Hi Arthur. I did - decide the number of syllables. The Japanese long stanza
counts 17 mora and the short stanza 14. The 'zip' stanzas are based on the
commonly agreed comparative phonic to sematic ratios of English and
Japanese (statistically English is about 20% more compact than Japanese)
but these mathematical correspondances are tempered by the need to ensure
that the English does not too readily into facile metres. About seven years
of experiment gave me 15 and 11. The puncutation devices draw directly on
the work of Sean Burn, and the visual arrangements follow observations
about spatial relationships in text by Chrisitna Fletcher. The nature of
the syntax is heavily influenced by the translations of Nobuyuki Yuasa.

The zip stanzas are based on the natural cadences of English in exactly the
same way that the Japanese stanzas spring from the tendency of that
language to fall in meters of seven and five. They are not therefore
'counts' in the mathematical sense, unlike the fibonnacci series, primes,
tetractys etc which are based on numeric sequences. I truth, though they
can still be the vehicle for good poetry. I believe the entire aesthetic
basis of mathetmatically derived forms to be deeply susupect.

Japanese aesthetics have always relied to a large degree on that which is
left unsaid. I agree entirely with you about the 'one hand clapping'
brigade. I would lock them in a darkened room with as many existentialists
I could find, and throw away the key. There is a lot of facile drivel
talked in the west about the Zen basis of haiku. It is baloney. And as it
happens it winds the Japanese up something rotten, though they are
generally too polited to say so. If I tell you that a Japanese colleague
recently began his address to an invited audience in London with the
suggestion that the best way forward for haiku in the English language
would be to burn every book ever written on the subject between 1950 and
2000 you'll get the idea.

The degree of silence I meant is in the more indirect legature between
images. There is very little direct metaphor for instance. Rather than say
that 'the beat of the butterfly's wing is like the summer breeze' the Jap
style is more to mention the breeze and the butterfly and let you decide if
it's the colour, the wing beat, the whatever that makes the link between
them.

Lazy or what! Best wishes, John





----- Original Message -----
From: "Arthur" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: 28 March 2002 09:19
Subject: Some questions for John


This Renku " midges bathe", as I say, I like it for its many
facettedness.but I am left to ask who determined that there should be 15
and 11 syllables in the form given here.
I dont want to believe that it was entirely random and arbitrary but rather
that it has some deeper significance , perhaps sacred, perhaps artistic,
perhaps even mathematical, and even, perhaps, all three.
Which of course leads on to the question is your answer true for all the
other different forms??
What about the sonnet and its 10 syllable line and 14 lines?
What are the significances behind all the different forms? and " numbers"
of the forms?
Your earlier remarks that the real skill is creating the silences has a
certain intellectual ambivalence that I find disconcerting. I never could
sit and listen to that record called something like " 3 mins 42 seconds" of
silence. Nor could I understand the point that was being made. If there was
one?
Who creates the silence when a poem is read by a reader on his own in a
room, and it is not read aloud? Is there a silence of the mind? So many
questions. What is the sound of one hand clapping? How does one get the
goose out of the bottle? Does a tree falling in the forest make a noise if
none is there to hear it? Arthur?