Hi all, I have a great deal of sympathy with Gerald's desire to reserve the
word 'haibun' for the specific literary genre to which he refers. Perhaps
colleagues can suggest alternative terms arising from occidental literature
that more generally describe a text which mixes poetry and prose.

I would encourage anyone with a passing interest in the idea to follow
Gerald's suggestion and have a look some work typical of the Japanese
tradition.

Best wishes, john e c


----- Original Message -----
From: "grasshopper" <[log in to unmask]>
To: "John Carley" <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Wednesday, October 29, 2003 7:23 PM
Subject: Re: Kathmandu- Grassy, Arthur, etc


Dear Gerald,
             I take your point that Barbara's pieces are not in the strict
haibun form, but when John Carley selected Arthur's piece as his Editor's
Choice in WORM 24, he wrote :'This poem is a pointer to the untapped
potential of haibun in English."Genesis" blurs the boundaries of reportage
and found poetry, text and context, comment and autobiography. I could read
a lot more of this.'
This seems to me a suggestion that there is scope for English poems based on
the idea of mixing prose and poetry. I think the haibun was traditionally
based on a journey so Barbara's travel-notes seemed very appropriate.
I'd be most interested to know what John thinks.......
Kind regards,
    grasshopper

----- Original Message -----
From: "Gerald England" <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Wednesday, October 29, 2003 10:12 AM
Subject: Re: [THE-WORKS] Kathmandu- Grassy, Arthur, etc


Gerald wrote:

 If you really want to know about haibun take a look at some of the links on
my haiku links page
 http://www.nhi.clara.net/hklinks.htm
 especially
 Everyday Accounts

 Haibun is a mixture of prose and poetry but in the haiku genre and probably
is not appropriate for your Kathmandu pieces.
 I wouldn't advice trying to write haibun until you've read a good many
examples and got a feel for the genre.