Quote:
Originally posted by David Rosenthal:
Lee,
All right, I confess that the strict 5-7-5 and the complete sentences are irresistible compulsions for which I have little defense. I will say they are useful constraints in the first stages of composition for me in that they help me dig for word choice and keep the imagery to a necessary minimum. But you are convincing me to drop them during revision. Excuse me now while I go back over every haiku I have ever written and try to re-flush the turds.
Thanks again Lee, sometimes I need to be pushed. I am grateful.
David R.
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David, I only have one hope in my visit here--to try to help you and me to become better poets, understanding full well that many of you are better poets than i am. A haiku is a POEM, not a sweetened turd cut with a cookie cutter. Like any poem, it must stand up to scrutiny as a POEM. If it can't then poets has failed, no matter how "pure" they think they are being. Even if one views haiku as merely a form, surely there is some variation in all forms. Is there no metrical variation in Shakespeare's sonnets? Basho had the sense to know when to violate this formal norm. Why can't we?
And there is another issue, one that i mentioned briefly the other day, the difference between japanese sounds and english syllables. Here is a quote from Harold Henderson who was a professor of japanese literature at columbia university and the "godfather" of the haiku society of america:
"Suppose, for example, that it is agreed to accept the 5-7-5 form as a norm. Should we count "syllables" as the Japanese do, or as we normally do in English poetry? Is is desirable, or even possible, to count syllables in our way? And yet if we count syllables our way, making no distinctions between long or short ones, and ignoring the effect of clustered consonants, are we not being quite heedless of the norm of "duration" in a Japanese line?"
Please let me repeat: "Is it desirable, or even possible, to count syllables in our way?" This was published in 1963. Why has the "formal" american poetry community been completely deaf to this informed view for over 40 years? It is beyond me.
I hope you continue to enjoy writing (and revising!) haiku. I am not here to impose my view on any poet or poem, but as the poet, you bear the responsibility for every letter of every word in your poems. It is not a responsibility that can be abrogated because the form dictates to you.
Hope this doesn't sound too harsh!
Lee