts" is an interesting poem. Is it a haiku? Not sure. Does it matter? Well... I am the editor of Modern Haiku, not Modern Any Kind of Poem, so yes it does—to me. That doesn't necessarily mean I wouldn't publish a poem if I find it haiku-like. I publish many things that I can't strictly call haiku (whatever that means), but they are in some orbit of haiku; they test my understanding of what I consider to be the genre's boundary. Hopefully they test others' boundaries as well.
That said, there are lots of magazines (Noon, Lilliput Review, islet, etc) that publish other kinds of little poems. I don't worry about them not finding a home.
Paul
I am happy that Paul stopped by. What he says makes perfect sense to me. I would speculate that a lot of the poems that qualify as what Paul calls "other kinds of little poems" wouldn't have come to light without some exposure to haiku. It would be interesting to see some kind of study on that. Is it just that a lot of people who started writing haiku of "haiku-like" poems kind of experimented themselves right out of the
haiku orbit? Or do they think of themselves as still in orbit, just far far from the sun?
Probably a lot of different answers to that, but kind of interesting I think.
Thank you.
Interesting thread.
Glad to see Paul Miller has noted his perspective.
Jan