Sea Shell Game #58

Verse #2 is immediately eliminated because haiku should only reflect or report on sensory impressions that can be sensed. The use of “promises” and “fairytale” and “prince” immediately alert one to the fact that this is a literary poem – one based on known ideas, not actual things. The author of #2 does not yet have the way of seeing for haiku writing.

The reference in #3 of “ink dark” is to a well-known tanka and also to the even the better known book of tanka translations by Jane Hirshfield – Ink Dark Moon. While love and sex are both topics for haiku as well as tanka, it is much more appropriate and common in tanka. What really takes #3 out of the running as a haiku is the very apt tanka technique of making a change in time, place, or voice. Haiku are in the moment, or in one moment. Tanka can, and should. move back and forth in time. This occurs with the line: “then dries.” Do you see how time is used in #3? This author, obviously enthralled with tanka, should stick with the five lines for now.

One of the reasons we write haiku in three lines is because the form should have two grammatical parts, one of which should use two lines. I call this the fragment and phrase theory – something I have learned from translating Basho’s poems and which has been proven by thousands of haiku in English. Poem #6, though written in three lines, reads grammatically as:

The author recognized this and for this reason had to put a comma after “branch.” If the author was working on a renga, and was responsible for the two-line link this would be an almost perfect verse. If, however, this was to be a three-line verse (as the haiku are) it would be defeated by its grammatical construction.

8.
Stars prick velvet night
Calm water reflects smooth moon
Ripples calmly spread

Both of these examples have the same fault. Each line ends the thought as surely as if there was a period. Thus, they both sound ‘choppy’ when one reads them. Even though #7 is haiku short and is correctly written in the lower case, in my judgment this failure to connect two of the lines into a phrase is serious. Yet this poem is preferable to #8 with its caps beginning each line (ala Western poetry) and its too-many adjectives and adverbs.

In our Western poetry we are very bound to narrative. We love poems that tell a story. This is so engrained in us that it is tempting to try to tell even little stories in haiku. Don’t do it. Haiku are far less ambitious. In haiku “soggy feet” are only soggy feet and never say anything. They just are.

These two examples give a good example of how that phrase and fragment thing works. Notice that while #11 looks and acts much like a haiku, each of the line ends stop the thought. However, in #12, the lines 2 and 3 continue the thought into making a phrase. This may seem like a very small thing, but in my estimation, this is absolutely necessary for a haiku.

The author of #14 does seem to understand this idea of how to divide up the ideas and grammar of a haiku into two parts. See how it was important was? It was enough to add a semi-colon at the end of line 2. Yet, the grammar does not support the punctuation. The poem still has three parts. An even more upsetting factor is the fact that the 5,7,5 idea was stronger than the author’s own use of English. The result of this was the dropping of the article for the noun in line 1 – it should read “tender spears pierce (the) earth.” It is one thing to borrow the idea of using only 5 or 7 syllables for haiku, but to intentionally cripple the language is simply not acceptable.

The many commas in #15 already alert the reader that this author has not read, or enjoyed, enough haiku. Just because haiku are short and seem simple, they are not easy to write. In fact, for us Westerners, I would say that they are the hardest poetry form for us to adopt and imitate. One reason is the fact that they begin with a way of observing life and nature that is completely foreign to us and is not admired in our literary history. A person has to learn to read haiku, and from that, begin to understand how haiku are constructed. #15 is filled with words and yet the mind is not lead to form even one simple image. Total failure.

I love the “moon-painted shadows” line. It would be perfect in a tanka. In fact the whole poem – its tone, its subject matter, its images are in tanka territory. Haiku are sparks of radiance, of life, of joy. While there is occasionally a hint of sadness to a haiku, the subject matter usually avoids dead things, bodies, and sad events. Following the way of haiku teaches us to observe and celebrate the tiny glints of light that illuminate the smallest bit of life and to not dwell on death and the dark of darkness.

Here it almost feels as if both poems were written by one author. (I just checked; they weren’t.) Both poems have the same strengths and weakness. They look like good haiku, but both have the choppiness, and both seem to be “saying something” that I almost cannot figure out. #5 goes ahead because I do enjoy trying to puzzle out “leafy sky” and “wind-filled birds.”

These two show good examples of when you can drop an article (a, an, the) and when it simply does not work. For me, line 1 in #9 needs to read as: “on (a) motionless pond” in order to feel right, to feel comfortable, to feel like proper English grammar. In #12, one wonders if it should read as: “(a) raven admiring his own,” but upon repeated readings, comes to the conclusion that without the article, the word raven is given a person, a name, something more intimate than a noun describing a bird. This slight twist, the slightest change in the meaning is good for a haiku. Also, in #9, the idea of calling the sun a tangerine is a Western literary device that haiku works to avoid. The sun is the sun, a tangerine is a tangerine. Actually, the metaphor is also incorrect in that the sun is not like a tangerine ripening, but like one growing as it rises – unless the pond makes the rising sun seem green at first. Still, keep this out of haiku country.

This pair is a challenge to judge. Both have the fragment and phrase correct. Both are working with light images and both are expressing an idea that the reader has to figure out. Both are valid haiku and could probably be accepted by any haiku editor. In this match, I am going to pick #16 over #13 because it’s message is positive. While fading lights, old men and cracked tea cups are a part of our lives, the change in our inner beings as we contemplate the positive message of #16 is preferable.

Ordinarily, I would not pick #4 for the winner of this match because it ends with a verb in the gerund form. This is only acceptable when writing the third link in a renga, although many people use the technique in their haiku to give the verse a feeling of reverberating in the mind. What is happening is the reader is waiting on the next link (as would happen in a renga) and the rest of the story. This is a cheap trick and not worthy of a contest-winning haiku. Yet, the problems in #5 (choppiness, and my inability to figure out what the author is trying to portray) are greater.

Again, either of these could easily be accepted for publication as haiku. I am slightly bothered by the capital “E” in #16, but at least the author used no other caps or punctuation. The message is very lovely and apt for haiku. Another aspect, though that spoils #16 is the personal pronoun. We try to make haiku seem as if they have been spun out of nothing, out the very air, without the benefit of an author’s hand. To accomplish this we avoid the use of references to ourselves. It would have been so easy for the author to use “the window” instead of “my window.” This is a small thing, but enough to not be picked a winner.

As I wrote above, #4 has the problem of ending with a gerund verb (hovering). In addition, I am not understanding the need for the use of “crimson.” I know it gives the haiku a proper shape, and for that I am thankful, but what does it add to the understanding of the message or the image? Also, like the poem with the tangerine sun, this haiku is making the sun, not the sun, but a drop of gold. This is the wrong use of metaphor in haiku. You can use metaphor in haiku, but you need to do it the way the Japanese do, not as we have been doing for 2,500 years of Western poetry.

Congratulations, Wendy! You have written a very successful haiku and you have done it in 17 syllables. I am not a proponent of writing haiku with this rule, but I do have to compliment you on accomplishing this. I like the fact that you ended line 2 where you did because it allows me to entertain the idea that “raven is admiring his own shining midnight black” when I combine your first and second lines. You have a paradox in the haiku (the idea of midnight black in which one cannot see anything and the raven admiring himself in a reflection) and this is something that not often occurs. Good work!

Sea Shell Game # 56 Judge: Jane Reichhold June 11, 2006

Sea Shell Game # 56
Judge: Jane Reichhold
June 11, 2006