Is the Clock Ticking on Haiku?

[chibi575]

Here are some links that may be of interest to the count down (clock ticking) on non-Japanese haiku-like poems:

http://www.dengary.com/essays/thenewshortlyricpoem.html

http://www.scribd.com/doc/20656790/Fire-Blossoms-the-Birth-of-Haiku-Noir-by-Denis-M-Garrison

Although, Denis' arguments are similar, they do not take in to account the language-culture-art in the same way I do.

Ciao... chibi

[Don Baird]

Michael Dylan Welch, in his essay 'Selected Examples of Deja-ku', gives these three examples of haiku for consideration re the possibility  of 'cryptomnesia', reading a haiku then forgetting it, so unintentionally plagiarising ...

- Lorin

The Deja-Ku is clearly one possibility.  The other is; due to the brevity of haiku and, therefore, the limited number of words that could ever apply, the possiblity of writing poems that are almost identical without having ever seen a matching one(s) is extremely possible considering the number of haiku written per day world-wide.  The math is there: the truth will follow. 

As long as we work with poems that are only 9-11 words (in English), we will be captured within the confine of possibility rather than the expansion.  That's the premise I've been pondering.

Just thinking a bit more ...

best,

Don

[Larry Bole]

Don,

Sorry I can't quote from your most recent post, but I'm ignorant when it comes to using what all those icons represent at the top of the page. I will have to work that out sometime when I have more time.

But you mention limits and expansion possibilities when writing poems consisting of 9 to 11 words.

Well, one could start with determining how many permutations (in a mathematical sense) are available with 9 to 11 words. Then one can take into account that English has a vocabulary of approximately 100,000 words, which I have read is the largest vocabulary of any known language in the world. Although the total number of possible 9 to 11 word poems is still finite, it is possibly a huge number.

About the only restrictions I can think of are: 1) The limitations that are imposed by what one believes makes an ELH poem an ELH poem, if one wants to limit the composition of 9 to 11 word poems to that genre. 2) Poems being too similar in content and/or expresson (I believe this is your point). And although a one-word difference can make a difference, often it wouldn't. 3) Poems that would be nonsensical. Although, there is a genre of mainstream poetry, called "conceptual poetry," that includes some types of nonsensical poetry as legitimate poetry, as well as non-lexical vocalizations, and appropriation, which often consists of just re-producing someone else's text, but doing it by hand in some way, whether writing it out or typing it out.

Basho was a great appropriator. He occasionally spent some of his seventeen syllables quoting from Noh plays, for instance.

From what I remember of Basho's appropriations, the most extreme example would probably be this:

yo ni furu mo sarani Sogi no yadori kana

life in this world
just like a temporary shelter
of Sogi's

Basho, trans. Ueda


This is based on Sogi's haiku:

yo ni furu mo sarani shigure no yadori kana

life in this world
just like a temporary shelter
from a winter shower

Sogi, trans. Ueda


Basho has changed just one word in his haiku from Sogi's haiku. (note: Sogi should have a diacritical mark over the "o"; one can Romanize this as "Soogi," which has the same number of sound-syllables as "shigure".)


Larry Bole

[chibi575]

Basho was a great appropriator. He occasionally spent some of his seventeen syllables quoting from Noh plays, for instance.

From what I remember of Basho's appropriations, the most extreme example would probably be this:

yo ni furu mo sarani Sogi no yadori kana

life in this world
just like a temporary shelter
of Sogi's

Basho, trans. Ueda


This is based on Sogi's haiku:

yo ni furu mo sarani shigure no yadori kana

life in this world
just like a temporary shelter
from a winter shower

Sogi, trans. Ueda


Basho has changed just one word in his haiku from Sogi's haiku. (note: Sogi should have a diacritical mark over the "o"; one can Romanize this as "Soogi," which has the same number of sound-syllables as "shigure".)


Larry Bole

Hi Larry,

Interesting thought... Bashou the appropriator!  Thanks.

Ciao... chibi

[cat]

Hello, Larry,

It's been a long time since I studied math, but if memory serves me correctly, the factorial of 11! would be 39,916,800 possible permutations.  That does not take into consideration the 100,000 words in English.

So it looks as if there is plenty of acreage in the haiku playground, at least in the foreseeable future.

cat

[Don Baird]

I wonder if this doesn't begin to prove the point (if there is one),

"I don't think lone is needed, as a cry of a crow suggests singular already."

"The use of lone and lonely as become somewhat a cliché in haiku, I must have read tens of thousands of haiku using one or the other.  I feel it's best to suggest loneliness without using the word directly." ~Alan


While there are possibly 100,000 words in our vocabulary there are only a small percentage of those that we can choose and use for haiku.  We are greatly limited in words through the confines of historical structure and form demand.  I think this may have been what was frustrating Basho of which he made clear in a few of his quips/comments, apparently.

If we're getting close to cliche regarding many of our words for use in haiku are we also on the brink of running out of options for writing such a genre?  The thought remains interesting to ponder.

best,

Don

[AlanSummers]

Hi Don,

I don't think we are running out of word, or phrases. ;-)

English is rich enough for us to use concrete images to denote loneliness, even though a single cry etc... may have been used, just using the singlular of something could suggest we are alone with just one bird, flower etc...

I'm constantly surprised at the freshness of ELhaiku even though close to a million have possibly been composed so far. ;-)

Alan

[Peter Yovu]

If one's perception is fresh, the words will take care of themselves. Sometimes it's good to take off those haiku-colored glasses. 

[AlanSummers]

Hi Peter,

I agree. 

Good writing is good writing and we must always strive to stay away from cliché and other traps.  It's often a misconception, whether haikai, short fiction, or other writing, that a well-known phrase or word strengthens a piece of writing. 

I feel good writing is where the writer is pushed forward, whether or not they realise they want to be stretched as readers.

Alan

If one's perception is fresh, the words will take care of themselves. Sometimes it's good to take off those haiku-colored glasses. 

[chibi575]

Haiku colored glasses... could I borrow yours?

Wouldn't that be a great way to see another's point of view?

8)

[Don Baird]

Hi Don,

I don't think we are running out of word, or phrases. ;-)

English is rich enough for us to use concrete images to denote loneliness, even though a single cry etc... may have been used, just using the singlular of something could suggest we are alone with just one bird, flower etc...

I'm constantly surprised at the freshness of ELhaiku even though close to a million have possibly been composed so far. ;-)

Alan

Personally, Alan, I agree ... but, it is an interesting question and one that deals directly with math ... which therefore, attracts my eye.  While this question being inherently one of poetry and therefore creativity, it is also one of math ... is the clock ticking on haiku?

I say no.  But, will poets 500 hunred years from now be able to say no?  I'm not looking short range here  (barring that we don't blow ourselves up before the question can be answered over time)!!!

best to you,

Don

[Don Baird]

Haiku colored glasses... could I borrow yours?

Wouldn't that be a great way to see another's point of view?

8)

Chibi,

I'll take light green please!   8)

[Lorin]

While there are possibly 100,000 words in our vocabulary there are only a small percentage of those that we can choose and use for haiku.  We are greatly limited in words through the confines of historical structure and form demand.  I think this may have been what was frustrating Basho of which he made clear in a few of his quips/comments, apparently.

If we're getting close to cliche regarding many of our words for use in haiku are we also on the brink of running out of options for writing such a genre?  The thought remains interesting to ponder.

best,

Don

"We are greatly limited in words through the confines of historical structure and form demand.  I think this may have been what was frustrating Basho of which he made clear in a few of his quips/comments, apparently." - Don

So, what did Basho do? He kept changing the focus, or 'the rules' whenever things looked like becoming cliched. He expanded the topics that could be included in renga, he challenged the notions of what kind of language was acceptable, his 'haikai aesthetics' changed over time. (...leaving, it's true, every time he moved on, annoyed former disciples who wanted to hang on to his earlier positions and make them 'the rules'.  8)   )

- Lorin

[AlanSummers]

Hi Don,

I wonder if haikai poets hundreds of years back wondered the same? ;-)

Haikai had added subject matter (always useful for increasing vocabulary) when rapid enforced industrialisation occurred.

Five hundred years from now we will have advanced technology and moonbases and Mars bases etc...  I don't think haiku will get exhausted somehow. ;-)


mars landing-
a tendril of red dust
shifts from a footfall


Publications credits:
tinywords (2007); Dylan Tweney, Practical Haiku (ebook 2010); Montage online July 19 (2010)


Alan

Hi Don,

I don't think we are running out of word, or phrases. ;-)

English is rich enough for us to use concrete images to denote loneliness, even though a single cry etc... may have been used, just using the singlular of something could suggest we are alone with just one bird, flower etc...

I'm constantly surprised at the freshness of ELhaiku even though close to a million have possibly been composed so far. ;-)

Alan

Personally, Alan, I agree ... but, it is an interesting question and one that deals directly with math ... which therefore, attracts my eye.  While this question being inherently one of poetry and therefore creativity, it is also one of math ... is the clock ticking on haiku?

I say no.  But, will poets 500 hunred years from now be able to say no?  I'm not looking short range here  (barring that we don't blow ourselves up before the question can be answered over time)!!!

best to you,

Don

[chibi575]

Bashou a bad boy? Bashou the appropriator!  

Do you know of the speculation that Bashou was an imperial spy?  Traveling the provences of mainland Japan, gathering info.  As the story goes, he was actually poisoned on his last return trip from the interior as he was discovered.  Then there are stories of his alternative life-style, didn't get married, traveled with a male companion.  I was told these stories while I was in Japan. Has anyone else heard of these?

Example:
http://herohirop5.exblog.jp/5395333/

But the stories told me were in 2002 and 2003, some by poets others by new friends I met in Japan.

I think it was stories built on stories, but, Bashou did die mysteriously or at least there was some mystery surrounding his death from food poisoning.

No doubt he has gone down in history more as a haijin rather than a ninja.

;D