Discarded branches
ripped from wind-whipped trees litter
the deserted park
04
Feb
2020
Month: February 2020
04
Feb
2020
Crossroad
Dunkirk NY – Well, that didn’t take long.
Last week I received my copy of frogpond, which is the thrice-yearly publication of haiku by the Haiku Society of America. The arrival of the journal piqued my interest, and so I went over to HSA’s website to review the submission guidelines. I came across Guideline #2, which reads as follows:
2. All submissions must be original, unpublished work that is not under consideration by a print or web-based journal. While posts on Internet sites such as Facebook or Twitter are eligible, posts on blogs are not.
Since I am currently involved in National Haiku Writing Month, it struck me that any haiku I might write and publish on this blog would become ineligible for publication in frogpond. However, the haiku of those participating via Facebook or Twitter would remain eligible for publication. This struck me as inconsistent, to put it politely, so I wrote to the editor of frogpond for some clarification as to why this distinction existed.
The editor’s response was that haiku posted on Facebook or Twitter were “only available to friends or followers” while haiku on blogs were “open to the public” and therefore considered to be published. Since I found this answer to be inconsistent as well, I pressed the editor a bit, pointing out that Facebook is only private when a user changes their settings from “Public” (the default) to any other private setting, and that FB and Twitter can be just as public as any other internet platform. The editor was patient with me, offering more clarification, but of course the guideline is not going to change because some newbie points out an inconsistency. The position of the HSA is that haiku published on a blog like this one cannot be considered for publication in frogpond, while haiku published on Facebook and Twitter remain eligible for publication.
So I find myself already in opposition to a particular position of an organization which I’ve just recently joined. Now I have to make a decision as to whether or not to continue to publish haiku on my blog. Perhaps other journals are equally resistant to accepting haiku published on a website, and this is not unique to frogpond or the HSA. So I think I will spend some time publishing here an essay on why, in my opinion, this distinction is discriminatory, and also why I think it really shouldn’t matter at all, being a leftover from 20th century ideas about publication.
Some context is in order before I begin. Being a retired academic, I spent my working career in a “publish or perish” environment. As a performing artist, I had to fight to get non-artistic colleagues to accept that my public performances were the equivalent of a publication (“but where are your publications?”). I spent many years fighting against this mentality, taking the position that good teaching was far more valuable in terms of determining the value of a professor than the number of publications they had. It was very difficult for me to accept the notion that, somehow, being published in some obscure academic journal read only by others in the profession was an important requirement for gaining tenure. This “publish or perish” mentality in higher education is a scar on the landscape, and its significance is way out of proportion to its relevance. This personal bias probably informs to a large extent my views on what constitutes “publication.”
To cut to the chase – any platform on the internet can be made to be as public as anyone wants it to be, and the distinction between FB/Twitter as being available “only to friends or followers” while blogs are “open to the public” is simply not factual. Anyone who sets their privacy settings on FB/Twitter to “Public” has a public presence on the internet that anyone with or without a FB account can see. To argue the reverse – I can lock down this blog (which is pretty locked down already) so that only subscribers to this blog can see it. Would that be the equivalent of “only friends or followers” on FB, and thus make the haiku posted here eligible for publication?
Then there is the question of intent. Why is a FB/Twitter account assumed to be personal, while a blog is not? I think this indicates a poor understanding of what the internet is about. The problem is that, since any internet platform can be used for a myriad of purposes, judging its intent is completely subjective. To draw some sort of definitive line and treat it as if it were an objective reality is rather ludicrous at this point in time. You can, I suppose, go ahead and do that, but you should realize it’s a method of exclusion and not inclusion. You are only asking for trouble when you include one form of internet publication and exclude another by assuming intent.
Personally, my intent is not to use my blog as a publishing platform. If that were my intent, I certainly would not have it as locked down as a I do. I would allow comments, use Google Analytics, allow it to be searched, increase my SEO presence, and use other means to generate views were that the case. Facebook and Twitter quite often are used as public publishing platforms, and it’s only because of all the personal data abuses and leaks that FB has experienced that people have become more concerned about keeping their information more private. I mean, if you get on any internet platform at all for any reason, you’re probably interested in someone somewhere reading your work.
I think one has to realize that the internet is a place where people now go to draw attention to their work and talent, and not exclusively to self-publish. It’s a stepping-stone someone can take to bring attention to their work that they might otherwise not get. It’s an avenue that did not exist 30 years ago. When an organization like HSA takes a position that it will not accept haiku published on blogs or any other sort of digital platform, I think what it’s really doing is trying to prop up and defend a mindset that was in existence 30 years ago. I’d also think that this approach would be discouraging to younger people interested in the form. If I were a millennial who came across this particular submission guideline, I guess my response would be “OK, Boomer.”
This mindset was also something that plagued academia in the early days of the internet – was a digital journal really a legitimate journal? I had something published in a very early digital journal, and my colleagues questioned whether or not it should count as a “publication.” Despite the fact that I could demonstrate that the editors were legitimate leaders in the field, and that the journal was peer-reviewed in the same manner as a printed journal, it was still a fight to get it accepted. I even remember a time when colleagues would not accept student papers that were printed by a dot matrix printer – it had to be typewritten! Today, since most journals now have digital and printed versions, no one really questions this much at all.
Another point to consider is the actual business model of the platforms in question. At one time I had both Facebook and Twitter accounts, as well as LinkedIn, because they became a professional necessity. Once I retired, I closed down all my social media accounts. Like many others, at first I had a very benign approach to the platforms, and enjoyed the experience of being able to keep up with family, friends, and former students. However, as I became more aware of the business model employed by these companies, which is essentially that they steal your personal data in an attempt to monetize it for their profit, and otherwise try to influence your behavior, I realized it was imperative to protect my privacy to the extent that I could, and rid myself of this unwanted invasion. The writings of Jaron Lanier were very influential in my decision, and I continue to make efforts to resist “surveillance capitalism.” It is strange to me that the HSA is more willing to accept haiku which might appear on these data-stealing, privacy-invading platforms (which more and more people are advising you to delete or at least minimize from your life) than from a personal blog that does not participate is such questionable practices.
Lastly, I think this issue points to a certain preciousness about the material. What does it really matter where and how a haiku gets published? If my haiku is good, why would it matter to HSA or any other venue that it first appeared on my blog? Wouldn’t they want to share good haiku with their readers who might not be aware of my blog? What is this preciousness about where a haiku first appears or is published? I confess I just don’t get it. Again, it sort of has the feel of exclusivity about it. As long as the haiku is properly attributed to its author, I would think that where and how it was first published would be a rather insignificant detail. We are living in a time where exclusivity of any sort is under close scrutiny. One would think that a more open approach to haiku publication would encourage more diversity and reduce the appearance of the HSA looking like some sort of exclusive club.
I’d be more understanding if there were significant sums of money involved. Publication rights can be a big deal when it comes to compensation for your artistic work. But as far as I know, there really isn’t any big money in writing haiku. I imagine some people make some money through publication of their work, but I can’t imagine it’s enough to make a living. I’ve toyed with the notion of self-publishing my own haiku through Amazon Kindle and charging $1.99 or so for the book, but I would not expect to make very much money from such an effort. Perhaps this lack of preciousness on my part comes from a lifetime of making little money as a professional actor. According to the data, something like 90% of all the money in the entertainment business spent on performers is made by 8% of the talent pool in this country. As far as I can tell, no one is making any great fortune as a writer of haiku. It seems to be populated by well-intended people looking for some meaning, quiet meditation, and perhaps a bit more solitude in their lives, and sharing that search with others through their haiku; not with people interested in becoming famous or rich.
So it seems I am at a crossroad. My choices appear to be:
- Write for National Haiku Writing Month but not publish them on my blog so as to keep them eligible for submission to frogpond or other publications
- Write for NHWM and publish them on my blog, giving up the opportunity to submit them to frogpond and perhaps other publications
- Write and publish for NHWM and submit other unpublished haiku to frogpond and elsewhere
- Ignore frogpond and other similar journals altogether and simply use my blog as my publishing medium.
I’m going to take the rest of the day to think about it. In the larger scheme of things, any decision I make won’t matter much. Whether or not any of my haiku get published anywhere is of little consequence to me, although it would be a nice affirmation that I might be on the right track. And NHWM is an arbitrary, made-up event rather like Sweethearts Day or some other created holiday that has the tendency to create a false sense of obligation among a certain demographic (like haiku writers). Right now, a shower and breakfast seem to be in order. -twl
03
Feb
2020
Shoreline
Mucking through thick mud
for the quietest space to
listen to the waves.
03
Feb
2020
Super-Done
Dunkirk NY – I’ve been alive for every Super Bowl, and I believe the only two I missed were the first and the second (I did see the Ice Bowl, so I know at least I was watching football at that age). I’ve seen all the others, although the memories for each SB are a bit spotty. But last night, I think I watched my last one. The Super Bowl has become an over-the-top disaster, and at this point there is so much overblown and over-hyped content that watching the game has become more of an effort to avoid the hype rather than enjoy a game.
The game itself was actually pretty good. I thought the teams were evenly matched, with two young and talented QBs at the helm. Kansas City staged a great comeback to win the game in the 4th quarter, and as games go, you couldn’t ask for much more. I found myself enjoying the game as it was being played. I had no particular favorite going in, and as each team grabbed the lead, I became a “fan” of that team. The final really hinged on the interceptions made by both teams that led to points. If all I had to focus on was the game, I would have said I had a good time.
Try as I might, though, I could not avoid the continual bombardment of hype and hypocrisy that are the TV commercial and so-called public service announcements. I watched none of the pre-game, none of the half-time show (choosing to gorge on some local take-out BBQ ribs and shrimp), and little of the post-game show. My attempt was to try and concentrate on the game itself. Were there not commercials between action breaks, I might have succeeded. But even with all that avoidance, the sheer weight of they hype became too much. Continue reading →
02
Feb
2020
Groundhog Day
midwinter morning;
light snowfall settles upon
the groundhog’s shadow
01
Feb
2020
On Writing 5-7-5 Haiku
at Three Deer Junction:
Mama sniffs, perks ears, a step –
We stand still, eyes locked.
Dunkirk NY – And so begins National Haiku Writing Month. Along with the above haiku, I am going to be so bold as to expand my thoughts a little more on why we should not fear, but rather embrace, 5-7-5 haiku. You can see my original post here on Medium.
As a preamble, let me state that I am not writing against anything, nor am I writing to express the superiority of one form over another. Free form haiku, with its emphasis on minimal syllables, is a fine form of haiku writing, and without doubt many beautiful haiku result from its use. I merely wish to argue for a better view and acceptance of the 5-7-5 form, and to put a fresh slant on such haiku by claiming the form as a specifically English language form of haiku, without reference to its Japanese origins. I certainly wouldn’t stop anyone from writing free form haiku, and my hope is that haiku writers will perhaps embrace the challenges that 5-7-5 presents and raise it to another level.
The crux of my argument lies primarily in moving away from comparing the two languages – English and Japanese – and focusing on English itself as a language rich in poetic potential for haiku or any other form of poetry. It is unfortunate in some ways that the discussion has centered on comparing on to syllables. This has been a huge distraction, and I think takes away from really seeing English for the language it is. Secondarily, I think the 5-7-5 form provides just that – a form – and I believe that adding the element of form and technique offers an additional challenge to the writing of haiku.
I’ve spent my adult life working with the works of William Shakespeare. He is recognized as one of the world’s great poets and playwrights, and the consensus is that he’s the greatest poet/playwright of the English language. He contributed enormously to the language itself, giving it many new words and phrases, and in his time revolutionized the art of playwriting, raising it to a level not seen before or since. I use his sense of style and language as a jumping-off point for how I look at 5-7-5 haiku. His most important contribution to the world of playwriting and poetry was his extensive use of blank verse, otherwise know as iambic pentameter. His lines of verse in his plays and poems, for the most part, consisted of 10 syllables in the form of unstress/STRESS (an iamb). Five feet – or instances – of iambs equaled one line of poetry; hence iambic pentameter. Shakespeare also was not concerned about rhymes, and so unrhymed iambic pentameter became known as “blank verse.”
What’s important to understand about blank verse is that it is the form of poetic construction that most mimics the natural rhythms of conversational speech in English. Quite often, when people have normal conversations, a good percentage of their conversation comes out in iambic form. “I need to get a dozen eggs and milk” is a line of iambic pentameter. As a language, English seems to flow best in this form. Every language has such a natural flow or rhythm to it, and one only has to listen to the spoken language long enough to get that flow, even if they cannot understand the actual words. From Japanese to Latin, the rhythmic flow of the language is usually what best constitutes its sense of poetry. For English, the iamb, with its unstress/STRESS format, seems to work most naturally. Am I arguing that haiku should be written in iambic pentameter? Of course not. But what I am arguing is that, by understanding the flow of iambic rhythms, you can write 5-7-5 haiku with some attention to this flow. You don’t have to have an exact pattern of constant iambs, but paying attention to the rhythm and flow of how the iambs within the haiku are working can give it a more poetic feel. It may be a reason why you might pick one word over another, and that is another gift of the English language to haiku – its expansive and magnificent vocabulary.
But why stick to the 17 syllables split as 5-7-5? Primarily because that amount of syllables, combined with a visual form on the page, offers an ideal opportunity to feel that rhythm and flow. Free form haiku is generally, in my experience, a little too short to feel that sense of linguistic musicality that 17 syllables can offer. It certainly has the ability to encapsulate a moment, but perhaps not a sense of linguistic joy. I find that, when reading or experiencing poetry, having the opportunity to see how the poet has used rhythms within the poem is part of the overall experience. Free form haiku tends, on the whole, to be more concerned with capturing the “haiku moment” and less with expressing that moment in a linguistic, rhythmic style. This is all well and good, to be sure, but I think there is something more to be gained by encapsulating these moments in a form. Even a river running free is contained in the form that its banks create, and its music is shaped by the stones and dirt its bed contains.
What is even more interesting is that the 5-7-5 format is all odd numbered. Iambs really ask for even numbers of syllables, and even in Shakespeare, lines that have 9 or 11 or even 5 syllables ask for an explanation (there are explanations, but no need to go into them here). So a writer of haiku in English using the 5-7-5 format is really faced with a double challenge: paying attention to the flow of the iambs, while at the same time using odd lines to create the form. While this does not rise to the level of paradox, it does offer a paradoxical challenge, and it is one that can add a sense of mystery and suspense to the haiku. Following the flow and then having it cut off can be compared to the kiregi in Japanese haiku, where a sense of cutting off the stream of thought can come into play and lend emotional flavor to the haiku.
5-7-5 haiku writing also offers us the sense of form, and form usually offers with it a sense of discipline. Most art forms have their specific techniques which must be mastered in order to produce the artwork. In Japanese, one speaks of kata, which is the form a particular practice takes. In martial arts, practitioners always have one or perhaps several forms that they practice and repeat so as to master their craft and discipline their bodies. In my own craft of acting, one follows certain techniques and forms that can aid in creating believable characters on stage. Fine artists develop techniques with brush strokes or potter’s wheels to achieve their artistic visions. The 5-7-5 format offers a form within which one can master a sense of style, rhythm and meaning, and perhaps even find their own personality within the form.
I have to emphasize that the point of studying and mastering form is ultimately to have “no form.” Many people believe that, by discarding and not worrying about form, they are free from restrictions and so can be more free to write better verse. I would argue the opposite; that mastering form is really the ultimate key to artistic freedom. The technique of any form of art should be so thoroughly mastered that someone experiencing the artistic product has no sense of the form at all – they only experience the artistic result. A person reading or hearing a 5-7-5 haiku should not sense the 5-7-5 format, but rather the rhythm, flow, narrative, and experience of the moment the haiku attempts to capture. The phrase “don’t let them see you sweat” makes the point well. One has to go beyond the mechanical employment of the form to write a good 5-7-5 haiku.
Lastly, I enjoy haiku because the 17 syllables offer the opportunity for more expansive narrative. Free form shorter haiku are quite capable of capturing a moment, but less capable of capturing a story (although I admit the very best ones really shine at capturing story and moment as a single experience). Human beings are by nature storytellers, and they are intrinsic to our sense of what life is about. We are constantly shaping our lives into story form, whether individually or as a community. In my experience, 17 syllables strikes that balance between capturing a moment and capturing a story about that moment quite well. I’ve compared this to drinking tea. A thimble of tea is too small for any real enjoyment; a shot glass of tea offers more flavor but can leave the body unsatisfied; a cup of tea offers the opportunity to savor the tea with more than one sip (perhaps two or three), and a mug of tea might be too much, as one might tire of the taste. A 17-syllable 5-7-5 haiku, well-written, can be a very rewarding cup of poetic tea, in that it can offer poetic rhythm, flow, an experienced moment, and a short narrative on that moment.
I enjoy writing both kinds of haiku. Sometimes a moment requires a free form haiku for me. Other times the 5-7-5 format works well. Bad haiku can be written in both forms, and one is not superior to another. I don’t think people should be discouraged from writing 5-7-5 haiku, and it is a shame that the NaHaiWriMo website appears to do so. Rather, we should be engaged in trying to help people write better 5-7-5 haiku, with more of an awareness of its possibilities. It is, in my opinion, an opportunity to create English language haiku that can stand on its own without being compared to Japanese language haiku. I am going to try to write as many 5-7-5 haiku as I can during February. Hopefully a few of the will turn out to be good examples of what I am talking about. -twl
Edit 2/5/20 – I’ve designed a new graphic to use with my 5-7-5 haiku, which appears at the top of the post. Please feel free to copy and use for yourself.