Haiku Quest

[Ozymandias]

Where do I sign up???

[Vlad]

Forgive me if this seems a bit choppy, but I'm cramped for time, and most of this is taken directly from websites.

 

 

History of Haiku

 

In Japan, short poems have a long history. The earliest Japanese poetry, such as that of the Manyoshu, written in 759 A.D., includes stirring narrative, dramatic and short lyrical poems which scholars believe were originally written as part of the pre-Buddhist or early Shinto ceremonial rituals (Haiku). This includes prayers to celebrate and pacify the gods, for safe voyages, formal eulogies on the death of an Emperor or Empress and various rituals.

 

The 5 syllable, 7 syllable, 5 syllable haiku has evolved and been reinvented many times over the centuries. One such form is the 31 syllable “waka” composed of five 5-7-5-7-7 syllable phrases. Developed as the early imperial court of the late eighth century consolidated cultural, social and political forms, the waka took its place as one of the important regularized poetic forms of the period. Within imperial circles, minor officials and scribes gained recognition as poem-providers and word specialists due to their ability to compose waka (Haiku).

 

In Brazil, sometimes people like to write haiku using "Guilherme de Almeida style". This means a haiku with the rhyme following the rule taught by a famous Brazilian writer named Guilherme de Almeida (one of the first to introduce haiku poetry in Portuguese). It has a rich kind of rhyme that goes like this:

 

(X rimes with X and O rimes with O)

 

- - - - X

- O - - - - O

- - - - X

 

When writing haiku, one idea is the organic nature of the arrangement of poetic lines. This is how well they reflect the voice of the poet reading them. Different people will read even the most common of sentences differently and will naturally pause in different places. This is the organic aspect. People can use commas, extended spaces and line breaks to accurately reflect the pauses in the voice between sets of words, i.e. the mouthful, between difficult syllabic combinations, or for personal inflections or style. In theory then, a reader could capture these subtle nuances that the writer places upon the words and the meaning of the Haiku by reading the piece with sensitive attentions to a shifting of emphasis through spacing, subordination, or the stretching of lines with additional space between its words or phrases.

 

Because of these rhythmic structures, Japanese haiku and tanka can be memorized with little or no effort, which is one of the major reasons for the longevity of these literary forms. On the other hand, there is no such inherent mnemonic quality to 5-7-5 English haiku, which are indeed difficult to commit to memory. Moreover, there is no discernible rhythmic structure to such an arrangement, due to the disparate length of English syllables. (The mnemonic quality of 5-7-5 Japanese phrases is much closer to that of metered rhymes in English.) These factors combined with the fact that English carries significantly more information per syllable than Japanese indicate that using the 5-7-5 form does not necessarily provide an analogous condition for writing haiku in English.

This is not to say, however, that all who write in 5-7-5 should stop doing so. The 5-7-5 English haiku as a derivative of Japanese haiku has its place in the world of poetry, just as 5-7-5 Chinese haiku is another such derivative, seemingly containing about three times as much information as a Japanese haiku.

 

Today, many bilingual poets and translators in the mainstream North American haiku scene agree that something in the vicinity of 11 English syllables is a suitable approximation of 17 Japanese syllables, in order to convey the brevity and fragmented quality found in Japanese haiku. As to the form, some American poets advocate writing in 3-5-3 syllables or 2-3-2 accented beats. While rigid structuring can be accomplished in 5-7-5 haiku with relative ease due to a greater degree of freedom provided by the extra syllables, such structuring in shorter haiku will have the effect of imposing much more stringent rules on English haiku than on Japanese haiku, thereby severely limiting its potential.

 

The cutting divides the Haiku into two parts, with a certain imaginative distance between the two sections, but the two sections must remain, to a degree, independent of each other. Both sections must enrich the understanding of the other. To make this cutting in English, either the first or the second line ends normally with a colon, long dash or ellipsis.

 

As explained above, 5-7-5 segmentation is not a division based on content as people think of it in English. Strictly in terms of content, the classic Japanese haiku are composed of two major parts of varying lengths, such as 5-12, 12-5, 8-9, 9-8, 7-10, and 10-7, in the generally decreasing order of prevalence, with the first two being the most prevalent.

 

I hope this helps, I'm going to try and condense this when I get the chance.

 

Edit: condensed as much as I could w/o losing meaning.

 

Sources

http://www.planetpapers.com/Assets/1132.php

http://www.lsi.usp.br/usp/rod/poet/hai_rime.html

http://www.creativeideasforyou.com/nuanceonoth.html

http://www.ahapoetry.com/keirule.htm

http://www.toyomasu.com/haiku/#howtowritehaiku

Edited December 16, 2003 by Vlad

[Vlad]

Vlad was sitting in the same spot where he was last seen in the Cabaret room at the begging of his quest. He still was wearing the same cloak, and had the same drink (a bloody mary) in front of him. The only noticable difference was that he was weary. Vlad got up from his chair, and meandered over to the elevated platform on one side of the room.

 

"I would like to thank you all for participating in my first attempt at this. I do believe it to be a great success, with the exeption of a few who decided not to let ideas flow. I believe that I have sent my response to people, it could have failed in the mail though. If that is the case resend the unfinished haiku at your leisure.

 

"I am initiating a second round of haiku writing. This will continue to be an expiriment, so I will try a new method. When you sign up, have a partner who you will write with. I would prefer it be by mutual consent (no rape here ;p). If you are unable, unwilling, or just plain too lazy to find a partner, you may pair with me, or ask to be randomly paired with someone. You can concurrently write as many haikus as you feel up to doing, I will not place the limit of six on myself either.

 

"These will run until January, and I hope to get more participation. There are some people who I would like to participate, and would be sorely dissapointed if the do not. The haikus this round should be about nature or the seasons. Beyond that I am not placing any restrictions. it should be more difficult than last time, but chalanges make life interesting."

 

With that, Vlad collapses on the stage and is dragged off to his table.

[Vlad]

Vlad now looks around

And looks again a bit more

And sees nobody.

 

-------

 

Well, I tried to get a second round started. Maybe it's the holidays and everybody is busy, but I hoped at least somebody would sign up. Well, the first round was sucessful, I guess that's more than I hoped for.

 

I'm going to be busy for quite a while now, and can't do anything like this, so I guess there ain't gonna be a round two.

 

If you still havent done anything from the first round, I guess there isn't much I can say. I tried to send out a gentle reminder, but oh well.

 

-------

 

Oh, and can an Elder unsticky this?

[Peredhil]

Sorry, swamped.

 

Holiday seasons and vacations are a big part of this sort of echoing silence - I'd suggest letting this run through February myself - you've got a good thing going here.

 

Additionally - sorry Richard and I haven't finished our dangling conversation, but I'm being ruthless in prioritizing my time at the moment.

[Solivagus]

Heh, I wasn't exactly doing the best at this quest Pere

[reverie]

though we finished ours? oh well... was fun anyways...

 

rev...