MDB Haiku

[_Equality]

Daniel lies again
No contemporaneous
Witnesses' accounts

Brigham seized power
Blindsiding Sidney Rigdon
No one saw Joseph

[_Kishkumen]

LGT is dead.
Sorenson cannot save it;
Attacks Coe instead.

* * * *

If you starved a goat
And stuffed him into a suit
You would get Greg Smith.

* * * *

Huffing, out of breath,
Camera shaky--Hamblin
Films two co-eds' butts.

These are all fantastic.

[_Bret Ripley]

... the gendai form of haiku does tend to deviate from the traditional 5-7-5 pattern.

Um, I'll let people in on the secret that gendai just means 'modern'. So gendai haiku are to haiku as modern art is to art ...

Hi Chap! Yep, gendai is a subset of haiku.

I think anybody who does haiku in English is usually expecting to observe the traditional rules -

I agree: this is usually the case. What better place to tweak these expectations than on an informal message board?

the difficulty is seen as an essential part of the interest and pleasure of the form.

Sure, and for my part I have never deviated from the 5-7-5 formula in any of my haiku. But technically it is not "wrong" to deviate from this structure. I think it is more important to concentrate on aspects that contribute "interest and pleasure" -- which is quite gendai of me, I'm sure. I'm no more comfortable sneering at a misshapen haiku than I would be scolding Shelley for flirting with eleven syllables in "Ozymandias".

[_Chap]

Hi Bret.

Let's put it this way. If we at least demand that posters should make the effort to meet the standards that nearly all English speakers see as defining a haiku (three lines, 5-7-5 pattern), then we shall have a filter that can only be passed by people who are prepared to think a little.

That may make the results just that little bit more interesting that saying "Hey! You can do anything you like, and still call it a haiku".

I mean, what's to stop me saying this is a haiku? Or the entire Book of Mormon is a haiku?

No rules means no game. No game, no fun.

[_Bret Ripley]

I mean, what's to stop me saying this is a haiku? Or the entire Book of Mormon is a haiku?

Your points are well-taken, but I wasn't proposing the sort of free-for-all you imagine.

Consider:

The Book of Mormon
Contains far more syllables
Due to chiasmus

...follows the 5-7-5 formula, but it lacks other qualities typical of haiku.

YMMV, of course, but I'd rather read something clever that misses by a syllable or two than a technical manual written in 5-7-5 form. And with that I've reached my "false dilemma" quota for the week.

Cheers!

[_Chap]

But consider this apposite limerick (harder than haiku ...)

There was a young man from Japan
Whose limericks never would scan.
When asked why this was,
He replied “It’s because
I always try to fit as many syllables into the last line as ever possibly I can.

It takes wit to win the right to break the rules ...

[_Bret Ripley]

But consider this apposite limerick (harder than haiku ...)

There was a young man from Japan
Whose limericks never would scan.
When asked why this was,
He replied “It’s because
I always try to fit as many syllables into the last line as ever possibly I can.

That ... is beautiful, man.

[_Chap]

But consider this apposite limerick (harder than haiku ...)

There was a young man from Japan
Whose limericks never would scan.
When asked why this was,
He replied “It’s because
I always try to fit as many syllables into the last line as ever possibly I can.

That ... is beautiful, man.

Credit it to anon.

[_LDSToronto]

Shades is pedantic
about haiku and spelling
and poo-poos great art.

[_Quasimodo]

Did Joseph Smith lie?
It's the only true question.
The answer tells all.