The Haiku Foundation Forums

I am accepting of much "avant-garde" haiku, but even I find some of the haiku in Heliosparrow challenging. It is hard to know what is "progress" and what is experimentation. Is it right to say that there is no progress without experimentation? Have I answered my own question?

I would be very interested to know what others think of what appears in Heliosparrow, and what constitutes progress.

Politely offered-- 

Hello. Thinking about the Touchstone Book awards, can someone tell me how many poems/haiku are necessary to call a publication a book? I have seen collections of around 50 called a chapbook, and
others with less than that called a full length book. Confusing. Anyone know? Thanks.

Hello, if you would: please say which Haiku Journals you are most likely to read and or send work to?
If you are willing, please offer a ranking of 5 or so. Do you include Heliosparrow and Bones among those
you favor? Thank you.

Thank you. I do have the impression that Alan Summers is one of the more vocal champions for haiku-- all kinds of it.

I guess a better question could be whether or not haiku needs to progress in some way. Has it got
too set in its different ways?

Don't know if this is the best place for my question, but here goes. From what I can see, things seem
pretty quiet in the world of haiku. Seems like everyone has settled into his/her camp, some people writing "normative haiku", others writing haiku gendai-inflected work, no raised voices, not much new or
challenging. Is this a fair representation? I don't claim to be aware of everything that's going on.

Leads to this then-- does haiku need a jolt? Is it ready for one? Is it even possible at this point?

Many thanks.

This seems to cover some of the same territory as the Touchstone awards, the Red Moon Anthology series and Metz and Gurga's Haiku 20-- series. Does it do something different, or mainly offer more opportunities to celebrate haiku?

Thank you

Hello,

does anyone know of poetry journals (that do not specialize in haiku) that publish haiku? I already am aware of Noon: Journal of the Short Poem.

Thanks.

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Looks like a good place for beginners, like me.

Billy Mills says: For me, one thing that all good haiku do is to produce an analogy by means of juxtaposition, two or more (usually two) disparate things brought together that open the readers mind in some way.

So, for you, would you say the following two examples, since they do not provide a juxtaposition of two disparate things, are not haiku? And please note, I am not disputing the merit of each piece. Buit just trying to be clear, and further the conversation.



from her chair by the window she says the virus is a bird
                                     Johnannes Bjerg

exit wendy from the peter pandemic
                        Lorin Ford

Alan, I appreciate your generosity and enthusiasm.

I should have been more clear: the anthology from which I drew the haiku is the recent
Haiku 2021. A random sampling of poems that some will some won't consider haiku I'm guessing.

I presented the Brad Bennett piece first as it appeared, next as an alternative way it could be read,
a technique many use, providing ambiguity in how a haiku may be read.

You write:

Is it haiku?

Well it depends on our individual definitions of haiku or definitions and rules set out by others.

This is kind of what I am getting at, but rather than ask what is someone' definition of haiku, I am asking if there is some element without which it is not haiku. Maybe the questions are one and the same in th end.

But you bring up an interesting thing when you say "it depends on our individual definitions". Can't remember who said it, but is it true then that haiku is whatever (someone) wants it to be?

I do wonder what others think, but I see, as others have noted, that discussions of this sort are a thing of the past.

From Haiku 21 (eds. Gurga and Metz)

These (below)  do not seem to have easily recognized haiku features, unless, in some cases, you consider being able to read them in two or more ways a form of juxtaposition— collapsed juxtaposition or something-- as in Brad Bennett's

where potholes were sparrows      Which can also be read as:

where potholes were—
sparrows

Day of the Dead year
               Marilyn Ashbaugh

from her chair by the window she says the virus is a bird
                                     Johnannes Bjerg

exit wendy from the peter pandemic
                        Lorin Ford

and numerous others.

What makes them haiku in your opinion?

Yes, thank you. I was (I am) waiting for other responses.

I realize the question may put some people on the spot. It is potentially very revealing (of how one sees
haiku), but I do think it is an interesting question, worth exploring.

Coughing, even:
alone

is one of my favorites too.

About it, one might say: "I don't know what [haiku] is, but I know it when I see it".

Thanks Alan. So would you say that for you, if a very brief (approx. 17 syllables or less) poem does not
demonstrate a seasonal touch and/or a pairing of two very short phrases, it is not a haiku? And yet many
poems that appear in the journals do neither.

Dmitri