Not Haiku

While I was at Shrimp in Lieu of Taxes, I spoke with Jane Wald, the Director of the Emily Dickinson Museum. I mentioned that I was planning to write a haibun about the museum which I envisioned, eventually, as part of a book of haibun about the Pioneer Valley. My first, Patro kaj Filo ĉe Sukerpanmonto, about Mt. Sugarloaf, was published in Beletra Almanako a couple of years ago. And my second, Spuroj Sub Franc-Reĝa Ponto, about the Adirondacks and Connecticut River, is supposed to come out in BA in February. I'm planning to write about the Emily Dickinson Museum, the Peace Pagoda, and the Quabbin next. I'm not sure after that.

When she heard I write haiku, she mentioned Haiku Emily, a new book where someone writes short poetry "inspired" by Emily Dickinson's work. I found a copy in the library practically the next day and tried to read it. And found that I couldn't.

They're not haiku. They're short poems that are sort of haiku-like. But they just feel utterly wrong to me. I can't stand pentastich, gogyohka, five-lines, sixwords, etc. They're like haiku, but wrong.

Of course, a lot of what people (especially Americans) think of as "haiku" actually aren't. But I think I've figured out a key part of what I find so objectionable.

I particularly like the structure of haiku as three complete units where two are together and one is apart. If you have four units (or more) -- or just two -- it feels wrong.

For example, take the haiku I wrote yesterday:

eating lunch alone
under an autumn sky…
a meager salad

It doesn't work for me nearly as well if you just change the word order blurring the first two units together:

eating lunch under
an autumn sky alone…
a meager salad

And even worse is losing the strong break:

eating a meager salad
for lunch alone
under an autumn sky

Or worst of all, adding something:

eating a meager salad
for lunch alone under

an autumn sky
'cuz they left off
the sunflower seeds

No, no, no! Three units: two together and one set apart with a strong break. Anything else is just wrong. Wrong, wrong, wrong.

Sorry, Haiku-Emily-guy. I just can't stand it.