aglew@ccvaxa.UUCP (03/09/86)
This is not a poem, nor even an attempt at one. This is a request for help and advice. In grade 6, which seems now an amazingly long time ago, I started reading Japanese poetry; since then, I have rarely been able to write anything longer than 6 lines. If I attempt rhyme, it sounds painfully like a limerick. Has anyone else ever had such a problem, or has anyone any advice on how to transcend haiku? (You know what this newsgroup needs? Critics! Or at least reviewers.)
sara@mhuxj.UUCP (TRIGS) (03/12/86)
> > This is not a poem, nor even an attempt at one. This is a request for help > and advice. In grade 6, which seems now an amazingly long time ago, I > started reading Japanese poetry; since then, I have rarely been able to > write anything longer than 6 lines. If I attempt rhyme, it sounds One way to transcend haiku is to get in touch with the sources of western poetry. Haiku is a specific form tailored to the requirements of the Japanese language and is really unworkable in English. For one thing, it requires an ear attuned to syllabic verse, and it is arguable that all syllabic experiments in English have failed, or at least succeeded accidently as accentual-syllabic verse. Most western imitators of haiku do not really understand its conventions, such as the requirement that the subject matter be natural. This would exclude, for instance, what is perhaps the best "haiku" in English, Ezra Pound's "Station in the Metro," which turns on a very western and ironic comparison of the modern industrial world with the natural world. By the way, I am certainly not suggesting that Pound shouldn't have written such a poem-- simply that we should get over pretending that such poems are in any but a superficial way haiku. One might compare Picasso's opportunistic use of primative art as a source of inspiration for his own very western productions. Haiku is in this respect the legitimate domain of the western "culture collector." Being deceptively simple, it is easily mistaught to grade school students. But perhaps what we need now is more stress on syntax, what Donald Davie called "articulate energy." This is capable, in the western tradition, of sustaining larger structures and perhaps powering us beyond the facile "modernism" under whose sway so many of us began writing poetry. --Jeffery Alan Triggs > anyone any advice on how to transcend haiku? > > (You know what this newsgroup needs? Critics! Or at least reviewers.) *** REPLACE THIS LINE WITH YOUR MESSAGE ***
krantz@csd2.UUCP (Michaelntz) (03/15/86)
> This would exclude, for instance, >what is perhaps the best "haiku" in English, Ezra Pound's "Station in >the Metro," > --Jeffery Alan Triggs So if you're going to say something like that, the least you could do is give us the poem (it can't be *that* long... :-) - michael krantz "Springsteen, literature and thou..."
sara@mhuxj.UUCP (TRIGS) (03/17/86)
> > > This would exclude, for instance, > >what is perhaps the best "haiku" in English, Ezra Pound's "Station in > >the Metro," > > > --Jeffery Alan Triggs > > So if you're going to say something like that, the least you could > do is give us the poem (it can't be *that* long... :-) > > > - michael krantz > > "Springsteen, literature and thou..." u have a good point, so here it is: "In a Station of the Metro" by Ezra Pound The apparition of these faces in the crowd; Petals on a wet, black bough. In Pound's book PERSONAE this is what follows it: "Alba" As cool as the pale wet leaves of lily-of-the-valley She lay beside me in the dawn. There are a number of other fine pieces by Pound here and many fine translations from the Chinese. J.A.T.