ROUGH DRAFT - TO BE EDITED AND EXTENDED
Perhaps the idea of haiku being utilised as a prayer (as some suggest) is well possible, if that is the intent.
However, there seems a more compelling case for haiku to be understood more as a magic spell than a prayer (or even poetry). More precisely, not a full spell, though. Rather, half a magic spell.
What is meant by 'half a magic spell'?
The explanation goes like this:
In order to enjoy a little haiku movie; conjured, called fourth, or evoked by the words (the 'spell') of a haiku, we needs must, of course, engage with the inner-vision enshrined therein, or accessed through, each haiku's verbal. However, it is suggested that we may enter the haiku's inner-diorama and, if we so choose and are bold, wander about in it - aimlessly, or with purpose.
In essence --it is whispered-- we can do an 'inner journey', or 'pathworking', with all that this implies. (Other uses may be left to the reader's muses and their discretion.)
So, at this stage of the game we have now entered the movie and are gone walkabout into a magic spell's universe - not the 'halfway only' invitation, which is simply to contemplate a little haiku movie. No, no, the standard haiku trip has now morphed into a whole other kettle of tadpoles.
Maybe we could call this, somewhat startling, notion: The Hidden Secret Of Haiku?
I quite like this idea, at least in principal, and it does seem to have its own meta-logic to it, don't you agree?
Anyway, why not do a test drive and 'see' if it works? (But, for God's sake, don't eat any fairy food - you might not return for a year and a day!) . . .
old pond
a fog jumps in
the sound of water
Basho
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I like the phrase "magic spell." From my perspective, what you describe is common to all literature and art. John Gardner described fiction as "dream," which I think is what you are pointing to. The haiku poet creates a world (or hints or implies a world) that the reader then inhabits. And because of the open-ended quality of haiku, that world can veer in many directions. - David Grayson
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Yes, even the air we breath is magical. Thing about haiku, though, is it specifically generates an inner scenario, a virtual reality, and this to allow it to express its meaningful content as a direct experience to its reader. This is haiku's primary task, as we know, to let the haiku's circumscribed dream transmit --as it were a crystal ball-- its own meaning, and this without undue verbal interpretive bias. This use of language is unique to haiku and magic spells.
There is a fundamental (apparent) difference between haiku and magic spells, though. The former does not require more than a contemplation of the inner-image evoked by the words. The latter evokes the inner-image as a doorway into a path working, or the focal point for a projection of charged 'energy', or the collecting zone for the same.
ROUGH DRAFT - TO BE EDITED AND EXTENDED
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POLL (to complete for http://tinyurl.com/haikudebateclub )
The haiku engine uses poetics, but is not poetry (although some spin it that way - Imagistism). The haiku engine uses prosaics, but is not prose (although some spin it that way - Epigramism). Ipso facto, the haiku engine lives in the middle, neither this nor that. Is the haiku engine, then, the same as the magic spell engine and, if so, then both, therefore, are utilising a more fundamental engine? (Only respond to this if your IQ is your own.)
Yes
No
you mean Basho's frog was a. . . .
jp
22-08-10
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