Several people have shown an interest in Haiku. Perhaps we could have a few posts. I will post the latest when I find it.
There actually is a Haiku game thread in the Game Room, although it hasn't gotten a lot of attention. Also, it focuses on the simple 5-7-5 syllable Haiku form rather than the broader classification. But it is still a great exercise for practicing economy of words and strength of imagery in a restrictive verse structure.
The English language is stress-timed, not syllable timed. Writing a haiku is a great exercise in Chinese or Japanese, but in English it doesn't have much value. We should have an iambic pentameter thread, instead! It'd be much more intellectually profitable for us, since we all speak English and write poetry in it.
I would say I've read hundreds of the damn things. The form is arbitrary to a painful extent. Any idiot can write a haiku--It's just a matter of counting syllables and making it barely coherent. It takes skill to write iambic well--hell, I'd say it takes skill to write it at all. You have to have a voice to make it work. Haiku are a very juvenile form, I find.
To me, the real challenge of Haiku is superimposing two (or more?) levels of meaning into 17 structured syllables. And yes, I do know that the 17 syllables (5-7-5) is not all there is to Haiku, but it's a reasonable simplification. From what I have read, one could truly spend a lifetime mastering this form, distilling meaning to a concentrated essence.
Yes, but is there anything special about the haiku form that separates it from just writing a short poem!? It's just an excuse to write a short poem, as far as I see...
Not really. They are really great in being ambiguous and straight to the point at the same time. More so than normal "short" poetry.
As in anything else, it's what you put into it. Free form poetry can be an excuse to display an emotion in raw sentence fragment. Or it can be finely crafted, using rich imagery, tonal devices, and ryhtmic variations to portray a message on several levels. Rhyme in such a poem could disrupt the flow. Likewise, haiku can be just 17 syllables glommed together, or it can be rich in its economy of expression, like a perfectly cut gemstone. It's much easier to express yourself if you can use as many words as you need. To carve away everything nonessential without losing focus is far from trivial!
But to carve away everything nonessential is at the heart of writing a concise poem, regardless of its form. Why don't you write in a form, instead, that is a stress based haiku? 5 stresses, 7 stresses, 5 stresses. Like this: A shoreline I have never found needing When the dire pushes at us to find an ocean, free of waves But then what can move our sand, but love? That's an interesting form, actually.
