Dave/Rupert -I understood that haiku sort of were written verticall -ie
dropping down the page -at least in those gorgeous prints and I wondered
what sort of dynamic that would have? cheers Patrick
ps off up to London one of those rare efforts pop into poetry library see my
dayghter in westminster gardens -pleasures of retirement
----- Original Message -----
From: "david.bircumshaw" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Tuesday, September 14, 2004 12:22 PM
Subject: Re: more poems
> Rupert Mallin wrote on Friday, September 10, 2004 9:06 PM
> Subject: Re: more poems
>
>
> >Was a Radio 4 play this week where haiku was used as a device, except the
> narrator said they're composed of 15 syllables in three lines and I'm sure
> it's 17 syllables - 5-7-5. Yet, I don't understand the literal
> translation/transmutation from the ideogram into our phonetically driven
> language. I understand the 'essence' of the discipline of the haiku but
> cannot quite come to terms with the 'score' of it.
>
> I'm no student of prosody but really like the idea of a word count over a
> syllable count in breaking from the iamb.<
>
> Oooh, this is a lovely territory, so many curves and ingangs of
> understanding in it. One thing to start from: Japanese 'haiku'
> +are+phonetically driven as well as having ideogrammatic features, unlike
> Classical Chinese Japanese is polysyllabic and although in conventional
> classification the language is 'isotonic' (avoiding here debates about the
> nature of stress emphasis for convenience's sake) tempo, assonance and
> consonance are very important and a transliteration of a Japanese poem
into
> the Anglo-Roman form of the Western alphabet will convey something of
those
> qualities, which isn't really the case with Chinese. But, too, classical
> Japanese haiku existed as visual art-works too - in their calligraphy and
in
> accompanying visual imagery - Buson, the great 18th century haiku writer,
> was also a major visual artist. Haiku, too, is one of a number of forms,
> senryu, hokkai, tanka, renga and haibun are all part of the same complex
> family, indeed, if memory serves, Basho wouldn't have recognised the term
> 'haiku', I seem to recall it only became widely current in Japan in the
19th
> century. Add to that the links with meditational practices, the practice
of
> many classical 'haiku' writers of using different pen-names for different
> styles (Basho is merely the best known pseudonym the writer used - it can
be
> translated as Mr Banana and was very much an indication of a comic style)
> plus the importance of 'cutting' words and the famous/infamous 'season'
> words. Nor was the haiku tradition as polysemic in tendency as Chinese
> poetry. The 5-7-5 was a base line measure, just as the English iambic
> pentameter, and the better poets played around with it. When people in the
> West just string together a 5-7-5 and think by doing that they've made a
> haiku they are most often sadly adrift. The particular properties of
English
> have to be taken into account for any chance of success. This isn't to say
> that you can't use number count as a frame for English poetry, Trevor's
> 36-ers look very interesting - they are rhythmically alert, but it is to
say
> that merely mechanically counting is likely to produce something
> rhythmically and verbally inert. Level accents threatens. One could use
this
> as a device for a purpose of course but that's a horses for courses
matter.
>
> It's interesting, for instance, to ponder the numerological nuances one
can
> attain.
>
> All the Best
>
> Dave
>
>
> David Bircumshaw
>
> Spectare's Web, A Chide's Alphabet
> & Painting Without Numbers
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