O Pinions!

Haiku rant

A response to Santeven Quokklaus "Note: Questions without notice to poets: I know what t...":

1) Does the syllable follow in English? If not, what does?

As you know... Japanese does not count syllables, nor is it a metered language like Norwegian. Syllables are too 'heavy' in English. Spanish, however, is much better as it's a 5 vowel language like Japanese and cvc syllables can be avoided. Too many cccvcc words in English. 'stretch' comes to mind.

2) Does the last line have to relate to nature or the natural world?

Westerners do not understand the concept of concrete language, especially if they are educated and think abstractions are somehow better. Abstractions are 'death' to haiku. Nature has plenty of concrete images. Basho, Buson, Issa (three of the Greats) looked around, saw the juxtaposition of two sensual images and noted the emotion it evoked. They lived in the present and recorded reality as they experienced it.

a blast of wind —
saggy pants stoop to pick up
scattered red leaves

Well... at least this is current and not based on mythical figures amid cherry blossoms. The season could be autumn in temperate zones but dry season elsewhere. It may actually evoke some emotion as people with 'saggy pants' are looked down upon.

3) Do these rules count for other languages that are not English or Japanese?

A ghazal has rules. A sonnet has rules. Short stories have word counts, as do essays. YET, English speakers feel free to bastardize a serious Japanese form because it's difficult and inconvenient. It's NOT a child's game played by 5th grade teachers with 10 year olds. Tankas were serious parlor games over 1000 years ago. The English were speaking what language? Doing what? Pillage and wars for fun?

Other languages? Are they as arrogant as the Empire and its Colonies?

The hokku gives rise to haiku, haibun, haiga, senryu, renga, tanka, etc. Yes, I sound pedantic; but, the owners of WDC contests and editors of magazines are likewise rigid. Wrong color, wrong font, submitted one minute late, revised after midnight even though it took me a week to read it, time stamp counts more than content, 51 not 50 words, word count not given, READ THE RULES, not exactly 100 words, 5.000 isn't flash fiction! nor is it a novelette! And the worse: points off for dialect spellings that my spell-check can't handle. James Joyce would have been disqualified from many contests here because he was Irish not English. Emily D would have been sent home for bad behavior by breaking rules.

If someone here wants to have fun let them have fun. If someone wants to run a contest for children they have that right. But... I'm a serious adult and writer-because-I-write.

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