Hi Mary,
I do like Paul's version of his original haiku.
It's a simple but very effective way of banging two images together, but also introducing camparison techinques such as simile or metaphor.
I love it! ;-)
re punctuation:
First of all, writers would probably bring in their pre-haiku habits to haiku, so that could be one reason why a punctuation such as a semi-colon is used midway in a line because in prose it would, obviously, in the middle of a sentence.
Haiku can be prose poetry as well, so that's understandable.
It could also have been used to show a different style to the otherwise standard format of day. A lot of fads and trends have come and gone over the decades, and there was a mid-middle line punctuation fad, whether correctly used or not.
I'll have to look through my edition of the Haiku Anthology to see if there are any as such.
I wouldn't worry about thinking haiku HAVE TO HAVE end punctuation. If a poem works for you that's great, if it doesn't, it could be you have stretched enough as a reader. I don't mean that in a personal way by the way! ;-) I'm reminded of my friend and colleague (and for a year, my lecturer for my Masters Degree) who said when she started young she made her read difficult poetry she didn't understand.
There was a fad of always having a dash of some kind to shout out
here's my fragment one line separating my phrasal two lines! ;-)
Good writing in poetry doesn't always need to have punctuation. Look at how so many of the New York poets dispensed with formal lines etc...
You mention:
I have only recently come across the idea that, in cases in which the "2/3 unit" comes first, a poet might start the image of the "1/3 unit" in the "2/3 unit" by using a semicolon (or comma)—and call it kireji.Do you mean by the 2/3 unit, that sometimes you see a haiku that starts with a two line phrase and ends with a fragment? If so, that's fine. the writer has split the haiku in two as is usual: it doesn't matter if the fragment one line comes first or not, we're just used to seeing that formula, that's all.
So although we often like to term our Western ways as breaking haiku into parts by using a kireji, I'm not sure we can accurately term it a kireji, merely a line break or punctuation mark such as a dash, ellipsis, semi-colon or colon etc... But I do feel we can achieve a darned good version of kire, which is another matter.
You conclude my asking:
Does this pretty much only happen in poems in the 5/7/5 format? Alan, is this why you say There used to be a lot of haiku writers that used mid-line punctuation
?[/i]
It wasn't to do with 575ers, although I'm sure that could be a good reason as well. It might be that some haiku were long in words, as they had to be for 575, or just long in words even if they weren't following the 575 format.
As a female Japanese haiku writer will often speak her haiku out in six seconds, as do many Western and other non-Japanese haiku writers, and a male Japanese haiku writer may well read out their haiku in three seconds flat, the idea of 575 in the English-language got a bit silly in my opinion.
Yes, there were a lot of over wordy verbose haiku whether in 575 or not, and it probably screamed out for punctuation. Japanese haiku do have grammer/punctuation but as words not symbols, and often they are at the end of a line.
As you've read, there are a lot of reasons why English-language punctuation is used. Paul gives a good example of what his original haiku was, and how he would write it today.
Punctuation should come in afterwards, if necessary, not as an after-thought, but just part of the later process of editing.
The main thing is to write, write, write. ;-)
The more you write, and the more you read both modern and contemporary haiku, both Japanese in translation, and English-language haiku, the more you will develop your own style.
Whether punctuation comes at the end, or the middle, or a 2/3 form etc... isn't important.
I've read over 250,000 haiku by my reckoning, and I can't stop there, I have to keep reading quality haiku all the time, as do poets across the genres and forms: it's a need for a poet to read well and widely, as well as to write well and widely across the different styles.
Thanks for the question Mary! I know it won't feel answered, and that's okay. It's not good to know all the answers, but it's good to know a lot of questions, and to keep questioning.
Alan
folded umbrellas
a swan tucks itself
in the rain
Oh, I love this version monstrously, Paul!
I'm still puzzling about the use of any punctuation anywhere but at the end of a line, though. Let me put it another way: it seems that the most common structure for EL haiku these days is three lines, two of which form a contained and fluid syntactical unit. (Stanford M. Forrester very cleverly used three toy blocks of two colors to demonstrate this in a workshop I attended with him a few years ago). I have only recently come across the idea that, in cases in which the "2/3 unit" comes first, a poet might start the image of the "1/3 unit" in the "2/3 unit" by using a semicolon (or comma)—and call it kireji. Does this pretty much only happen in poems in the 5/7/5 format? Alan, is this why you say There used to be a lot of haiku writers that used mid-line punctuation
?