Janet, your response seems to patronise those of us who find some pleasure in reading (or trying to write) haiku. Apparently you know better.
If a haiku type of sensibility or juxtaposition of images produces some pleasing poems in English, why attack the idea on theoretical grounds? I don’t think you did voice those objections to Lee Gurga last year, or at least not publicly in
this thread where you posted two haiku of your own. If you’re so convinced we are all wrong, surely you owe it to him to put him right too?
Re the cinquain, as Patricia has mentioned a couple of times, Crapsey conceived it as a
metrical form (1,2,3,4,1 beats) and it subsequently (in Turco’s words)
evolved into a syllabic form, somewhat analogous to the Japanese tanka. I don’t know if that “evolving” was by Crapsey’s choice, but I suspect not. The examples of her work over on the other thread include some which, because of metrical variation, don’t fit the 2,4,6,8,2 syllabic pattern but do maintain the 1,2,3,4,1 beat pattern. Here are a couple of them.
The Guarded Wound
If it
Were lighter touch
Than petal of flower resting
On grass, oh still too heavy it were,
Too heavy!
Fate Defied
As it
Were tissue of silver
I'll wear, O fate, thy grey,
And go mistily radiant, clad
Like the moon.
The first has 2,4,8,9,3 syllables, the second 2,6,6,9,3, but obviously the metrical 1,2,3,4,1 pattern is maintained in both. So it seems clear Crapsey was treating this as a metrical, not a syllabic form when she wrote those pieces.
These examples do illustrate what I would say is the real weakness of the form — the L1-2 break can easily seem forced and unnatural after such a short line. Someone has already commented on the line-break difficulties, but this L1-2 seems to be the major problem. Both the above poems would read better to me with L1 and L2 run together.
Henry
[This message has been edited by Henry Quince (edited April 18, 2005).]