Janet,
I feel your statement that a non-Japanese can't write a haiku needs more justification. I became interested in haiku and other oriental short forms and joined some dedicated lists where both Japanese and non-Japanese authors post.
I confess that I have read hundreds and hundreds, if not thousands and thousands, of utterly boring, drab haiku, senryu, cinquains etc, and very few that I considered successful. I once complained that most of the ku seemed to have been written by born-again florists. The problem is that many people are drawn to these forms because they look easy--they don't appreciate the extreme difficulty of writing a good one.
I mentioned elsewhere that I thought the 'spontaneity' of a haiku was often overlooked. It is not like the reflective Western Romantic tradition of 'emotion recollected in tranquillity'. With haiku, I feel the poem should feel like an immediate response to the experience--it is a celebration of the now-ness of experience. That 'spontaneity' takes enormous craft and many years to master, I suspect. If a cinquain is regarded as a Western form of the haiku, I think it requires that quality of the oriental form.
I don't usually post my own poems in General threads, but hope you will forgive me posting this one, firstly because it is a rhyming cinquain, and secondly, to lighten the mood.....
The Etcetera Cinquain
"We do not accept rhyming poetry, greeting-card verse, poems about vampires, etc." (From the submission details of Pebble Lake Review.)
Mid night:
again the thirst.
My love, I am accursed--
I will repent, recant, but first
one bite.
Regards, Maz
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