fizzles

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D I S C U S S I O N T H R E A D

• • crossroader An awesome autumn evening or night moment!

Without changing a single word, I am wondering how this would read, or be experienced, if the break marks were placed differently?

a radiant particle!

one of autumn's loose twinklers

fizzles at the gate

My thought is this: L1 is strong and brilliant (literally and figuratively). By adding an exclamation mark, as Basho might have added the kireji "ya" to express his sense of awe or delight, lines 2 and 3 would then fall unhindered, and ephemerally, into MA ... as stardust.

You might have your own reasons for having chosen a comma at the end of L1, and a second break at the end of L2? For me, as the reader, the use of two break marks (kireji) interrupts the free-fall of this radiant particle, and the form of the haiku. But what are your thoughts on this, and the tradition of having two parts to a hokku/haiku, rather than three?

• haiku crossroads Yes, this is a good version. Thanks for the analysis. The exclamation scores the radiance and the rest of this ku is unpunctuated with 'free form ma' doing a good job.

My version was aiming for the clustering of a build up in L1-2 of the shooting star that might have pierced the skull of some creature (gladly, not I). Then, L3 (in my version) has extra oomph with the sardonics regarding 'fizzle'. Being that 'all things come to pass' and in its brief flight of glory from outer space into sticky air its radiant finale ended in the usual fizzling out of hope's brief apotheosis in reality. Type thing. ◠‿◠

COMPARE & CONTRAST

a radiant particle!

one of autumn's loose twinklers

fizzles at the gate

a radiant particle,

one of autumn's loose twinklers-

fizzles at the gate

COMPROMISE OPTION

a radiant particle!

one of autumn's loose twinklers,

fizzles at the gate

Will have a think. Maybe the exclamation mark is a keeper (i think). And yet...

NOTE In a nutshell, one was going for a drole (dull) delivery to set a tone of contrasting melancholia to a bright, and potentially quite dangerous, geophysical event that occurred, potentially, a little too close for comfort. Imagine, getting capped in the head by a shooting star!

• crossroader Of course! No-one can experience what you experienced, nor accurately deduce the "mood or meaning of the moment"! Such a universal experience, and yet the "meanings" associated with...say...a falling star (it may not have been) are often shared. Catching it, of course, is another story. Your compromise is appreciated, with a break marker after "twinklers", but I still float in the white space of the natural break at the end of L2 blending into L3. All this raises the question of how people understand "white space". And Kireji. That is why I am a proponent of only one kireji (break mark) in English Language Haiku (ELH). I think this is closer to the original intent of Japanese hokku ...but I am no expert, and go by intuition alone!

PS The chances of you "being capped" by a shooting star .....one in a million, i'd say :D

• haiku crossroads No-one can experience what you experienced, nor accurately deduce "mood or meaning of moment" - QUERENT

Well, I beg to differ.

My version set that up.

Your 'pop' version spins another tale around the core experience.

Both versions transmit the original experience (for those that have their antenna polished and tuned to empty). However, the proposed version is a haiku of a haiku, in essence. That would be the difference.

-

My gnosis is that any proper haiku will allow any *capable* reader, even 10,000 years from now, to stand in the boots (or flippers, or whatever) of the original seer's eureka moment via a proper delivery system set in text.

This is why, at the heart of things, real haiku is a spell, rather than a poem (or a telegram).

Poetics and prosaics (and their musics) may be utilised to work with the textual codes but the subliminal result is an old fashioned pathwalking spell (ubiquitous in human cultural history). The only difference being is that a real haiku is not inviting anything more than a vision's apprehension and contemplation, thus to experience an original instant directly.

Of course, this can easily be used to access an astral reality; at which point we are doing something that is outside the ku remit.

This is what yugan (the nucleus of Japanese aesthetics, the truth be known) is all about. That dark indigo mystery of twilight in the round informs the spotlit vision of ku. We don't go wandering off questing for dragons and unicorns per se (in fact, that is a common problem which interrupts the 'reading' of ku). To this extent kuing is passive, that is to say mystic (emptied to receive in receptive makoto). Not an active masculine magic. (But, tell that to a Tao wonder worker and they will laugh in your face before turning you into a leaping frog's moonlit shadow - before switching on all the lights.)

• • crossroader Well, this may all sound very attractive to a magician's apprentice, but the wording and casting of a spell has to be 100% accurate for it to work, not so? :) Which brings us back to the question of the cut, break marks/punctuation, and haiku. You have suggested that my version, in which only these have been changed (and not your original words) is a 'haiku of a haiku'. An interesting thought, which confirms the power of those break marks, and why they deserve this kind of attention! Now I am wondering why I have allowed the convention of ELH to have only one (and at a push, two) break marks to go unquestioned? Is this a convention that was used in traditional hokku/haiku with kireji? What form should 'a proper delivery system' take for the 'spell' to be conveyed accurately

• haiku crossroads Good points and, yes, a ku can be an object of contemplation to produce a ku. Why on earth not? This is partially the raison d'etre of bona fide honkodori (reference to a prior cultural event, especially a famous text).

BASHO PINE QUOTE

http://tinyurl.com/haiku-evolution

You know, sometimes no punctuation and the text floats like a mobile in the breezes of ma generated by the text. Other times we need more kireji cues to assemble the overall trip. My post today will have no punctuation. Whereas, this post's ku had a small comma breather @ L1 and a more lengthy dash breather @ L2. This was the form best suited to deliver the author's experience. (Notwithstanding the temptation to bling with an L1 exclamation mark acting as it were a concrete poetry effect at the expense of attributing an emotion that was not present during that particular original event.)

IN A NUTSHELL

Do it right and the ku will write itself with as many, or as few, grammatical devices as it requires to do its job (which is to deliver a holographic dream replay of an original eureka experience in the gap between stimulus and response).

NOTE

ELH (English Language haiku) needs to "go to the pine". Going to a foreign land (pre-western Nippon) simply will not translate as a template. (This should be obvious.) The best that can be done is to get a bullet list from Basho (in the first instance) and experiment in the real - here and now.

"How did they do that?" Is a useful question. However, "How is that done?" is better. . . .

" Seek not to follow in the footsteps of men of old;

seek what they sought." - Matsuo Basho

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jp© 09-09-12

This musing is a living document and as such will develop - so, be sure to return regularly to this page, if you like. Not just to note any changes, but also to review the material in the light of your own understanding.

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