The Haiku Foundation Forums

forces or fate
either way   
it is written

"The kind of poetry I'm talking about is a rare thing, but I am interested in rare things," but what aesthete is not, Peter (and Chris)?

For me, I have read from time to time haiku that rival Nick Virgilio's lily:/out of the water/out of itself, so I know they are out there.   

Excuse me, Peter, but your assertion "that a haiku which is 'all too clear' is one that it [sic] does not go beyond what can be grasped by the mind" is a bit too resolute. In fact, I find both Kerouac's and Peggy Willis Lyles' haiku equally professional, instantly grasped and wide open to cavernous complexities. I like that combination (not so easily achieved, as you know). I have read many of your and others' work in R'r,[i] and I sometimes find them annoyingly experimental. What I do acknowledge of these poems, however (whether I "get them" or not), is the absolute understanding that if haiku is to endure, it needs to be cultivated by the best minds, and I am quite willing to give up "clarity" (your "prize") for that advancement. What I am not willing to give up is my love for the many "traditional" works (some of your exquisite poems among them) that still move me well beyond the immediate. 

Okay, Alan, let me speak plainly (fugheddabout prefatory civilities).

slammed by salt and sun
the paint has no chance in this mexican prison

David Caruso

is not a haiku. And cannot be woven into one that triggers a précis on anthropomorphism. Period.

Powerful first line, yes. Compelling second line. yes. A probable truth, yes. But casting those observations into two sentences does not a haiku make.*

*Though I liked what Pfleuger Jr says (as quoted by you), and makes a simple sentence interesting: The two-line construction seems utterly perfect for conveying the tone, as well as the rapidity of the machine gun's firing, when reading the last line the way it stands.

My comment was neither fatuous nor frivolous, and did not warrant your rather smarty reply.

Please forgive me, Alan, but I just cannot see why the following is considered a haiku, and subsequently, deserving of a commentary on why it is anthropomorphic. Seems to be just a simple sentence (albeit nice alliteration):

slammed by salt and sun
the paint has no chance in this mexican prison

David Caruso

You are right, Peter. Deleting "my" takes it from the personal to the universal.

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.

Yes, Snow Leopard, I like your suggestion about Lamb's one-liner very much, it has places to "ponder." Don said it well.

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.

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

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), 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, 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?

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?