Haiku, Take Two

[jjhunter]

The shortest form of English poetry I know comes from the Japanese: the 5-7-5 syllable lines comprising a ‘haiku’. The modern Japanese haiku in turn comes from an older form of Japanese poetry, the haikai no renga, which I will discuss later this week.

Apart from cultural differences in the usual content of a Japanese-language versus English-language haiku, there are important linguistic differences to keep in mind as well. Japanese as a language has very clear syllable counts: in the phonetic hirigana and katakana writing systems (as opposed to symbolic kanji characters) there are no characters for consonant sounds independent of vowels (with the exception of ん (‘n’) which functions as a pause syllable). English, to the contrary, is full of hidden stops and starts. For example, we count both ‘start’ and ‘starts’ as one syllable words, even though the ‘ts’ combination at the end of ‘starts’ acts as a second hidden syllable when spoken aloud, not unlike saying ‘star-tsu’.

Here is an English-language haiku I wrote for ‘tinroof’ for the haikai for codes project using a more Japanese-style syllabic count:

norm-making roots
itself in the small things: yes
you increase we

Experiment: following English into katakana: 'ts' and 'se' (sss) as separate syllables.

The upshot of transplanting the original format from Japanese is that the haiku in English doesn’t map neatly onto the usual rhyme and rhythm schemes of native English or Romance language poetry formats. It is visually distinct and instantly recognizable to a general audience without facilitating sing-song sloppiness or verbose obscurity. By its nature, it challenges the poet to be both succinct and precise, and as a result can pack a significant punch behind its deceptively simple three lines.

genealogy
of helping hands reminds us
action’s contagious

(Source: 'Poem For Your Thoughts?': Special US Voter Registration Edition fill for nagasvoice’s prompt ‘pay it forward’)

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In my opinion, the haiku’s short format makes it ideal for micro-poetry events such as my occasional How Are You? (in Haiku) days. Whether or not you have thoughts to share concerning the main content of this post, I encourage you to write a haiku in the comments responding to the following prompt:

Pick a thing or two that sums up how you're doing today, this week, in general, and tell me about it in the 5-7-5 syllables of a haiku. I will leave anonymous comments screened unless otherwise asked; feel free to use this to leave private comments if that's what you're most comfortable with.

Comments

[alee_grrl]

warm coffee and sunshine
this chill autumn day and I
am content with life

[jjhunter]

drinking love with warmth
caffeine with lazy sunbeams
life's content with you

[lnhammer]

Written last week:


until the next wave
Arcturus is reflected
in receding water

[jjhunter]

old light reflected
on youthful perturbations
conceals calm below

[cadenzamuse]

my stomach rumbles
popcorn? chicken ala king?
eat, then buckle down

[okrablossom]

Autumn wind spiral
Maple gingko furious dance
Envy the still leaf

[gramina]

The moon path leads off
between nightmares and dreams -- but
truth waits at the end.

[marina-bonomi.livejournal.com]

The fact that haiku is a non-English form and that Japanese on don't translate exactly into English syllables is the reason why I am very ill at ease with the emphasys on the 5-7-5 format when writing English haiku.
Many of the 5-7-5 ones feel 'padded' to me rather than concise.

daybreak
suddenly still
the wind.

[jjhunter]

Many of the 5-7-5 ones feel 'padded' to me rather than concise.

I never quite thought about it that way - thank you for sharing your perspective.

Is the haiku you're sharing translated or originally English? Something about the grammatical implications of 'still' (versus, say, 'stills') has caught a corner of my brain, and it returns again and again to examine it.

[(Anonymous)]

Sorry, I didn't see your comment till today.

The haiku I posted was written in English, but my first language is Italian, so it is likely I twist English in strange shapes. There I meant 'still' as an adjective, as a way to suggest a possibility of correlation without stating it out loud.

[jjhunter]

Eloquently done - I really like the effect.

[marina-bonomi.livejournal.com]

Thank you. :)

[fyreharper]

halloween's coming!
excitement planning costumes,
which faces to wear

[zirconium]

A page full of rules
for writing one-line poems --
I swallow more wine.


(The funny thing is, I came across the page via a monostich contest whose judges (afaict) ignored most of the restrictions/recommendations of this particular prosodist. Which was both annoying and enlightening.)

[ariestess]

haikus are short, yes
but there are shorter forms still
the essence is one

Counting syllables

[corvus]

Haiku doesn't have to have 5-7-5 syllables. The 5-7-5 is a popular misunderstanding and an ahistorical rule. The Japanese haiku counts sound units, not syllables. They are often shorter than syllables. (To be fair, your post refers to this.) The 5-7-5 doesn't also make sense in English, because that amount of syllables contains typically more information in English than in Japanese haiku. Different languages express information differently because of word length, suffixes etc.

An early, influential haiku poet Matsuo Bashō thought that it is OK for haiku to have a few extra sound units, if it otherwise sounds right.

Having exactly 5-7-5 syllables tempts people to have unneeded words in haiku. This against the essence of haiku. Haiku must be brief.

Instead of the misleading 5-7-5 rule, how about teaching common haiku techniques like juxtaposition (kireji) or seasonal references? Writing realistic, descriptive haiku while observing things is fun, too. Masaoka Shiki did this.

More information:

• Haiku definition (Haiku Society of America)
• Why “No 5-7-5”?
• Further links