if we tell, is it a haiku?

[haikurambler]

More precisely, is: Show, Not Tell, the primary foundation of haiku, without which we have an epigram or whatever? If we were to eliminate just one formal element from a haiku, which one would be the one to render a haiku not a haiku - you know, that would bring the house tumbling down?


a frog jumping
into an old pond
makes a noise

~anon


old pond
a frog jumps in
the sound of water

~Basho


Here's an interesting item to focus the mind:
http://www.writedesignonline.com/assignments/shownottell.html

[John McManus]

John, I don't understand why you think the foundation of haiku is based on the technique of 'showing rather than telling.' Can I ask where you found this insight?

warmest,
John       

[haikurambler]

Hi, John.

Yes, I've floated a topic question. What are your views about this thread's subject? Towards the end we can run a synopsis and see what's been turned up in the mix.

[John McManus]

My views are that you can define haiku in one way, and that is by evaluating the poems that have been published and reproduced since it was first written, which was before Basho and up to what is being written and published today.

If we do this, we will see that haiku has no one way, but a multitude of ways that are available to poets to explore. Haiku like any other art form is in a constant state of flux with every new published poem further reinforcing or changing the definitions set before it.

warmest,
John

   

[haikurambler]

Hi, John.

Thanks for the background. But, how do you specifically respond to this threads question? if you pop in a couple of examples of haiku which demonstrate your suggestions, then that may be useful for everyone to learn from and respond to. (Bear in mind we're contrasting 'tell' with 'show', with respect to haiku only)


-
Do feel free to jump in this little pond, everyone - your ideas will be constructive, I'm sure.

[AlanSummers]

John McManus has a fair point, and one I support, and as you know, Stephen has just a huge poll in Japan and RoW which still wasn't conclusive.

What I'd suggest, off the back of what you've said, is list anything between half a dozen to a dozen published haiku from yourself and everyone else, and we could say if it's SNT or not, or both etc...

I'll try to post later on once you've posted six or more published works, and let's try to encourage others to do likewise.

For newcomers, they can post unpublished or drafts.

This could be good! ;-)

Alan

Hi, John.

Thanks for the background. But, how do you specifically respond to this threads question? if you pop in a couple of examples of haiku which demonstrate your suggestions, then that may be useful for everyone to learn from and respond to. (Bear in mind we're contrasting 'tell' with 'show', with respect to haiku only)


-
Do feel free to jump in this little pond, everyone - your ideas will be constructive, I'm sure.

[John McManus]

Okay, here are some haiku which I believe don't have the 'show don't tell' technique, but I do believe they are still haiku.


cherry blossoms fall—
you too must become
a hippo

Tsubouchi Nenten


Athelete's foot itches—
still can't become
Hitler

Hoshinaga Fumio


In winter rains I'm listening to a nurse's tale

Fujiki Kiyoko


say it so it sounds like starling she says

Chris Gordon

[haikurambler]

Hi, Alan.

Yes, a good idea. Examples to support statements. (Perhaps a lesser number of specimens would be acceptable, or, I expect, many will be put off.) However, if people want to chip in a quick response, then this is fine, at least by me. If it's not, then a challenge to support an obscure claim may be requested.

Meanwhile, in the role of this topic's impartial question provider, and, as such, with no axe to grind either way, I'll let members have their own say, without, you know, meddling with the flow of opinion. I will assist in keeping the focus on track, though.

As you say, this subject may generate a lot of useful insights into what's going on under the wee bonnets of little haiku internationale.

[AlanSummers]

I think it might be good, partly as a personal statement, if we simply pop in half a dozen examples of our own, and a few, as John has done, of our contemporary favourites.

Otherwise it feels like we might go round and round in circles discussing what is and what isn't Show don't Tell, without showing our own published record of work and direction as an artist, supposedly in the haikai camp or at least in the poetry camp, of which you say SNT aka Show don't Tell is the main criteria.

We can then all do a poll of sorts, and all the rest that is demanded of us.

all my best,

Alan

Hi, Alan.

Yes, a good idea. Examples to support statements. (Perhaps a lesser number of specimens would be acceptable, or, I expect, many will be put off.) However, if people want to chip in a quick response, then this is fine, at least by me. If it's not, then a challenge to support an obscure claim may be requested.

Meanwhile, in the role of this topic's impartial question provider, and, as such, with no axe to grind either way, I'll let members have their own say, without, you know, meddling with the flow of opinion. I will assist in keeping the focus on track, though.

As you say, this subject may generate a lot of useful insights into what's going on under the wee bonnets of little haiku internationale.

[haikurambler]

Interesting selection of examples, John. I like them all. Also, in each one the point is made with its own scenario. The 'showing'. Lets address the first on your menu, the 'hippo' one:


cherry blossoms fall—
you too must become
a hippo


Here we are witness to the recycling of nature via an evoked virtual diorama in our mind's eye. In this case the material of cherry blossoms, in all their light and luminous transient glory, will, possibly, eventually form the mass a heavy and cumbrous hippopotamus being. The scene unfolds probably at a zoo. We deepen into the haiku dream. The dream's visualisation, as we get into it, shows us blossoms turning into mulch and the mulch turning into other things, in this case becoming part of a hippo. The contrast between the two surface images (blossoms and hippo) is somewhat startling, and grabs our attention well enough. Then we move to the inner illustrations of recycling of matter. You know, 'we are starlight we are golden', type thing.

I can run the same analytical response, but with different impressions of meaning, of course, through the rest of these interesting ku you've sourced, if you like. However; firstly, how do react to this commentary - quickie that it be, and, secondly, can you 'see' the vision enbedded in each of your examples, which evidences each one's 'show' feature?

This does not mean, by the way, that I take a position either way regarding telling and showing in the context of this topic's question. I'm currently in  neutral, like Switzerland was, back in Hitler's day, if you will. Perhaps, during the course of this thread, we may be swayed one way or t'other - as they say up North, in my youthful homeland of bonnie Cumbria.


-
How do other members respond to these examples? Go for it . . .

Okay, here are some haiku which I believe don't have the 'show don't tell' technique, but I do believe they are still haiku.


cherry blossoms fall—
you too must become
a hippo

Tsubouchi Nenten


Athelete's foot itches—
still can't become
Hitler

Hoshinaga Fumio


In winter rains I'm listening to a nurse's tale

Fujiki Kiyoko


say it so it sounds like starling she says

Chris Gordon

[haikurambler]

As previously mentioned, Alan, I currently take no sides in this 'show not tell' debate. It's simply raised to learn what members think about this relevant issue, and, hopefully, to learn from that - particularly in the light of the old school's haiku virtual movie making tradition.

The only credentials I and many others may have, by the way, are those of a self-taught amateur haiku enthusiast and eternal student. Let's measure the responses anyone here makes by their immediate quality.

As an aside. I did ceramics (in the tradition of Bernard Leach and Shoji Hamada) for many years. After training (Bath Acadamy of Art & Design) most of us got some paper to show for it (a rated honours degree). But, only three of us went pro (out of thirty). A handful went into teaching art for a while, some stuck to that. The rest were, essentially, and God bless 'em, totally hapless despite their degrees. As a young fellow this taught a valuable life lesson about the ubiquitous hypocrisy of 'official' credentials. I learned that it's best to evaluate actions on the ground, with a bright eye, in the here and now.

I think it might be good, partly as a personal statement, if we simply pop in half a dozen examples of our own, and a few, as John has done, of our contemporary favourites.

Otherwise it feels like we might go round and round in circles discussing what is and what isn't Show don't Tell, without showing our own published record of work and direction as an artist, supposedly in the haikai camp or at least in the poetry camp, of which you say SNT aka Show don't Tell is the main criteria.

We can then all do a poll of sorts, and all the rest that is demanded of us.

all my best,

Alan

Hi, Alan.

Yes, a good idea. Examples to support statements. (Perhaps a lesser number of specimens would be acceptable, or, I expect, many will be put off.) However, if people want to chip in a quick response, then this is fine, at least by me. If it's not, then a challenge to support an obscure claim may be requested.

Meanwhile, in the role of this topic's impartial question provider, and, as such, with no axe to grind either way, I'll let members have their own say, without, you know, meddling with the flow of opinion. I will assist in keeping the focus on track, though.

As you say, this subject may generate a lot of useful insights into what's going on under the wee bonnets of little haiku internationale.

[John McManus]

In relation to Nenten's 'hippo' ku. I think knowing that it is actually Tsubouchi who is a hippo, not an actual hippo at a zoo puts some of your commentary into the mire I'm afraid.

Nenten is a keen advocate of creating different persona in order to write haiku, and is known to write from the perspective of a hippo. So in light of this information doesn't his haiku seems like, it is inviting other poets to share in this strange but exciting mode of creation? Rather than trying to show any kind of hippo creature in those cherry blossoms.

warmest,
John

[AlanSummers]

John McManus is right.  It's almost like having a haigo.  Ban'ya does it to great effect, as does Johannes with his Penguins.

It's akin to a science fiction story being created in order to treat a current issue from outside of itself.

We have an awful lot more to learn about haiku than we think we do, and Basho right up to Shiki are only part of the equation I feel.

Alan

In relation to Nenten's 'hippo' ku. I think knowing that it is actually Tsubouchi who is a hippo, not an actual hippo at a zoo puts some of your commentary into the mire I'm afraid.

Nenten is a keen advocate of creating different persona in order to write haiku, and is known to write from the perspective of a hippo. So in light of this information doesn't his haiku seems like, it is inviting other poets to share in this strange but exciting mode of creation? Rather than trying to show any kind of hippo creature in those cherry blossoms.

warmest,
John

[AlanSummers]

I think all creative writing has elements of tell and show as a combo.  Some have less of one more of the other etc...

In order to put something into text it begins to tell. The best thing is not to tell it all, and not to tell it as if the recipient of the text is a complete idiot.

I'll look around for a haiku (in English) that is all show, but then that doesn't sound quite right either. ;-)

Alan

More precisely, is: Show, Not Tell, the primary foundation of haiku, without which we have an epigram or whatever? If we were to eliminate just one formal element from a haiku, which one would be the one to render a haiku not a haiku - you know, that would bring the house tumbling down?


a frog jumping
into an old pond
makes a noise

~anon


old pond
a frog jumps in
the sound of water

~Basho


Here's an interesting item to focus the mind:
http://www.writedesignonline.com/assignments/shownottell.html

[haikurambler]

Hi, this threads warming up nicely. Some interesting insights which I will be pondering in the days to come. Here is a first thought or two, purely from my own ongoing studentship of haiku:

Two distinct verbal aspects become apparent when we first regard the words used to present a little haiku movie to the mind's eye. Firstly, the 'signpost' words which conjure the haiku's basic movie elements. Secondly, we dowse the implications of the words and their grammatical combination. This focuses and begins to collate the haiku movie elements which are presenting. At this juncture our mind tries to solve the riddle presented thus far. In doing this the dispirate elements start to compose as a synergic whole. Then, the haiku movie starts to materialise (in the right brain, from the left brain verbal triggers - for those into this way of thinking). Of course, this is not the end of the matter. The haiku movie now begins to deepen; we move through various filters which our brain sequences and screens the data. By contemplating a haiku to its depth (the ideal) we hope to, finally, arrive at, more or less, its truth. From here on in this whole fascinating process can get quite diffuse, as we connote and the haiku connotes. To compound the meditation's challenge we have those pesky little vortexes (MA) that can lead out into so many other issues altogether (some intended, some not). Not only this; a flip into the labyrinthine infinite (Zoka) may occur. The trick, as we know, is to gently keep returning to our haiku movie - perhaps bookmarking other lines of thought for another time. At each step of the way we can get stuck at one of the inward journey's stages - and often do. (Be careful not to be fooled by this.) However, if the spirit moves us, we return again and again to a particular favourite haiku, and press on. For example, I've been reading and re-reading Basho's masterpiece, you know, set at that old pond, for many years and it still it has more to say about itself each time I engage with Matsuo's wonderful haiku diorama.