From: frank@IASTATE.EDU (Frank A Poduska)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.poems
Subject: Re: haiku -- an invitation to bookstores & libraries
Keywords: from wlod not tom
Date: 12 Aug 92 15:21:18 GMT
Article-I.D.: IASTATE.1992Aug12.102118
Reply-To: frank@IASTATE.EDU (Frank A Poduska)
Organization: Iowa State University

In article <1992Aug12.080504.12642@canon.co.uk>, wlodek%wiltel@uunet.uu.net
(Wlodzimierz Holsztynski) writes:

> > From: jaguar@netcom.com (Crazy Poem Head)


>    In the attempt to make the haiku as
>    suggestive as possible, deliberately ambiguous language was often
>    used.
> 
> 	# The above statement is outright irritating. Certainly
> 	# haiku masters don't aim at obscurity.

Often haiku were brief lines distilling several paragraphs of preceding prose.
I imagine that, without the prose, many haiku could be quite ambiguous or
obscure.

Basho once compiled a collection of haiku and rejected a poem by one of
his pupils because he misread a single character, one referring to 
some type of wooden gate. When he later realized that the character represented
a castle gate, and not a simple brushwood fence gate as he first thought,
he declared it a great poem and stopped the presses just so this one haiku
could be included.

Japanese haiku sometimes achieve brevity by the omission of what are 
in any other writing essential words - like English verbs. I don't
think that means that the writers were/are deliberately trying to be
ambiguous or obscure, but it does add those elements. What do you
make of:

  old pond frog-jump-in-sound

Sure, it paints a picture of a frog jumping in water - so what?
More precisely it paints a picture of someone hearing (if a tree fell in
the woods ...) a young frog jump into an ancient pool.
But what does it mean? Perhaps it has something to do with "youth
trying to make his mark in the world". The original is just precise
enough to show a concrete picture, ambiguous enough to let you decide the 
meaning, and suggestive enough that you and I can have different 
interpretations.
 

> 	# But things like puns are in a haiku virtually "illegal".
Faint memories remind me that Basho used an ocassional pun in his early work 
and lines from popular songs of the times
and alluded to other works. 	

> 
> 	# It's funny that the haiku feature which gives it
> 	# the easiest identity, the  5-7-5 form is also about
> 	# the least important.  Basho himself would violate
> 	# it several times. At least it gives an idea of what
> 	# haiku size should roughly be.  The demand of including
> 	# a direct or indirect indication of the season (like Spring)
> 	# is more fundamental, reflecting the unity of the nature and
> 	# human spirit -- this unity goes back to chinese poetry and
> 	# is shared with the folk poetry around the globe.  Thus it's
> 	# natural that all three mentioned kinds of poetry apply
> 	# juxtaposition as the favored device.  The state of Nature
> 	# (e.g. of weather) and equally simple statement about
> 	# a happening in someone's life are often given side by side.
> 	# It's up to you to get the rest. But when given dark
> 	# clouds in the sky you can hardly escape the gloominess
> 	# (and nobody has to tell you: feel gloomy -- in haiku they
> 	# don't).
> 	#
> 	# Haiku is recognized as a mature and refined form of art.
> 	# At the same time it seems to me to be a perfect
> 	# kindergarten ground for poetry.  Haiku style requires
> 	# that only direct, simple, straight. concrete statements
> 	# and phrases will be used, hardly any similes. Such down
> 	# to Earth phrases are considered to be a serious poetry
> 	# when & because they evoke deep emotions while never
> 	# mentioning any explicitly -- no abstractions or
> 	# generalizations are allowed in a haiku.

Excellent:
Brevity, concrete statements, seasonal reference, juxtaposition or comparison,
no explicit emotion yet deeply evocative - forget 5-7-5, *this* is haiku.

--
Frank Poduska                 frank@iastate.edu
Newsgroups: rec.arts.poems