[Janet Kenny]

Kevin and Steven,
My "prejudice" isn't that but is based on the nature of language. (I leave aside the aspect of haiku that depends on meaningful calligraphy, graphics i.e. pictographs--not spelling as we know it.)
The nature of form as expression. Expression grows out of the nature of the word.
I think translated haiku are just descriptions of a haiku rather than translations.

I should add that I am seriously interested in Japanese "art" in so far as I have been able to access it through translation, visual art and film. I have read the writing (translated prose) of Tanizaki (a great internationalist as well as nationalist) and I find it difficult to believe that he would disagree with what I say here.

I am discussing the nature of what poetry is rather than attacking haiku.
Janet


[This message has been edited by Janet Kenny (edited April 17, 2005).]

[Patricia A. Marsh]

Originally posted by Chris Childers:
Patricia, I had the impression somehow you had bought a book on the cinquain form itself.

What does Lew Turco say about this form? Surely if there's anything more to it than syllable count he would mention it?

Turco says:

The CINQUAIN is a twentieth-century American syllabic form invented by Adelaide Crapsey. Originally accentual-syllabic, her quintet form consisted, in the first line, of one iamb; in the second, of two iambs; in the third, of three; in the fourth, of four, and in the fifth, of one iamb again. It soon evolved into a syllabic form, somewhat analogous to the Japanese tanka, having line counts of 2-4-6-8-2 syllables, respectively.

<dd>This anonymous poem was originally written in Gaelic, but the form into which it is cast here is an anomaly and an anachronism. With next to no tampering, the poem fell into the form of the cinquain. One of the ancient Irish bardic devices we would today call the circle-back: a poem ended with the same word with which it began. This version keeps that requirement since it ends with the word "Devil," which contains the word "evil":

Evil It Is

Evil
It is to shun
The King of Righteousness
And to make a compact with the
Devil.

<dd><dd>---Anonymous

[Jerry Glenn Hartwig]

Steven

I see haiku bias as having the same root as FV bias - because some people have gotten the idea they can write in any manner they wish, without regard to structure or convention - and call it haiku (or free verse). as a result, the majority turn out very poor poetry.

Haiku has certain requirements:

brevity
immediacy
spontaneity
imagery
kigo (seasonal reference)
If it lacks a seasonal reference, it's considered senryu. Senryu still must maintain the other requirements.
natural world reference
sudden illumination

If you don't meet these requirements, it's not haiku. I agree we have to make compensation for the language difference: Yuasa used a four line form when translating Issa, because it comes closer to approximating the natural rhythm of the English language. Others have advocated, which I tend to agree with, a 4-6-4 pattern.

Whatever one chooses, however, one needs to work in the structure. I've seen too many self-claimed poets ignore structure completely, because it's easier to write without restrictions, and they ignorantly call it haiku. The same applies to so-called FV.

BTW, Basho did not invent haiku; haiku is the 'starting verse' for the tanka. Basho was merely the one who is credited as pioneering haiku as an independent form.

In the same vein, I have no problems with cinquains, although I've seen very few polished ones. There's more to it than syllable count. Let's not knock a form just because a large group of people can't do it properly *grin*


[This message has been edited by Jerry Glenn Hartwig (edited April 17, 2005).]

[Steven Schroeder]

I'm in agreement with you about the anything-goes "haiku" contributing to low regard for the haiku, Jerry.

I don't think it's possible to take the cinquain seriously because there aren't any certifiable Great Poems in the form. Sonnets? Lots. Even villanelles or sestinas? Sure, some. Triolets? Uhhhh, can't think of one. Cinquains? Nope. So maybe the challenge should be "Write the Great English-Language Cinquain" (or Triolet, as you wish).

------------------
Steve Schroeder

[Janet Kenny]

I gather nobody is interested but we have deep cultural roots in common with Latin languages.
Not that anybody seems to think that matters.
Janet

[Robert E. Jordan]

To get an idea why haiku cannot be written in English, go to http://home.inter.net/kenbutler/tendifferences.html and look at the vast differences between the two languages.

Bobby

[Kevin Andrew Murphy]

I don't think it's the "Great Poem" bar so much as the difficulty bar--consider the double-dactyl, which was invented much more recently than the cinquain, but's generally held in higher regard at least by formalists--though admittedly, I know of no double-dactyl journals.

Besides which, while you can get two poets to concur that any given poem is a "Great Poem," getting a roomful to do so is a bit more of a trick. The best you're likely to do is to get the detractors to agree that the poem is a very good poem that's ridiculously famous and popular.

On the business earlier of summing down Paradise Lost into a haiku, a friend taught me a similar game where she summed down famous poems into limericks, and I don't see why we couldn't do that with the cinquain.

However, the trouble with such things is that they at most give you the cliff notes or a quip, not the feel of the original.

[nyctom]

And Michael, surely you are just adding to the "considerable clatter" by this thread! You have perversely insured talk on the cinquain will continue into another week!

How Foucaultan.

Michael Cantor: I don't know about hookers in Times Square. I've seen some since Times Square became a gaudy tawdry hell hole that I avoid at all costs--or at least some I have assumed were hookers--but certainly not the number when it was a tawdry hell hole in a much more interesting way. Ah, nostalgia!

Form is simply that: a form, a way to shape content. I can't see the point in the wholesale condemnation of entire form--a good poem can come in any imaginable form.

I think the problem with elevating a form at the expense of all other possible aspects of a poem--like, fer instance, the content--is that it turns the form into a recipe. And all too often, when this has become the case, it feels like the resulting poem was written by a particularly tyrannical cook...

[Janet Kenny]

Continuing my soliloquy:
Tom said:I think the problem with elevating a form at the expense of all other possible aspects of a poem--like, fer instance, the content--is that it turns the form into a recipe. And all too often, when this has become the case, it feels like the resulting poem was written by a particularly tyrannical cook...

I agree entirely. But good use of traditional form is simply as natural as syntax. It happens rather than is contrived.

All poems/objects/sounds are forms.
I think Adelaide Crapsey missed the point. A haiku "happens" to a Japanese Haiku writer. Never to a non-Japanese. Her alleged substitute was a half-realisation of that fact. A miss is as good as a mile. There are plenty of succinct English poems and always have been.
Janet

[Patricia A. Marsh]

Originally posted by Janet Kenny:

< snip >


I think Adelaide Crapsey missed the point. A haiku "happens" to a Japanese Haiku writer. Never to a non-Japanese. Her alleged substitute was a half-realisation of that fact. A miss is as good as a mile. There are plenty of succinct English poems and always have been.
Janet

"alleged substitute"? "half-realisation"? "A miss is as good as a mile."? "...<u>Crapsey</u> missed the point."? [emphasis added]

What <u>is</u> the point, Janet?

"Cinquains may hold a place in Western poetry which is similar to haiku, but cinquains are not just a Western form of haiku. [emphasis added] Crapsey did in fact translate a number of haiku and learned a great deal from them. On the other hand.... She invented cinquains on the basis of her profound studies in English metrics [Crapsey, Adelaide. A Study of English Metrics. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1918.]. ..."

<dd><dd><dd><dd>--Denis Garrison

Have you read Ms. Crapsey's studies in English Metrics? I read--somewhere online--that she considered her life's work to be the scientific study of metrics and that writing poetry was secondary in her life. When I checked amazon.com the other day, there were some used collector's copies of her Study in English Metrics available. Would love to have a copy . . . might learn something . . . but . . .



[This message has been edited by Patricia A. Marsh (edited April 17, 2005).]