Forum / A Proper Form for Anglophone Haiku: 7/11/7?

• 
  strannikov

  May 03, 09:43pm

  I here make a case that Anglophone haiku (both original haiku composed in English and also haiku translated from Japanese originals), in accommodating itself to Japanese prosody and vice versa, properly needs to amend the strict syllabic practice of 5/7/5 to the relative brevity of 7/11/7-syllable lines.

  The chief argument at my disposal is continuing dissatisfaction with Anglophone haiku breath-length. To push the argument further I add four points:

  1): because 5/7/5 remains the formal practice and venerable tradition of native Japanese haiku, Anglophone haiku poets need a formal practice and measure suited to their language’s innate demands, and a slightly looser “numerical prescription” is both required and overdue;

  2): hendecasyllabic lines are not the most common in Anglophone prosody, and it is their relative foreignness which gives a hendecasyllabic line its appeal for dealing with whatever other constraints can legitimately be imposed upon Anglophone haiku practice;

  3): three lines of 7, 11, and 7 syllables still provide an Anglophone poet with a tidy, formal constraint, and because Anglophone prosody readily resorts to (p)articles and auxiliary verbs, it is not as though any slightly longer lines will be or need be filled with inordinate amounts of clutter.

  --and 4): because 7 and 11 are both prime numbers (and odd numbers, like the Japanese 5 and 7), they lend themselves naturally to adoption in Anglophone versification of Japanese haiku.

  Here are four notable haiku from the Four Masters rendered in 7/11/7 form:

  Bashō

  Summer grass sways in the wind—
  this monument stands on contested ground once
  the field of warriors’ dreams.

  Buson

  Leaves lie beneath the willow:
  the pebbly stream-bed nearby is all dried up,
  just a scattering of stones.

  Issa

  Only a lone visitor
  and one restless fly buzzing from wall to wall
  occupy this large guest room.

  Shiki

  A mild summer wind arrives:
  then the entire pile of scrawl-strewn sheets is blown
  to float from desktop to floor.

  These can be compared with the following “translations” into 7/11/7 form from original Anglophone haiku first composed in traditional 5/7/5 form:

  Clouds color the horizon
  as the waning moon fights to stay in the sky—
  garlic fumes waft from a house.

  Tonight’s sky is full of lights:
  lunatics, each to his own personal moon,
  sing distinct, separate songs.

  After only forty years,
  you might inexplicably turn twelve again
  or you might attain sixty.

  I can talk about my luck:
  not once was I kickt by an ornery horse,
  but a dog once did bite me.

  The “Japanese Four Masters translations” show that the form can carry both weight and imagistic precision. The Anglophone originals show that the 7/11/7 form also can accommodate voice, irony, and comic timing reliably—arguably a harder test and a more important one for establishing the form’s viability as genuinely Anglophone rather than merely imitative.

• 
  Darryl Price

  May 04, 05:57pm

  I'm a big fan of Issa, but loved all of these. Thanks for bringing this beautiful art form back into focus.

• 
  strannikov

  May 05, 12:02am

  Darryl: thanks for taking a look.

  Robert Hass, to his credit, rendered the Issa haiku more concisely:

  One human being,
  one fly,
  in a large room.

  It's good to have options.

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