images and statements

[myron]

What is the difference between an image and a statement?

[cat]

Haha, Myron!

I just asked you to expand on that in your "moving in" thread!

Because for me the significant difference is between image and idea -- and I wonder if we're talking about a similar thing in different words.

cat

[sandra]

An image is a "picture".

A statement is a description of that picture.

We haiku poets do both in words, but there is a difference.

I was walking on the beach at dusk with my husband and we found a large moth in the sand. He scooped it up and carried it to some shrubbery to release it.

A statement haiku of this might be:

finding a moth
at dusk -
releasing it

But what I wrote was an image-based poem:

holding a moth
in your cupped hands
moonrise

The haiku was Highly Commended in the miniWORDS competition in 2007 and appeared in "the taste of nashi" anthology in 2008.

Does this help?

[Don Baird]

(posted elsewhere, also)

Hey Myron,

In a way, fragments are often statements.  IE:  twinkling stars:  it's a statement and it's an image (if the reader has an imagination).  I don't worry about "statements" too much until they're limited to, as Cat alludes too, a simple idea.  Just writing an idea would not be a haiku.

fluttering, fluttering
butterflies yellow
over water

L1 are simple action.  We don't know anything about them as to size, color etc.  Alone, L1 is a statement.  We don't even know what's fluttering yet so the haiku at this point is wide open.  L2, butterflies yellow (or yellow butterflies) is a simple noun with an adjective.  Though, it conjures up more of an image, it is also a statement;  there isn't much of an image yet.  L3 is a statement.  It clues the reader into location and brings up an "open" image but the haijin didn't go into whether it is an ocean, pond, lake or etc.  However, with all three lines combined with a proper "cut", we have a wonderful image (open and resonant).

I think we often get to tied up into specifics when writing haiku in English and forget to leave more to the reader to "see" as he/she sees.  People will read haiku differently based on their personal experiences in life.  That is  another important issue to keep in mind when writing these little gems ( to me).

Don

ps... poem by Shiki translated by Burton Watson