Like all good pommes, haiku is about syncing sound and sense. To transport the whole thing, relatively intact, into English, I say, forget the 5-7-5 and follow your English or American ears. That is, after all, how the Japanese arrived at it.
Whiskey on coaster.
CF card full. Soul empty.
Camera needs a drink.
I wrote some lines
as a comment on a pic —
mine? Yours? I forget.
Master poet bear
perplexes computer geek
by a line of four.
Nordlys
The "rule" 0f 5-7-5 is entirely arbitrary. No such equivalent exists (or even CAN exist) in Japanese. There is considerable debate, that swirls on and on forever, as to what constitutes a "correct" Haiku in English. Follow ZZ's advice and let your ear take you where it wishes, would be my take on the whole thing.
Actually, in one sense very few of these are even close to Haiku, which properly involve some reference to a time or a season, and need to be veiled in innuendo pretty much as well. They're very quiet little poems, meant to evoke a feeling or connection. They are antithetical to the narrative trend of modern poetry.
The "rule" 0f 5-7-5 is entirely arbitrary. No such equivalent exists (or even CAN exist) in Japanese.
Robt.
Pardon? It DOES exist in Japanese. It's a syllabic language. There are other forms of Japanese poetry, such as tanka, that also have a very specific number of syllables on each line. It is true that haiku should include a reference to the time of year.
thank you everyone for writing your haikus.
It was an absolute pleasure to read the humor, wit and intelligence, pure poetic talent.
The haiku is the essence of the poetic philosophy really, and sums up the best things about Japanese culture as viewed back from the west...
Poetry, english poetry, is essentially unlike prose in that there is economy of words, but not ideas. the three line haiku epitomizes this concept,makes your mind expand, often times more than stream of consciousness poetry.
What do I know anyway...
Thanks for playing along.
The "rule" 0f 5-7-5 is entirely arbitrary. No such equivalent exists (or even CAN exist) in Japanese. There is considerable debate, that swirls on and on forever, as to what constitutes a "correct" Haiku in English.
I agree that there is considerable debate about English Haiku, but Japanese Haiku must be 5-7-5. It is indeed arbitrary, but nevertheless part of the definition. In Japanese, anyway. :-)
Trees reaching upward,
drawing circles on the ground.
No rest for the sun.
Edit: Who can guess the season, and why? ;-) Hint #1: there is more than one correct answer; Hint #2:
Nordlys
The "rule" 0f 5-7-5 is entirely arbitrary. No such equivalent exists (or even CAN exist) in Japanese.
Robt.
Pardon? It DOES exist in Japanese. It's a syllabic language. There are other forms of Japanese poetry, such as tanka, that also have a very specific number of syllables on each line. It is true that haiku should include a reference to the time of year.
You are correct, I misspoke. The real problem is that English is NOT a "syllabic" language, so using strict syllable counts in English does not work very well as a rule.
You are correct, I misspoke. The real problem is that English is NOT a "syllabic" language, so using strict syllable counts in English does not work very well as a rule.
R.
What do you mean that English is not syllabic?? The basis of poetry in the English language, at least in the older style is metre, such as iambic metre, which is based on syllables. The reason I teach Haikun to children aged 7 upwards is to help them discover syllables!
You are correct, I misspoke. The real problem is that English is NOT a "syllabic" language, so using strict syllable counts in English does not work very well as a rule.
R.
What do you mean that English is not syllabic?? The basis of poetry in the English language, at least in the older style is metre, such as iambic metre, which is based on syllables. The reason I teach Haikun to children aged 7 upwards is to help them discover syllables!
True syllabic verse is very rare in the English language. Our units, as it were, tend to be stresses, not syllables. For example, it is theoretically possible for a line of iambic pentameter to have 15 syllables and only 5 "feet", with 5 stresses, if all of them are tri-syllabic feet like the anapest or the dactyl, although that's extreme.
We "measure" our verse by stresses, not syllables, and our speech is patterned likewise.
ANy/thing LESS / than the TRUTH / beCOMES / too MUCH : 11 syllables, 5 feet/stresses, iambic pentameter starting with a trochee and with an anapest in the 3rd foot, the other 3 feet iambs.
Your BOD/y is STARS, / whose MIL/lion GLIT/ter HERE : 4 iambs, anapestic second foot, 11 syllables.
BREAK, // BREAK, // BREAK //
On thy COLD / gray STONES,/ o SEA!
And I WOULD / that my TONGUE / could UTter
The THOUGHTS / that aRISE / in ME.
In the example from Tennyson, above, each line is "trimeter", having 3 stresses, but the syllable counts are 3, 7, 9, 7. As the poem continues, it is seen that the basic form is anapestic trimeter, but Tennyson (a master metricist, and a very innovative one) plays fast and loose with his form. The first line is interesting, because it is masically 3 trochees, with a "caesura" (an emphatic pause) between each word and at the end of the line serving as the seond, unstressed syllable to each foot.
So yes, speaking of poetry, it's accurate to say English is not an especially syllabic language. It is much more aurally expressive than that.
