*************************************************************
VII.  Haiku Form and Content
*************************************************************
Michael Dylan Welch (WelchM@aol.com)

HAIKU FORM AND CONTENT

Regarding the "Beginner's Corner" by Bill Blohm, I hope that the
many readers of Dogwood Blossoms do in fact gain something from
the poems discussed.  Whatever Bill Blohm's talents as a haiku
writer, he has the difficult task of encouraging beginning haiku
poets while needing to assert criticism where it may be
necessary.  This is not an easy balance to strike, and I wish him
well with the task.  However, I feel that many of the haiku even
tentatively lauded by Blohm (even if for the simple purposes of
encouragement) fall well short of the mark for quality haiku.
Requiring the 5-7-5 format is his choice, but I would immediately
question that requirement as pushing too much focus on form, to
the detriment of content.  I fear for the future of haiku to the
extent that it is taught by the blind leading the blind.

Haiku, as the late poet Judson Jerome once wrote, is an easy form
to learn, but a difficult form to master.  While many beginners
tend to focus on the so-called "traditional" aspects of haiku
(that it contain so many syllables and a seasonal reference),
the most successful haiku published in English today are in fact
seldom as long as 17 syllables.  To see that this is true, one
need only scan the pages of "Modern Haiku," "Brussels Sprout,"
the Haiku Society of America's "Frogpond," and "Woodnotes,"
published by the Haiku Poets of Northern California, and many
other popular haiku journals.  Indeed, the rigidity of the
syllable count often forces the padding or chopping of words that
does damage to the meaning and natural flow of the poem.  Too
often beginners stop writing simply when they have satisfied a
syllable count, and do not continue to write and edit their poem
to winnow it down to the essence of the moment, a moment behind
the words -- and beyond words.  The focus should be on content
rather than form, to the point that the words become transparent
and unseen -- or "wordless," as Alan Watts and Eric Amann have
proposed.

Moreover, it can be argued that the "traditional" 5-7-5-syllable
structure of haiku should never have been applied in English.
The simplified reason for this is that the Japanese "onji" (the
closest equivalent to the English syllable) is always very short,
both in sound and in spelling, whereas the English syllable
varies greatly in sound and spelling.  In English, for example,
"thought" is longer than "radio." Yet in Japan almost all words
are like "radio," with very short syllables.  As a further
example, consider the Japanese borrowing of our two-syllable word
"Christmas." In Japanese it becomes "Ka-ri-sa-ta-ma-su" -- SIX
syllables.  The sounds of the two languages are obviously
different, and preserving just the "number" of sound units has no
inherent universal linguistic value.  As a consequence, in
English, 17 syllables is almost always too long for the
"one-breath" form of successful haiku.  The best English haiku
are invariably shorter, and the more mature themes are usually
developed in poems that have grown beyond the relatively
superficial aspect of counting syllables.  A review of the two
most prominent English-language haiku anthologies, "Haiku Moment"
edited by Bruce Ross (Tuttle, 1993) and "The Haiku Anthology"
edited by Cor van den Heuvel (Touchstone, 1986/1991), quickly
verifies this assertion.

While it may be useful for teachers to present haiku as a 5-7-5
nature poem, haiku is so much more than that--and less than that.
Haiku is indeed easy to learn yet difficult to master.  But, with
diligence and practice, the mastery of haiku may be found in
learning the more and the less of what haiku is.

Some people, due to their own psychology, may be attracted to
their perception of haiku's "formal" aspects, and may enjoy the
game of fitting their words into a set number of syllables.  But
I would assert that aside from a guiding principle of brevity for
haiku, the poem's content is vastly more important than its
form.  What's more, the superficial focus on form distracts even
those purporting to be haiku "educators" from properly assessing
the haiku's content.  For example, in Dogwood Blossoms #9, the
Beginner's Corner shared the following poem:

Deer in forests green
Fawns by noisy rapids play
Wolf sees its next meal

Bill Blohm says "There is nothing really wrong with this." With
no offense to the author of this poem, I would say nothing could
be further from the truth.  The first and second lines both use
a syntax that is awkward to English ears (the adjective "green"
and the verb "play" are both displaced).  Such unnatural speech
should be avoided in haiku.  Rather, haiku should look
effortless.  The words should be transparent -- the *image* is
the thing.  As Basho said, we should see the moon, not the
bejeweled finger pointing at the moon.  Also, the mention of
"deer" AND "fawns" is essentially redundant; f or the sharpened
moment necessary for haiku, the first line of this poem is
entirely unnecessary.  I'm distracted by the capitals that start
each line and the period at the end.  There are also too many
elements and three grammatical parts to this haiku -- it is too
much, and comes across as wordy.  The adjectives contribute to
this wordiness (probably used to pad the poem to fit 17
syllables), and are oftentimes avoided in quality haiku.  But
more important, the concept of "forests" in the first line is too
large for haiku.  Haiku are moments of HERE and NOW.  They are
moments of a fawn (singular) licking at a pool of water, not
about dozens of deer and entire forests.  They must be seeable
and experienceable (as opposed to actually *seen* and
*experienced* -- although that is obviously common and advisable
to help authenticate the poem).  One observer cannot see the
entire forest, and even if he or she can see many deer, focusing
on one deer makes the poem more intimate and personal.  Thus
haiku are almost always improved by making them singular.
Sharpening the image always makes the observation more clear and
effective and the communication more intimate.

The worst problem with this poem, however, is the third line.
Elsewhere in his column, Bill rightly says that "in writing a
haiku, you are trying to provide a picture, and what is in that
picture must also be recordable by a camera." This is what is
meant by being "objective" in haiku.  Subjective or "unknowable"
feelings, perceptions, or points of view other than your own are
not effective.  In "Wolf sees its next meal" (where I'm also
bothered by t he lopping off of the article, presumably to
satisfy the arbitrary syllable count), the "objective" camera may
see a wolf, but it has no idea what that wolf is thinking.  If
the wolf's mouth is dripping with saliva, then say *that* to
imply the wolf's hunger.  The poet may assume that the wolf he
sees may be hungry, but how is that objectively knowable?  And
how does the poet know that the wolf isn't seeing the blue sky or
the waterfall or grasses of the meadow instead?  Haiku are poems
of direct perception, almost always written from the first person
perspective.  While it is plausible that a wolf near a fawn may
be about to attack and eat the fawn, to say "wolf sees its next
meal" is to take an omniscient viewpoint.  The third-person
viewpoint is sometimes used in senryu for satirical and humourous
purposes, but in haiku the omniscient viewpoint invariably fails
because it removes the poet and the reader from deeply-felt
direct experience.  Haiku happen through the senses -- direct
perception and experience -- not through the intellect or
emotions Ideas and feelings may come to mind, but they should
only be implied or suggested, brought to mind (if at all) by
carefully selected objective images.  The consistent use of
first-person viewpoint will help accomplish this.

So, what is really happening in this poem?  Or, more
specifically, what ca n really be seen?  What is the image, and
what is the haiku moment?  The noun s and verbs will help tell
us.  We have deer in a forest, fawns playing by rapids, and a
wolf, presumably nearby.  The adjectives here are superfluous.
To sharpen the poem I would drop the reference to the deer in the
forest, and I'd craft the poem about just one fawn in this case;
the context of a forest or woods is understood given the mention
of a fawn beside some rapids.  The next clue to the weakness in
this poem is the word "play." HOW do we know that the fawn is
playing?  WHAT is it doing?  And no matter what it is doing,
there is still a problem.  To call its activity "playing" is to
assert a subjective judgement on the image.  Again, a haiku
no-no.  If the fawn is jumping after a butterfly, then say that
-- it is much more vivid than to say it is "playing." If the
fawn's tongue licks at a dew-covered leaf, then say that.  This
is nothing less than the poetry dictum of "showing" rather than
"telling." We need to see the wolf leap at the fawn -- perhaps
sinking it s fangs into the fawn's hind legs -- before we can
really SEE (rather than be told) that the wolf may be hungry.
And if the "moment" of the poem is the wolf's impending leap,
then *that* needs to be implied rather than some bald analytical
statement about a "next meal." As an alternative to the poem a s
submitted, and attempting to correct some of its most egregious
problems (but by no means suggesting that the following is
terribly effective), I offer the following first-draft revision:

a speckled fawn
licks from an eddy---
the wolf's ear twitches

One possible weakness remaining in this poem is the unstated and
perhaps unclear location of the wolf (behind a log, in deep
grasses?).  But what is gained by this revision is the focus on
images, and defter placement of the poem's elements, creating a
"background" (the deer licking from a pool) and a "foreground"
(the wolf's twitching ear).  Notice that I've shifted focus to
the wolf.  The "moment" of the poem is the ear twitch -- that is
what is "foremost" in the poem, put in the context ("background")
of the fawn licking water.  What is also gained by this revision
is the suggestion and reverberation in the twitching ear.  Does
the wolf's noticing the fawn cause his ear to twitch, or does the
(accidental?) twitching of the wolf's ear alert the fawn to run
for safety?  This is what I call "perpetrated ambiguity" -- a
good kind of ambiguity that allows for at least two specific
interpretations (but not so many that meaning suffers).  In this
way, the poem "opens" rather than "closes." By ending with a
judgment ("wolf sees its next meal"), the previous version of the
poem told the reader what to see and think -- closing the poem
off.  In my revision, I don't say what I think, and I refrain
from telling the reader what to think, nor do I tell what happens
next -- thus the poem OPENS and reverberates, which is the way
all good haiku work.  I TRUST the image because I have chosen
and directed it as carefully as I can.  The result, hopefully, is
that the reader will experience what I experienced, or, the
reader will see the image in the poem as if it could have been
personally experienced.  Regarding the question of direct
experience, I'd like to offer one other comment before leaving
this poem and Bill Blohm's comments on it.  He notes in his
analysis that, "If this were written and submitted as an original
haiku based on the author's experiences, it would be required
that he or she have actually experienced the entire scene and
not thrown in the wolf to provide the element of suspense."
Required?  By whom?  I agree with Bill that contrivance is merely
a manipulation of the reader.  I am tired of haiku a bout
homeless people and bag ladies or other extremities (the *first*
this, the *last* that) that have a calculated emotional effect on
the reader.  Something more original and subtle is called for.
But I disagree strongly with Bill on his belief about a
"requirement" for direct experience in haiku.  Haiku is many
things to many people.  For those to whom it is meditation and an
awareness practice, then personal and direct experience is
normal.  But to those who consider haiku to be poetry and
literature, then it is the product, not just the process, that
matters most.  In other words, I believe it is perfectly
acceptable to create a single haiku based on several experience s
or memories, perhaps even images seen on television or heard in a
story but not directly experienced.  Purists who disagree with
this assertion reveal their perception of haiku as something
smaller than literature.  As far as literature and poetry is
concerned, there is no inherent virtue in preserving things
realistically -- sometimes reality IS stranger than fiction.
Rather, haiku should be believable.  The point is that the poem
should be created so that it reads AS IF it were real and
directly experienceable.  No reader can ever verify the actuality
of every poet's experience anyway.  Sometimes the most
unbelievable things really do happen -- and because they are so
unbelievable they may be best not written about.  The haiku is
best read as literature, as product ahead of process, and the
reader should ask of the poem, COULD this be true, not IS this
true?  For the most part readers have no way of answering the
latter question, so they are better off assessing haiku as
poetry.  Indeed, the "truth" of poetry is not the same thing as
utter reality.  As for myself, many of my poems arise whole out
of direct experience.  But others arise out of pastiches of
memory -- emotion recollected in tranquility, to quote
Wordsworth's definition of poetry.  There are many misperceptions
about haiku, and I would encourage readers of Dog wood Blossoms
to read widely, to write frequently, and to always seek to
enlarge their understanding of this rewarding mode of
poetry.

While I have only looked at one of the poems offered for the
Beginner's Corner in Dogwood Blossoms #9, all six exhibit serious
problems (as well as some positive qualities), most likely
exacerbated by the limiting premises of the assignment,
specifically the formal requirement, and what is to my mind a
tired and cutesy nature scenario.  Nevertheless, I hope to have
accomplished three objectives with these thoughts.  The first is
to suggest a healthy skepticism among the beginners who read
words of advice about their haiku (even about my comments,
for they are only an opinion).  The second is to suggest that
despite his infectious enthusiasm for haiku, perhaps Bill Blohm
is not the best teacher of a beginner's haiku corner (although we
all learn what we teach, and surely Bill is learning).  Indeed,
Blohm's belief that the "contributors to the first Beginner's
Corner have such a good grasp of how to write haiku" makes me
shudder!  The third and most important point is that a greater
focus on content rather than form will surely improve all of our
haiku.  My hope is that we are able to balance our joy for the
poetry -- for we all want to enjoy it -- with the
conscientiousness that creates striking and memorable
literature.

Michael Dylan Welch
WelchM@aol.com

Return to Table of Contents

Return to Dogwood Blossoms Index