Point taken, Jesse, but, but...?

I suspect you're absolutely right about haiku, but I think one can  
point to some tries at haibun, englished as process, for example, that  
work very well in english (even if losing a lot of what the 'original'  
Japanese form comprehends).

But then I read them as english poems, so perhaps I just dont see how  
badly they fail, in terms of the form theyre patterning themselves  
on....

Still, thinking of even the few poets I know who have tried something  
along those lines, like Sheila Murphy or John Tranter, for example,  
I'm glad to have them....

Doug
On 30-Mar-08, at 7:53 PM, [log in to unmask] wrote:

> Sad to say but English language poetry written to emulate Japanese  
> forms
> tends to sound chopped, truncated, minced into what I call "Zenglish."
> After studying the "stuff" in the original language I'm not happy to
> read most of the the so-called equivalent writing in English.
>
> Of course it's possible to write short, short poetry in English.  A  
> few
> of Herrick are about as close as English can come to what kana and  
> Kanji
> can do so effortlessly.  Sanuel Menashe has also done it once or  
> twice.
>
> Most of the other stuff is, well--"stuff."
>
> Sad that we have the feeling that languages as different as Japanese  
> and
> English work in the same way to produce equivalent effects.  They
> don't.  That's why I believe that English language haiku is a
> misnomer.  Add to this the sense of ease and entitlement that allows  
> us
> to misunderstand haiku (so easy that kids can enjoy writing it!), the
> cultural hang-over of post WWII Japan when the West was flooded with
> cheaply made goods from the islands, etc. etc., instant ramen noodles
> etc. etc., and we have a real
> problem with coming to grips with what is indeed a dazzling mode of
> expression in the original.  Our cultural, Anglo-centric chauvanism
> keeps getting in the way.
>
> Of course we could probably substitute French, German, Spanish, for
> English in the above statement and still come pretty close to the  
> truth.
>
> I was first introduced to the idea of "difficulty" and haiku writing
> when I arrived in Japan and began to talk with the Japanese about
> poetry.  But wasn't haiku so simple that grade school teachers in
> America could coax tons of it from their charges?  Hadn't I written my
> share of it when I was a child?  Didn't every English "teacher" who
> found his or her way to Japan suddently breaking out in the stuff like
> rashes from too much msg in meals?  You could see their Zenglish in  
> the
> haiku column of the Mainichi Simbun with someone saying which was good
> and which was bad!
>
> When I started to study the language (and I must say even now I'm far
> from mastering it)--and sat with significat haijin who wrote,  
> published,
> and won awards for their work in Japanese--only then did I understand
> what the Japanese were telling me.  Haiku is hard as hell to write.
> Moreover, the use of Kanji makes the thought so compressed that  
> finding
> an equivalent in English in the melding of form and content to even
> begin to give the feeling of the original is well-neigh impossible.   
> The
> sense of "ease" and "anything I say is haiku is haiku" that so many
> seem to find in the act of writing this form is simply an illusion  
> born
> of a misunderstanding--linguistic and cultural.
>
> Stuff indeed.
>
> Jess
>

Douglas Barbour
[log in to unmask]

http://www.ualberta.ca/~dbarbour/

Latest books:
Continuations (with Sheila E Murphy)
http://www.uap.ualberta.ca/UAP.asp?LID=41&bookID=664
Wednesdays'
http://abovegroundpress.blogspot.com/2008/03/new-from-aboveground-press_10.html

to rid me of
the ugh in
thought
i spell anew
weave the world
out of the or
binary

	bpNichol