www.amazon.com/author/paulbabicki
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Netiquette, Email and Zen
Haiku
When I read the article given below, I was inspired with the thought that
email and electronic communication can be presented in a Zen fashion just as
poetry can with Haiku. This thought was carried forward to equate Netiquette
with Zen inspired written communications.
Email is meant to convey some type of information and the tone, precision
and structure of any email/text/message has a huge part in conveying the
communications’ intent. In other words, just the right combination of thought,
accuracy, consistency and proper format will achieve the best results. This is
exactly what good Netiquette is intended to do.
Hopefully, the piece following will assist the reader in presenting their
thoughts, intentions, even feelings in their respective communications!
Here is my own Haiku:
A thought
The message is typed
Send
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The Zen Art
of Haiku
How to Write Authentic Zen Haiku in
English
by Barbara O'Brien from thought.com
Updated April 06, 2017
Japanese Zen is associated with many forms of
art—painting, calligraphy, flower arranging, shakuhachi flute, martial
arts. Even the tea ceremony qualifies as a kind of Zen
art. Poetry is also a traditional Zen art, and the form of Zen poetry best
known in the West is haiku.
Haiku, minimalist poems usually in three lines, have been
popular in the West for decades. Unfortunately, many of the traditional
principles of haiku writing are still not well understood in the West.
Much western "haiku" isn't haiku at all. What is
haiku, and what makes it a Zen art?
Haiku History
Haiku evolved from another poetic form called renga.
Renga is a kind of collaborative poem that originated in early 1st millennium
China. The oldest example of renga in Japanese dates to the 8th century. By the
13th century, renga had developed into a uniquely Japanese style of poem.
Renga was written by a group of poets under the direction of
a renga master, with each poet contributing a verse. Each verse began with
three lines of five, seven, and five syllables, respectively, followed by two
lines of seven syllables each. The first verse was called the hokku.
Matsuo Basho (1644-1694) is credited with making the first
three lines of renka into stand-alone poems that we know as haiku. In some
versions of his life Basho is described as a Zen monk, but it's more likely he
was a layperson who had an on-again, off-again Zen practice.
His best-known haiku has been translated many ways --
Old pond.
A frog jumps in --
Plop.
A frog jumps in --
Plop.
Haiku in the West, Sort Of
Haiku came West late in the 19th century, with a few
little-noticed anthologies published in French and English. A few well-known
poets, including Ezra Pound, tried their hands at haiku with undistinguished
results.
English language haiku became popular in the West during the
"beat Zen" period of the 1950s, and
many would-be haiku poets and English language arts teachers seized upon the
common structural form as the defining trait of haiku -- three lines with five,
seven, and five syllables in the respective lines. As a result, a lot of really
bad haiku came to be written in English.
What Makes Haiku a Zen Art
Haiku is an expression of direct experience, not an
expression of an idea about experience. Possibly the most common mistake
western haiku writers make is to use the form to express an idea about
experience, not experience itself.
So, for example, this is a really bad haiku:
A rose represents
A mother's kiss, a spring day
A lover's longing.
A mother's kiss, a spring day
A lover's longing.
It's bad because it's all conceptual. It doesn't give us
experience. Contrast with:
Wilted rose bouquet
Left in new grass
By the gravestone.
Left in new grass
By the gravestone.
The second haiku is not great, perhaps, but it brings you
into a moment.
The poet also is one with his subject. Basho said,
"When composing a verse let there not be a hair's breadth separating your
mind from what you write; composition of a poem must be done in an instant,
like a woodcutter felling a huge tree or a swordsman leaping at a dangerous
enemy."
Haiku is about nature, and the poem should provide at least
a hint about the season of the year, often in just one word called a kigo.
Here's another haiku of mine --
A cormorant dips
Into the pond; the floating
Yellow leaves bobble.
Into the pond; the floating
Yellow leaves bobble.
"Yellow leaves" reveals it's a fall haiku.
An important convention of haiku is the kireji, or
cutting word. In Japanese, kireji divides the poem into two parts, often
setting up juxtaposition. Put another way, the kireji cuts the train of thought
in the haiku, which is a technique for giving the poem bite. This is the oh!
part that English haiku seems too often to leave out.
Here's an example, by Kobayashi Issa (1763 - 1828). Issa was
a Jodo Shinshu priest, and not Zen, but he
wrote good haiku anyway.
From the nostril
of the Great Buddha
comes a swallow
of the Great Buddha
comes a swallow
Haiku in English
Japanese Zen has a strong aesthetic of "just the right
amount," from how many flowers in an arrangement, how much food you eat,
and how many words you use in your haiku.
You might notice most of the examples of haiku above do not
follow the five-seven-five syllable rule. The pattern of syllables works better
in Japanese, apparently. In English, it's better to use no more words than you
need to use. If you find yourself adding an adjective here and there to make
the syllable count work, that's not good haiku writing.
At the same time, if you are struggling to stay within
the five-seven-five syllable rule, you may be trying to pack too much into one
haiku. Try to tighten your focus.
And now that you know how to write a real haiku, give it a
try.
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