[Ernst A Kipling]

Is it considered "old-fashioned" to still count syllables?
I have noticed this is something the amateur invariably does, yet none of the published poems I see in such magazines follow the canonical numbers, except by accident.

E. A. K.

[Michael Cantor]

This is up to the individual. I'm a purist, and I count syllables. I should also mention that I lived in Japan, I speak Japanese (poorly, at this stage), I had a twenty year long business and personal connection with Japan, and on things Japanese I tend to be a traditionalist.

I find that "haiku" and "tanka" which ignore syllabic count include the following types:

1. Short three or five line poems (sometimes not even that) which - except for their brevity - bear no more relationship to any of the thinking or strictures of true haiku than a loaf of bread does to a bicycle. The writer calls it a "haiku" because it is a convenient tag and justifies such a short piece.

2. Poems which, accidentally or deliberately, fall into an even syllable count and/or iambics. They adopt Western meter. Some of these can be quite good in many ways, but I have great difficulty hearing them as haiku if there is a strong meter established. The Japanese language is much less stressed than English - a haiku is like a quiet pond (until a carp jumps) - and if the drum rolls start in L1 it is not a haiku to me.

3. Poems which, except for syllabic count, are well crafted in every way, very often work with the dual meaning or underlying sense of words, often work in irony or a wry twist - or humor - and are in every sense of the definition, except syllable count, true haiku.

Most of the "haiku" I see that ignore syllable count fall into the first category. Very few are in the third.

Michael Cantor

[Janet Kenny]

I posted this under Tim's thread. I realised it was inappropriate there so have transplanted to this thread. Michael, you must bear with me. I bow to your expertise.
__________________________________________________ _
Tim,
I don't read or speak Japanese but I have had a bit to do with Japanese visual art and music.

When I wrote (elsewhere) my reason for not accepting the haiku as an English language form I didn't know a respected haiku editor was involved.

I can't depart from an almost religious belief that form and content are indivisible. The way a sentence falls in one language is alien to another even when they share ancestral roots. For me, that makes the syllabic count of Japanese irrelevant in English. Also, I gather that Japanese is evenly stressed wheras English depends on stress.

I reiterate that the idea of what a haiku is charms me greatly. It is so organically part of Japanese speech and calligraphy I am never convinced, by even the best English poem that calls itself a haiku, that the form is translatable into the English sentence structure and also the visual loss of the calligraphy neuters the poem if it is to be compared with a Japanese haiku.

Intense short poems, on the other hand, appeal to me greatly. I feel that concept can be borrowed but not imitated. The expressive visual calligraphic aspect is entirely lost.

That said, some poems that say they are haikus are fine poems notwithstanding.
best
Janet

PS
I found this site which may be of interest.
http://www.toyomasu.com/haiku/


[This message has been edited by Janet Kenny (edited April 30, 2004).]

[Lee Gurga]

This is a reply to Michael Cantor's posting. There are several issues here:
--what is purity? or in other words, what is traditional form? ( I addressed this to some extent in my initial essay/posting)
--what to call the variety of things written today that are called by their authors (or others) "haiku"?

Let's talk about haiku first. (I will ignore tanka for now--it is not my portfolio.) Some might be expected that I would disagree with Michael's harsh judgement of today's crop of "haiku," but how can I? He is obviously correct. He seems to have applied his judgement only to haiku not written in what he has called "traditional" form. (See my introductory essay for news of that.) I would expand this conclusion to ALL "haiku" in English. In fact, more poor "haiku" are written in 17 syllables than any other form available to today's poet.

Before I address individual issues of his schema, let me introduce a different one, what is in fact a more traditional one. This one also has three groups: haiku, senryu, and zappai. Broadly, all three of these kinds of poetry are called "haikai."

Haiku developed from the opening stanza of a kind of linked verse called haikai no renga. (Hence the name "haikai".) Formally, in Japanese, there are three requirements: A seasonal word of phrase, a "cut" or caesura, and 17 "sounds" in Japanese--much different from what we call "syllables." (For example, the sound count includes grammatical markers and sounds that act as our punctuation, called kireji in Japanese.)Humor is often present in haiku, but it is normally not ironic or satirical.

Senryu developed from the interior stanzas of haikai no renga. As generally understood today, senryu may contain a seasonal reference, but it is not a technical requirement. Senryu often comment on the contradiction between human intentions and actions, often satirically or ironically. Curiously, it is quite common for Japanese Americans not working under the direction of a haiku master to call their poems "senryu" even if they technically qualify as haiku.

Zappai, also originating in the interior stanzas of haikai no renga, is a category that contains about 25 types of poems in Japanese. (Senryu was originally included in this group, but became independent in the 18th century) Zappai includes all kinds of epigrams, witticisms, and jokes,etc., often using puns for their primary effect. Much of what is presented as "haiku" today in the West, e.g., honku, haikus for jews, computer error message haiku, etc., is actually zappai. As contemporary Japanese haiku master Akito Arima as pointed out, "We live in the age of zappai."

To return to Michael's schema . . .

Group 1. He doesn't specify what kinds of poems he is referring to here, other than by pointing out their unsuitability. This could include zappai as well as poems that simply fail as poems.
Group 2. This could include poems from any of the three groups discussed above. In general, I will agree that highly stressed poems usually don't make good haiku (or senryu). However, a form based on stressed is much more likely to be successful in English than one based on counting syllables.
Group 3. Some poems are sublime whatever the failings of the poet. I would point out, however, that while a twist or gentle humor is often a part of successful haiku, heavy-handed humor almost never is. Like the other elements of haiku craft, humor must remain the tool of the poet, but never never never be the point of the poem.

Lee