f/k/a doesn’t have “members.” Over the past five years, I have occasionally invited haiku poets who have an extensive body of published work that I admire to become an Honored Guest Poet — which really means I’ve asked for permission to post their past and future poems here, offering them a forum that mostly attracts persons not previously aware of real haiku.

For a couple of years, I wrote a post every day and included poems by an Honored Guest or two (and something from dagosan). That allowed me to feature each Honored Guest about once a month. I’ve slowed down a bit the past two years.

There are, of course, far too many fine haiku poets for me to attempt to follow them all.

props & bows to roberta and ellen for another stellar job of editing.

ed markowski

There is a difference between proclaiming an orthodoxy and attempting to describe a genre that has a long tradition. If poets (and editors) will indeed decide what the contours of the haiku genre is, they need to be humble in the face of that tradition, and respect the expectations of readers. At some point, the poets, critics and editors might want to consider creating a new genre, rather than insisting on pushing the envelope of the existing genre until it rips open and no longer has any recognizable shape.

The haiku poet, from inspiration to manuscript, steps back from projecting self and puts the images of perception in front of the reader for the reader’s own inspiration and interpretation. The more successful the haikuist is in showing only the seminal imagery, the more the haikuist becomes transparent to the reader. This is the magic of haiku: reading the briefest of verses and having one’s mind and heart opened intuitively in response to the imagery.

There is something of a zero-sum game aspect to the equation of [imagery:poet] in haiku. Every syllable spent on the poet is lost from the imagery. It is ineluctable.

It is a commonplace to say that the readers of haiku “complete the poem.” And, it is true. Concomitantly, the reader of haiku is the sole arbiter of its success. The customer is always right! This is a far cry from the general tenor of western verse in which correctly understanding a poem is greatly valued.

As we all know well, the study of haiku is the work of a lifetime. There is much to know, if one would write haiku well. There are a broad variety of opinions on various aspects of the art, held passionately by some. The community seems to always be striving for orthodoxy: what is right? what is true?; but for haiku in English, orthodoxy is chimerical. Haiku in English is in the early stages of becoming; orthodoxy will come, eventually, from the pens of poets, not from the analyses of critics. Poetic practice will, with generations of use, produce orthodoxy; not the fiats of even the greatest experts can substitute for the verse itself. In such a climate, to suggest that critics and commenters upon haiku in English hew to some orthodoxy, to some agreed use of terms of art, to someone’s standards of terminology, is just too much. The art of haiku in English is happening now and all voices commenting upon it should speak freely.

I very much enjoy f/k/a for the fresh ideas and opinions expressed here. Thank you for allowing me my rant.

best wishes,
Denis

By the way, thanks are in order for you and Ellen for taking on the oft-thankless task of editing the HSA Members’ Anthology. You’ve done us proud again.

As a consumer of haiku, I’m going to continue to state my preference both as a matter of taste and of genre quality — and, to remind even my haiku heroes of their own recently stated standards for what makes the best haiku. The “trick” or gist of the best haiku is that it leads us to share the poet’s insight through the use of sensory images, it doesn’t tell us what that insight, travail or vision is and then ask us to appreciate its depth.

p.s. Of course, I was not critiquing Psychodrama itself, merely haiku-like poems that embody psychodrama. I’m much more tolerant of psycho-drama in theaters (and sometimes bedrooms), than when found in haikai.

Love George Swede’s “Self-scrutiny”
- thanks …

Don