Interesting Note Regarding Haiku (ORIGINAL VERSION)

The haiku discussions around the world have been thick and heavy for with ages at this point. The cool thing about an art is it's flexibility rather than necessarily it's rigidity.  However, Basho who is the hero of haiku writing more than a thousand wrote ten or more that did not refer to season.  In the last hundred years the haiku has changed subject quite a lot even in Japan.  Some excellent authors even changed the cadence so that it no longer would correlate with the traditional 5,7,5. Of course the Japanese sounds and pronunciation don't exactly work out as our syllables. Japanese poets write in onji (sounds) versus our syllables.  Their sounds would correspond better to maybe 11 or 12 of our syllables actually.  17 syllables has been the standard but doesn't really match the original intent of the Japanese Haiku structure. Originally, these were written in a single line but they are now in three..... usually two of the lines connect somehow (sentence like) and the third producing a contrast or additional thought..... all to bring an clear image into the mind.  Image to words... to image. That's the process..... a poet sees a scene... places it in words that bring the scene to life in another's mind. They are succinct and clean. Senryu has the same structure as a Haiku but it focuses on satirical human condition in general...producing humor and teasing.  Haiku focus is on nature (sometimes including humor) and usually includes a cutting word or in English a punctuation of some kind...... usually not translated.   Choka was 5,7,5,7,5 etc. to end on 7.  Sedoka was 5,7,7:5,7,7 where renga alternated 24,14 and may have gone on indefinitely...... or something like a 3,2 repetitious series. Introductions to renga were hokku but eventually were separated out on their own. Later on, they were written intentionally separate and renamed haiku. Seasons and cutting words (punctuations) were traditional catches in these little guys but the last hundred years has shown significant changes to that structure. Of course, seasons were not always specifically named as they used other references such as blossoms to indicate that. New Years was another traditional aspect of many haiku. One very old haiku is as follows:  translated of course "over the one-log bridge a child comes a dog comes: morning"    author:   Seisensui no reference to season..... "the sea a little visible I carry a small window"     author:    Hosai (umi ga sukoshi mieru chiisai mado hitotsu motsu)  in Japanese, not even 5,7,5 Shiki, a well known haiku poet wrote several hundred haiku without relating it to a season etc.  Such as the following two......... "heaven and earth's supporting column Mt. Fuji" "peeping into sight at the mountain's foot a hut ah, good water" Keep in mind that haiku is basically an "expression of a moment of vision into the nature of the world and the world of nature". Blyth In late sixteen hundreds, Shushiki wrote: "seen in a dream even awakening--color of blue flag". Yoshimura wrote: "try changing to another color of lipstick spring rain".        (hahahaha..... a modern guy that got the                     season in anyway.....hehe) Haiku are fun and great little moments of vision. Old tradition or new, they provide a wonderful way to express magical as well as silly moments in time. Hope we can all enjoy these and resist the thoughts of whether what each of us write are really haiku or not. I write some of old tradition and some of new.  It's all in good fun and for sharing personal moments and imagery. My fun haiku might describe it well: "poetic slide show haiku is the projector your mind is the screen" Thanks so much for your time. Don, haikumonkREVISED IT SLIGHTLY........ THANKS,  Monk Written February 27th, 2002 © on Feb 26 2002 07:26 PM PST, Don Baird    0 • 10