Studio8 - Uniting the Arts

One of the reasons I so love Paul Reps (you can go to Litkicks articles and see "Weightless Gifts" if you like...my html is not up to par to link it) is not only that he brought the haiku form to the west but mainly because he was never constrained or tied by the Eastern rules and form of haiku.

The strick format that is taught in our schools (if it is taught at all) is of a 5-7-5 syllabic count in three lines or at most 17 syllables or less in the entirety of the haiku with a seasonal word. What follows and what I am about to express is my opinion (you are forwarned.)

The beauty of Reps was that he followed no rules (he actually illustrated his haikus too!) and thus, I am influenced by this man I so greatly admire. For years and until the last few, I wrote in the prescibed format, 5-7-5, although I never felt compelled to use the 'kigo' or seasonal word and this is true for most modern western haiku. I believe (frevently) that using the 5-7-5 format is good practice for the student of haiku (I will always be the student) but breaking away from that form or even the three liner is very freeing, if you understand the essense of what haiku is. In the meantime, it is like zazen, sitting in meditation, counting syallables like breaths.

Haiku is simple, haiku essense is not. Simply not... To me, a good haiku is not just a long sentence broken up and I see a lot of that. (But, haiku "making" should always be fun and I would encourage any and all to attempt haiku because one never knows when the AHah! moment will strike. ) For me, like my master Reps (and Basho, of course) the fewer the words the better. Haiku is like a good bourbon, distilled for the best taste, and when you take a sip, you go...Aaaahhhh! It leaves an impression of that moment.

Good haiku is now, in the now, right now, NOW! Good haiku paints a picture. Really good haiku is a rarity, like a rare bird glimpsed through the mind's eye, beautiful and/or tragic. Whether it be the spit on the street or a moon rise over a pine, there is always beauty to be found in the shine of each.

Good haiku usually leaves the haijin (haiku-ist or writer) as the storyteller and not part of the story. Ahah! But as with any haiku rule, please feel free to break it! I do, knowing that I am interjecting myself into a picture that would probably be better off without my ego self in it. Sometimes, it just cannot be helped and neither can I.

I would love to hear your thoughts or comments or disagreements and wish I had more time right now to continue this discussion, if it will be discussed...

momma grackle
with three fledglings-
she poops!

SooZen

sooz...........always good to see your writing, this is how i feel with regards to haiku form 5-7-5....bottom line is that the languages are so different that the rule cannot hold in english, we have our own brand of haiku and in essence it is just that, maybe we should call em hi-koo's..........also i keep a copy of zen flesh-zen bones shambahla pocket version in pocket whenever i go out these daze...........and as a for basho just check out my web site call letters...... http://www.phantomdwellingplace.com ..... it's from a story of basho's translated in the 4 huts by burton watson

parking lot heat
baseball box office
cranes in a drainage canal

Mark...I know we are always on the same wavelength and always good to see you too!

Jimbo, thank you for the ku.

Wish there was more discussion of haiku in Haiku. Ah well, life goes on...

apple tree
branches loaded
pie awaits

SooZ

artisans' commune
weld and weave
fiber and steel

not sure what numer this is. a couple hundred on litkics. How many monkeys does it take to turn out the occasional ku.

these are a rural/urban sceene maybe.

Wind
Trees
Tallgrass

12'x15' white walls
Cathode ray tube
A/C white noise

Sky
Horizon
Clouds

Soul withers
Life diminishes
Full ashtray

South East Breeze
Gulf coast sea smell
Dark smudges of clouds

back home
thunder
need rain

Edit begins here.

SooZen I posted this before I read the Reps article (thanks judih)

What I was thinking when I wrote them was brush strokes, god i wish i could write these with brush strokes, so much beauty in the strokes and all I got is thise lousy fonts.

That is why I was doing the TALL and green thing and then I read this

his brush paintings, frequently done on the spot, to replace the haiku he sold. Because Chinese and Japanese letters are in themselves word pictures, Paul tried to bridge the gap in his haiku with his brush painting calligraphy; it is ingenious and solves the problem neatly. Paul felt that these ink patterns offered another wider dimension to the haiku it illustrated but it was the words, themselves, that he believed were the most important. Some of his haiku consist of just one, two or three words, succinct and pointed.

SooZen, that is the best thing I have ever read on Haiku, of course I have not read that much. Thank you for that article, most helpful.

another edit

Not entirely true about not reading Reps article. I had read the first part but not the bit about the brush strokes. The haiku (if they are haiku) I wrote were inspired by the first part of the article.
Economy of haiku

POP

eyes and words
bread pieces on the grass
flashing birds

fast clouds
wind, plastic glasses and films
river behind the trees

sparrow news -
broadcasting
ripe pomegranates

***

full moon
with sunrise
coffee express

***

hummingbird
buzzes empty feeder
then my face

***

brave finch
on telephone wire
dares sparrow hawk

full moon
with sunrise
coffee express

full moon
false dawn
faint rainbow
morning walk

still trucking
a curve up a hill
ah the crest and
coasting along for miles

i dug this one up because i still believe it...

hai!

anybody wanna discuss

ku?

I want to live it sooZen
Cause I believe in it too



Trying to figure out the difference between SENRYU and Haiku.


Is this a Senryu?
I awoke from a nightmare with Kafka’s blues

As Kerouac explains the way to write Haiku here in the west is very different than in Japan, because of the structural difference in language. He proposes that it is unreasonable to hold western poets to the 17 syllable structure because the Japanese language is nonsyllabic and non linear. The important parts of Haiku for us to observe is the spirit of the thing not the structure......

haiku grounded in nature
the madness of this world is
we think we are above nature
we are removed from nature
vanity is all there is

sooZen and judih took me by the hand six or seven years ago when I was taking baby steps into zen
I sitll been falling on my ass
trying to walk the walk
and I am still not even a novice
but something about haiku
something neurological
I remember the first haiku I read on litkicks that went off inside my head like a atomic flash
just simple little poem about leafy shadows on a side walk

just random thoughts off the top of my head
or perhaps the bottom