From traditional 5-7-5, strict-syllabic, seasonal lines; to hard-edged, compact urban images; to compressed, fragmentary glimpses - the poems in HAI-(And Assorted Other)-KU lay claim to the name of "Haiku"... of one sort or another.
Of all the borrowed poetic forms in English (of which there are hundreds, if not thousands), haiku most obstinately resist a single definition. Because of the radical differences between orthography, linguistics, underlying structures, and purposes of words and sounds in Japanese and English, a straight-line transmission from former to latter is impossible. One of the most famous haiku, Matsuo Basho's juxtaposition of a pond, a frog, and a splash, has been translated in hundreds of ways, all of them reasonably true to the intent of the original, few of them sharing the exact approaches to the poem and to poetics.
Ever try:
Urban-Ku?
Horror-Ku?
Scifi-Ku?
Dream-Ku?
or even... Death-Ku?
Whether traditional or unconventional, the poems in HAI-(And Assorted Other)-KU seek to enlighten, entertain, and engage.
Of all the borrowed poetic forms in English (of which there are hundreds, if not thousands), haiku most obstinately resist a single definition. Because of the radical differences between orthography, linguistics, underlying structures, and purposes of words and sounds in Japanese and English, a straight-line transmission from former to latter is impossible. One of the most famous haiku, Matsuo Basho's juxtaposition of a pond, a frog, and a splash, has been translated in hundreds of ways, all of them reasonably true to the intent of the original, few of them sharing the exact approaches to the poem and to poetics.
Ever try:
Urban-Ku?
Horror-Ku?
Scifi-Ku?
Dream-Ku?
or even... Death-Ku?
Whether traditional or unconventional, the poems in HAI-(And Assorted Other)-KU seek to enlighten, entertain, and engage.
Used availability for Michael R Collings's Hai-(And Assorted Other)-Ku