Forms of Poetry
GLOSSARY: "poem" "haiku" "senryu" "found haiku" "haiga"
poem
A "poem" is a word or words that move a person, either a writer or a reader. More specifically, whatever the poet says is a poem, is a poem. He should know. He created it. The same goes for the reader; when a reader comes into contact with words and says, "That's poetry!" it is poetry. Additionally, anything besides words that evokes in the mind of a person the feeling that they have just had a poetic experience, is defined as poetry.
Traditionally, a poem is a beautiful word drawing, meant to capture the essence of a strong emotion and place it in the reader's mind. It has been gained through the poet's close observation, fostered by his recognition of a truth about human life.
This recognition of a universal truth creates a feeling of connectedness among those who come to an understanding and full appreciation of this truth, of themselves with other people and with the universe. It creates in them a calmness, of a sense that one has a place within that universe. It imports an intuition that one is in possession of a particular knowledge about that space and about oneself.
Alternatively, the poetry consumer may gain a sense of a shared knowledge, between himself and the poet and others who appreciate the poem, that there really is no rhyme or reason to the universe; so there is no hope of one's finding placement within it, nor a particular connection to it, nor to other people. This feeling, too, of the futility of believing that there is a connection possible, paradoxically connects a person with others who have also recognized this futility as a truth not to be denied, but to be embraced.
Whatever is the feeling induced by the poetic experience, it stands to comfort both the poet and the reader in a way that is biologically satisfying. This wakes up the area of the brain used for honing the social skills necessary for survival, which makes both the creation and consumption of poetry a particularly personal and invasive, beneficial, physical experience.
Traditional forms of poetry additionally follow specific, identifying, constraining rules, limiting the number of syllables in a line or requiring a particular number of lines, which each must follow a particular structure in rhyme or meter or both. A form of poetry may also require the poet to address a particular subject matter or mood.
haiku
A traditional formal haiku is a work of art that can only be created in a pen and ink drawing using the characters of the classical form of the written Japanese language. It is a succinct poem of three lines, one longer line in the middle of two shorter lines. The poet shares his acute observation of the workings of nature. He captures the essence he feels during a singular moment in which he so deeply experiences an intimate relationship with an element of the natural world that his eyes are opened and a truth concerning the human condition is revealed.
This form of haiku specifically does not rhyme nor contain rhythmic structural elements other than that it is composed of three lines, the first and third shorter than the second. The poem is very short; a haiku is spoken aloud during the interval of a single breath.
The joy of haiku is not forever reserved to those familiar with the brushstrokes used to convey the classical Japanese language. Haiku has more recently been redefined as a poem which evokes the haiku experience. It may be created in any language and in any medium. A haiku is a short poem containing an acute observation which leads the poet, as well as his reader, to an emotional, intellectual, and/or spiritual insight.
"Natural haiku" contains reference only to that which is observed in the natural world, that untouched by humans, and has its roots in the earliest haiku created by the ancestors of the modern Japanese. No direct mention is made of the existence of any human thought or activity, nor of any physical material which has been constructed by or touched or changed in any way by people. What the poet does notice is the way the natural world changes, especially from season to season.
Less constricting forms of haiku do contain reference to humanity. In creating a haiku which contains both an observation of nature and an observation of the world of people, a poet may use one to illustrate and deepen the feeling for and understanding of the other.
The experiencing of a haiku evokes a sudden change in perspective which creates a surprise. The reader recognizes the point where the poet made the creative leap into awareness. Both the poet and the reader share in this "aha!" moment.
To increase enjoyment of modern haiku, an attempt is made to incorporate as many elements of traditional haiku as possible. The reader knows the "rules" of traditional haiku and enjoys encountering instances in the poem where he can recognize a "proper" use — of a seasonal word, a surprise, etc. — much as one might enjoy a scavenger hunt.
A non-rhyming poem is considered to be a haiku in form as long as it is very short and is comprised of three lines, with an effort made to conform to the same syllabic balance seen in the traditional Japanese form. Many haiku written in the English language are extremely brief.
When spoken aloud, a carefully-constructed 5-7-5 haiku, a subset of traditional American haiku, will contain exactly seventeen syllables in three ordered lines of exactly five, seven, and five syllables, respectively. Unless, of course, it doesn't. Even a true 5-7-5 haiku may contain more or fewer syllables in any one line, or add up to a number different than seventeen, due to the quirkiness of the poet or the expediency of word selection. Precise language and poetic feel always trump syllable count. Though the 5‐7‐5 structure is the aim, any close approximation to that structure is acceptable to all but the 5-7-5 haiku purist.
When considering the number of syllables in a word, consider how dictionary descriptions of the structure of a word and regional pronunciation may differ. A poet may also use words in an unexpected manner, altering the number of pronounced syllables, for emotional or dramatic effect. Consider, for instance, how the word "Mommy!" may be stretched into three or more syllables by a child riding in the back seat of the family car with her brother, complaining, "Mom-mee-eee, Jeffrey's touching my doll again!" Jeffrey's reply, "No, I'm not!" could be pronounced either in a most definite three-syllable "No! I'm! Not!" or in just two, "Nome Not!" The acronym written "ASAP" may be slowly pronounced "a, s, a, p" by a high-school guidance counselor in gently recommending that his student send in his college applications by the end of the month, or it could be barked "A sap!" by a boss snapping orders to an experienced team of hustling sales clerks.
Appreciation of haiku demands an oral reading, to hear for oneself how the poet intended the haiku to sound. Syllable count depends on the speaker, who may be in a particular emotional state or may be using a local dialect.
Consider that the word "poem" may be spoken as containing either one or two syllables. In reading aloud a 5‐7‐5 haiku, a reader must experiment to discover the poem's correct syllable structure. The puzzling out of the haiku's conformity, or not, to the spoken 5-7-5 structure is part of the poetic experience. This mental work has the effect of involving yet another area of the brain, activating it during the frenzy of poetic excitement. This area, normally relegated to the performance of math and music, is also aroused during the experience of forms of poetry which use strict metrical constraints.
The appearance in a haiku of a "season word," such as "snow," triggers a physical memory of the sensory reactions normally experienced within only one of the manifestations of the fluctuations of weather. There occurs in the deepest, primal portions of the brain a recognition that the human body resonates with the natural world. One is instantly prompted to remember that seasonal change is cyclical. This realization evokes an emotional reaction to the knowledge that human life also follows a natural and inevitable course of continuous change. People are born, age, and die.
Each moment in life happens but one at a time.
By zeroing in on one particular tableau, the haiku poet helps a reader to see how important to the big picture are each of the individual moments in a life. Each instant can be noticed and fully appreciated.
The definition of haiku, similar to the definition of a poem, is further expanded to include anything at all deemed to be haiku by its creator or by a person who experiences a haiku moment. Any haiku can be found to be actively breaking any or all of the rules of haiku and still be declared a haiku by the haiku enthusiast.
senryu
A senryu is any haiku that follow/breaks the rules of traditional haiku but calls for its own label because it has less to do with a reference to nature and more to do with the dark humor which results from close observation of human behavior.
haibun
When a poetic story must be told that wants greater lattitude than that afforded either poetry or prose alone, the artist may combine prose with poetry, usually a haiku, to form a haibun.
found haiku
"Found haiku" results from a reader's having fortuitously recognized that, hidden in plain sight amongst the words of prose he is reading (in some other context), there appear to be all the elements of a haiku poem. The bits which comprise the haiku are then carefully collected and stored for future enjoyment.
Knowing that such treasures as "found haiku" exist in the wild adds a level of excitement to all reading, a reminder to keep one's eyes open. A haiku might be so close that, if it were a snake, "it would'a bit ya!"
haiga
"Haiga" is a work of art that combines a haiku with an image. A haiga's haiku and its image each add to the story.
The picture is not merely a beautiful backdrop or a decoration, but part of the message, deepening and broadening the meaning and feeling of the poem in a targeted way.
The picture tells a story independently of the haiku, and the haiku draws one deeper into the picture, for a broader artistic experience.
