Talk:Haiku/Archive 1

5-7-5 vs One breath
Given that the majority of modern English haijin don't subscribe to the 5-7-5 rule, I modified the first lines and added the "one breath" guideline. ray rasmussen, http://raysweb.net/haiku/

About Eight Seconds; a media sound byte that can be memorized in about thirty seconds, including the tune; short and sweet enough to be contagious.

A kilogram through the window of one motor- ist who faild to yield.

I've written about twenty-five [senryu], all political or self-involved and temporal, mostly insulting. If it's an image, then it might be a senryu. If it's about nature, then it might be a senryu. If it fails to indicate the season, then it's not a haiku; it's a senryu. If it's less than seventeen syllables, then it's not a haiku; it might be a jingle if you can sing it and it's a sentence or two. If it's more than seventeen syllables, then it's not a haiku. Breaking those last two rules to call three lines a haiku means that you've indicated the season AND one word in your poem is very strong or controversial. It might be a jingle if you can sing it and it's a sentence. If it's not a sentence, then it's not a haiku. I'm not sure of that. I am sure that it's easier to sing a sentence.

Maybe it's not all that sharp, but I KNOW that a LOT of what goes under the guise of a haiku in English is a [Senryu], so I put that word in the lead paragraph.

Jack Kerouac wanted to write his own rules for American haiku. But you should understand that ONE RULE about it indicating the season is a rule of content that makes haiku tend to be peaceful and understanding.

Money does not grow on trees unless you sell the fruit for substitute. BrewJay (talk) 17:51, 4 May 2008 (UTC)


 * If the following purports to be defining characteristics of Haiku and associated forms, it is one of the most confusing farragoes I have encountered in WP. Take “If it’s an image, then it might be a [senryu]”. Now let me give you one.”If it’s brown, then it might be a [bear].” Does that help you understand “brown” or “bears”. And why is [senryu] apparently the only word in the English Language that must be contained in square brackets? And why not just say “Haiku forms must have 17 and only 17 syllables” rather than use two sentences—one to advise that it cannot have MORE than 17 syllables, and then another sentence—and not even adjacent to the first—telling you that you it cmay not have LESS than 17? And what sense can be made of: “It might be a jingle if you can sing it and it’s a sentence or two”? Whaaaa!!!?? I could probably sing the old DOS manual, and since when is “jingle” a formal Japanese word?
 * And, lastly, if the solitary [senryu] you provided as your very own work is meant as an exemplar of what you are capable of, then I for one would not be interested in seeing any more.
 * Is this what you mean?:
 * A Haiku must have 17 and only 17 syllables, otherwise it is not a Haiku
 * A Haiku must be a complete sentence.
 * A Haiku-like poem that makes no mention of a season is not properly termed a Haiku; it is known as a Senryu
 * Typically, Senryus are strong on images, especially ones from the natural world. Myles325a (talk) 07:41, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

Hisashi Inoue recently put his play about Sex on stage, and in the brochure for this play (The Za, No. 59) he puts a note worth checking. It says that in the early Showa era there was a high-school professor in Japan who wondered "Why 5-7-5?" and he had an interesting experiment with his students: he arranged a random succession of hiragana letters on a sheet of paper, and called one student at a time to a separate room to read the letters up aloud. Since this queue of letters made no sense (i.e. no syntactical break), each student just followed it letter to letter. He kept doing this for five years with about 500 atudents total, and found out that the average number of letters to be read in one breath was 12. 78% of the students took a breath after the 12th letter. This confirms the effect of Kireji (cutting word), which usually sets in after the first 5 or before the last 5 of the 5-7-5: breathwise, 5-12 or 12-5. Koast

Kiga translation
I assume that the haiku by Basho has the prescribed number of syllables in Japanese, but why, when the kigo got translated, is there no trace of the sense of season? &lt;&gt;&lt; tbc


 * A frog, according to Saijiki, is a kigo for summer and it is associated with a rainy season in late June to late July in Japan. An image of water, like rain and pond, makes it more definite.  So, a kigo is right there but most countries don't have a rainy season and thus it doesn't appear to have a kigo.  Revth 05:14, 8 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Error messages
Haiku error messages are mentioned in Terry Pratchett & Neil Gaiman's 1990 novel "Good Omens". Is this the first instance, and were the competitions etc inspired by this?

Translation removed
I removed this. Nothing I know about Basho or the haiku form or that particular haiku suggest that that's the "meaning of the original", and the translation plainly sucks:


 * ''another translation of this poem (which is less poetic, but gets at the core meaning of the Japnesse original a little more clearly) is:
 * When an old pond
 * Gets a new frog
 * It's a new pond.''

A haiku is a poetic form of GAYNEESSSSS —Preceding unsigned comment added by 142.227.168.2 (talk) 18:30, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

A Haiku is a Gyness, on this i comment: While a haiku is a gyness there a sociatal propositons assosiated, student to master, young man to woman, and the hayiku master to submsive, this is of the seasons, so essentialy - Sesons; Pronciation: stress and form. —Preceding unsigned comment added by FirmBenevolence (talk • contribs) 16:45, 16 May 2009 (UTC)


 * I agree in the archaic sense of happiness or jollity that haiku propagate gaiety; that's the point of the rule about indicating the season for me. It's probably impossible to argue in the form of haiku. BrewJay (talk) 18:08, 4 May 2008 (UTC)

-- Lament


 * ''I've always known this as:


 * The old pond
 * A frog jumps
 * Plop!''

-- Tarimo

Furu ike ya kawazu tobikomu mizu no oto -

Old pond Frog jump-in Water sound

Removed kimo and wikihaiku
I removed this: Post-haiku forms include Kimo and wikihaiku. Wikihaiku is listed on VfD and according to opinions there does not exist. Angela.

Another translation
I like this translation of Basho's most well known poem:


 * Old pond,
 * Frog jumps in in ---
 * plop.''
 * plop.''

I would like to add this. Should I? ZenMondo


 * I think one or two examples are ok, as long as people don't try adding whole lists of them. Angela. 07:32, Feb 16, 2004 (UTC)


 * Yes, people get very attached to their favorite translation of Old Pond, it could quickly become an Old Pond collection. It was right to remove the "new pond" 'translation', that one does suck, and is not very "Basho" from what I understand.  I like the above translation becuase of its brevity, and how with the onomonopia it dashes the percieved "syllable rule".

The Purpose of the 5-7-5 rule this is the most inconsivably posible form of the Hiku there were in the (18)70's 5 examples of such a haiku, the impositon of this rule by the british was to encorage, Selective Art. please examin my coments and edit apropriately.

Present form is, self examining, pedantry. as previous coments ilucidate reference the modern Haiku, is the art dying: Quote Abuse. FirmBenevolence —Preceding undated comment added 17:05, 16 May 2009 (UTC).

ZenMondo

Furu ike ya kawazu tobikomu mizu no oto- Old pond Frog jump-in Water sound

Rajiv Lather
Hi, there is an article about Rajiv Lather, Haiku poet. It has been listed on Votes for deletion as he is not considered to be notable enough. If he is considered popular in Haiku circles, maybe you can vote at Votes for deletion/Rajiv Lather. Thanks. Jay 12:12, 10 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Three comments
Three comments about the article on haiku.

1) The translations of the two haiku by Basho should have the translators listed. [There is also one haiku on the Matsuo Basho page that is uncredited.]

2) Other well-known authors besides Richard Wright who have written haiku include: Jorge Luis Borges, Octavio Paz, Dag Hammarskjöld, Jack Kerouac, Gary Snyder and Allen Ginsberg.

3) Shouldn't Basho have the macron or circumflex diacritical over the "o" in his name to denote the long vowel? It is shown that way only once in the Wikipedia Matsuo Basho article.

gK 4 Oct 2004


 * gK, thanks for your suggestions. Since Wikipedia is a wiki, you should feel free to add your improvements directly to the article.  See How to edit a page to learn how.


 * I added your list of authors to the article, but don't know anything about the translators of the Basho haiku in either article&mdash;perhaps you could help?


 * Regarding Basho's name, due to technical considerations regarding the display of special characters, it is common not to use special characters when keyboard characters will suffice&mdash;with certain exceptions, e.g. the first appearance of a foreign-language name, as in the Matsuo Basho article. I don't know that I'd consider it "wrong" for us to write his name either with or without the macron (though I've never seen it with a circumflex), and I can't find a definite Wikipedia policy on the matter.  I wouldn't spend time "correcting" the current usage myself, but if someone else corrected it, I probably wouldn't undo their work either.   &mdash;Triskaideka 18:12, 4 Oct 2004 (UTC)

In my limitless spare time I do plan to learn how to properly edit and format a wiki page because I want to edit a few wiki pages (e.g. senryu, haiga and maybe the Basho page), plus probably add a few pages (scifaiku - science fiction haiku). Also, when I use the Wikipedia I keep finding places where there are missing links to other parts of the wikipedia and want to be able to make those quick changes.

I didn't recognize the Basho translation or I would have said who it was. There is a book available that has 100 translations/interpretations or Basho's famous frog haiku. The translation in the Wiki article is probably copywrited, but a single translation as part of a critical/academic discussion should be covered under "fair use". The very few haiku translations that I know about that would be in the public domain are pretty clunky and wordy.

Personally, I'd rather see Basho's raven/crow haiku in the wiki article which I think is more accessible to the average person. It really wasn't until I had been writing haiku for a half dozen years before I really appreciated and understood Basho's frog haiku.

on a barren branch / a raven has purched-- / autumn dusk

trans. William J. Higginson

I would also suggest that the romanji (transliterated) versions of the Basho haiku be included in the wiki article. The romanji frog haiku is:

furuike ya / kawazu tobikomu / mizu no oto

Makoto Ueda's "Basho and his Interpreters" also includes literal translations, which might be something worth including. It is interesting to see how different the Japanes language is from English.

As for Basho's name. If you look at the Wiki article on diacriticals, you will learn that there are a couple of different ways of transliterating Japanese. The macron is used for double vowels in the most common system (Bash&#333), while the circumflex is less commonly used (Bashô). I've also seen a few cluges, like the Encyclopedia Brittanica website that uses underlines .

Finally - I looked at the Rajiv Lather wiki article and also his website. My opinion is that it is a vanity Wiki webpage. There are a large number of haiku poets and haiku journal editors that I would think about including in the haiku article before I would add him to the article.

gK 7 Oct 2004

I added the author's name for the haiku from the winner of the Salon haiku error message contest. I couldn't figure out how to mark that as a minor change. For disambiguation purposes, there probably should be a mention of Haiku, Hawaii, and the creation of a Wiki Stub page for the city.

gK 8 Oct 2004


 * You can mark changes as minor by checking the "This is a minor edit" box that appears between the "Summary" line and the "Save page" button when you're editing. However, any change that adds content isn't really minor.  The minor change flag is for really trivial stuff like fixing a typo or removing a comma.


 * It looks like the full name of the town in Hawaii is Haiku-Pauwela. In that case I don't know that we really need disambiguation, but since we already had a disambig line in the article, I figured I might as well add the town.  Anyone else can set up Haiku (disambiguation) if they like, but again, I don't think it's really necessary; there's not a whole lot of room for confusion between the three subjects.


 * Regarding a couple of points in your previous comment: first, I wouldn't disagree with you about the Lather article, but it did already survive a vote for deletion. There's no need to link it from this article, though; he's probably not nearly as well-known as the other authors you mentioned.  Second, you can change the example haiku to another one if you like, but as the frog haiku is probably more famous, I'm inclined to keep it.  It's not terribly important, in my opinion, if readers fail to fully grasp it; in the context of an encyclopedia, we're just telling them what a haiku is, not teaching art appreciation.   &mdash;Triskaideka 17:04, 8 Oct 2004 (UTC)

A quick Google Test: "Haiku-Pauwela, Hawaii" = 711, "Haiku, Hawaii" = 4,160. Also: I have a News Alert at Google News for "haiku" and news articles always have it as "Haiku, Hawaii" and never as "Haiku-Pauwela, Hawaii". Should there be a redirect page for "Haiku, Hawaii" leading to "Haiku-Pauwela, Hawaii"?

re: Basho's frog vs. raven haiku. I chose the raven haiku because it is probably Basho's 2nd most famous haiku. However, my point was more a quibble than anything else.

A bigger question for someone who knows Japanese: re: "haiku poet (haijin)". I've seen haijin defined as either "haiku poet" or "haiku master" but don't know which definition is correct.

gK 8 Oct 2004 11:28 PST


 * Regarding a redirect for the town, redirects are cheap, as they say, but I'm starting to wonder whether the two names refer to exactly the same place. See my comments at Talk:Haiku-Pauwela, Hawaii.    &mdash;Triskaideka 15:35, 11 Oct 2004 (UTC)

"mailing list" vs. "e-mail list"
A minor quibble, perhaps, but: I changed the term "mailing list" to "e-mail list" in the External links section, and it was soon changed back. Why use a term that has multiple meanings ("mailing list" often refers to postal mail) instead of one whose meaning is more immediately obvious? I'm not aware of anything objectionable about the term "e-mail list".

I suppose it's debatable whether tinywords is best described as an e-mail list at all. I'm sure many users simply visit the web site each day to read the haiku. Perhaps we should call it a "A haiku-a-day web site", or something like that. &mdash;Triskaideka 21:43, 20 Dec 2004 (UTC)


 * Hi, I changed "e-mail list" to "mailing list" because the latter is a generally accepted term and the former isn't (I have never encountered it before. Google gives a bunch of hits but many of them are about [i]lists of email addresses[/i], and that's probably how I would interpret "e-mail list" without context). --lament 22:51, 20 Dec 2004 (UTC)


 * The mailing list article you linked actually raises the point that electronic mailing list may be a preferable term.  &mdash;Triskaideka 16:31, 21 Dec 2004 (UTC)

misc comments
a couple of comments:


 * 1) I'm not convinced that it's appropriate to start talking about English haiku as early as the 2nd paragraph; I think the article could be improved by focusing initially on Japanese haiku, and then grouping together the stuff on non-Japanese haiku into a section further down the article.
 * 2) it would be nice to know the literal meaning of the kanji for "haiku" (given as 俳句) (posted by 80.229.160.150)


 * Well, this is the english wiki -- the japanese article presumably has less of an english-language focus. (posted by User:Tlogmer)
 * But this is an encyclopedia. Haiku has a roughly 400 year history as the most commonly written poetry form in Japan, and is still a very big part of the Japanese culture (there are daily haiku columns in every major Japanese newspaper, for example). English-language haiku only started to become developed in the late 1950's, and even today a major English-language haiku journal will only have a few hundred subscribers. The Japanese Wikipedia may not even discuss non-Japanese haiku (there is a vocal traditionalist faction in the Japanese haiku community that believes that haiku must be written in Japanese), or may only discuss it briefly (haiku is written around the world with one strong haiku community in the Balkans, for example). Blank Verse  &empty;  20:25, 20 Apr 2005 (UTC)
 * OK, fair enough. (Maybe I'll try to track down someone who speaks japanese and copy some of the content over.) Tlogmer 06:02, 22 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Ezra Pound
User:Dumbledad added Ezra Pound to the list of Non-Japanese haiku poets. While he and the other Imagists admitted they were influenced by haiku, I don't think that they ever called any of them poems haiku. On the other hand, I've read one modern haiku expert who argued that Pound's famous "In a Station of the Metro" (at least in its last revision) was a genuine haiku. I am still not convinced, so I am asking what others think. Blank Verse  &empty; 11:24, 3 May 2005 (UTC)

I added Ezra Pound because he was so clearly influenced by haiku, and his influence in turn was so important for C20 poetry in English. I do believe that his poem "In a Station of the Metro" (http://www.internal.org/view_poem.phtml?poemID=212) is a particularly fine haiku: though the form may break the rules, the spirit is clearly there. And, as User:BlankVerse points out, it is a famous poem, so Pound's omission felt weird. Dumbledad 10:11, 4 May 2005 (UTC)


 * Because he is not considered a haiku poet, I think that a better solution might be to remove him, but then add a section on "Haiku in English" starting with the early translations by Lafcadio Hearn and others, and then adding a paragraph on the influence of haiku and tanka or the Imagists and Ezra Pound. That way we might even add in the "metro" poem to the article. After that, there is a l-o-n-g pause before the works of R. H. Blyth and his influence on the Beat poets. Blank Verse  &empty;  10:48, 4 May 2005 (UTC)
 * I'd agree that Pound does not really belong here, despite his own influence on the Beats (especially Snyder) and on others who did write haiku in English. Even the Metro poem is a haiku in the sense that a 15-line poem could be a sonnet. Filiocht | Blarneyman 12:48, May 4, 2005 (UTC)
 * The "Metro" poem has a kigo (season word) in "Petals", it has a break or kireji with the semicolon, it has the juxtaposition of the faces and the petals...it is a haiku. Although a good poem, I wouldn't call it a good example of haiku, but it is still haiku. Blank Verse  &empty;  13:14, 4 May 2005 (UTC)
 * Except that very clearly it's a rhymed couplet. (crowd and bough make a slant rhyme, something that Pound used a lot.) It's a couplet clearly influenced by haiku, but still a couplet.Geoffrey.landis (talk) 16:21, 12 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Maybe Cid Corman should be added to replace Pound? Filiocht | Blarneyman 13:07, May 4, 2005 (UTC)
 * I wouldn't necessarily call it replacing Pound, but I don't think that Pound belongs, but Corman does belong. Blank Verse  &empty;  13:14, 4 May 2005 (UTC)

Reorganization
I've deleted some of the non-haiku nonsense that had been recently added to this article and I've started reorganizing things. I won't be spending a lot of effort on the Haiku article until I am satisfied with the Kigo article, but hopefully this reorganization will help jumpstart the improvement of this Haiku article.

One more new section that I think needs to be added is one titled "Non-Japanese Haiku" (and the new "Haiku in English" section should then be turned into a subsection). There is a long history of French haiku, a small number of Spanish poets who have written haiku, and roughly within the last decade a strong community of haiku poets in the Balkans that can be mentioned in this section, just for starters. Blank <font color= 	#F88017>Verse <font color=#2554C7> <font color=#F660AB>&empty; 16:05, 26 May 2005 (UTC)

I think Pound's poem should be left out. It's too good a poem for this section.

morae = one phonetic character?
Having read the article and the entry for morae and some other links it still isn't clear to me whether the rule is really 5/7/5 phonetic characters (katakana or equivalently hiragana).

Or perhaps lengthened vowels are considered one mora instead of two? Is the 'n' sound without a following vowel a mora? 'N' the only lone consonant in Japanese. Is a glottal stop ('っ') a mora? &mdash;The preceding unsigned comment was added by 63.105.65.5 (talk • contribs) 23:16, 15 Jun 2005.


 * The best answers that I've seen to you question about Japanese characters in haiku are in the "Stalking the Wild Onji" article listed in the External links in the Haiku article. Lengthened vowels, like the "&#333;" in Bash&#333;, get a count of two. I don't know the answer for the glottal stop. Blank <font color= 	#F88017>Verse <font color=#2554C7> <font color=#F660AB>&empty;  11:15, 16 Jun 2005 (UTC)


 * Lenthened vowels are counted two.

"&#333;" in Bashō is a double vowel and a double vowel has 2 morae, so Bashō has 3 morae total - he would spell his name "HaSeO" (3 characters / 3 morae). And 'n' sound is followed by a nasal sound which I'd consider a vowel, so it counts as a mora. A glottal stop may not be a mora but consumes the same amount of time as a mora, so I count it. Koast (Japanese)

Scancion in english
Wilst not strictly Haiku Scancion in english is both a flaming torch and the high and base meaning of a word.

Thus Mo,use is; pray to man beast and puse; wilst rat is food

alass english is prone to our satiric edge and our, diplomatic, middel class

Mailing list, portuast? —Preceding unsigned comment added by FirmBenevolence (talk • contribs) 03:22, 17 May 2009 (UTC)

Very confusing
I find the organization and content of the Haiku article to be quite confusing for just a few reasons.

1. Although the beginning of the article makes a fairly clear distinction between haiku and hokku, a very large number of references in the article use the word hokku. In fact, haiku and hokku often appear to be used interchangeably. It is entirely unclear to me whether this is intentional or inadvertent. In any case, a large part of the article appears to be about a subject *other than* haiku.

2. There are almost no examples -- whatsoever! -- of haiku in, or translated into, English (other than a jocular "internet" haiku on death, taxes, and lost data,which is characterized as not following most of the traditional rules for haiku in English). It is absurd for an article on a form of short poetry to include almost no examples of its subject.

3. Of the seven important haiku writers cited at the end of the article, fully three of them are entirely pre-20th century -- the century in which the article states that the haiku form was first invented. &mdash;The preceding unsigned comment was added by 207.69.138.8 (talk • contribs).


 * I agree that this article still needs lots of work. One problem is that many people who edit this article who often do not know much about haiku except for some of the garbage that can be found on the internet or the little they remember of haiku from grammar school. Another problem is that there are people who have their own, eccentric views on haiku, and that is the problem with much of the discussion about hokku in the article. There was a anonymous editor who fairly recently added a bunch of material that uses the word in a very non-standard way (my interpretation of their meaning is essential haiku in the style of Basho at his most conservative, rather than the traditional meaning as the opening stanza of a renga).


 * As for examples, unless one of our bilingual editors wants to help translate some haiku, we would be violating the translator's copyright to copy a translation of an entire poem without permission (even if it's only a three line poem). There are some pre-1923 public domain translations of haiku, but most are verbose, awkward, or have other problems.


 * As for only three Edo Period poets, those three stand to far above any of their contemporaries that everyone else would be listed as minor poets. I would almost rather see a list of the four major poets (add Shiki), and then two additional lists of Edo Period, and post-Edo poets.


 * If you want to help improve this article, I would really appreciate the help. If you need any help in learning how to edit on the Wikipedia, just contact me by leaving a message on my Talk page. Blank <font color= 	#F88017>Verse <font color=#2554C7> <font color=#F660AB>&empty;  17:46, 29 July 2005 (UTC)


 * The non-standard ideas about hokku that were added to this article are from David Coomler, or someone influenced by him. For a more mainstream opinion of his ideas, see this review of his haiku book in the haiku journal Modern Haiku . 4.232.105.201 01:33, 15 August 2005 (UTC)

I guess I can provide some translations - meaning I'll make them. Or I can submit some out of the Blyth's translations that I found faithful to the original, in terms of both rhyth and meaning. Is Blyth's copyright still alive? By the way, I found David Coolmer's comments on Basho's old pond hokku in Google's cash and they were "standard" from my Japanese point of view. I still know little about this guy, though.

--Koast 10:34, 28 November 2005 (UTC)koast

epic haiku
There's no treatment of epic haiku in the article. A famous example is:

http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~dst/DeCSS/Gallery/decss-haiku.txt

but there's tons of google hits for other approaches to the concept. Can anyone do it justice?

Haiku vs hokku
So I just rewrote/reformatted the article along the following lines:
 * The first verse of a haikai renga is a hokku
 * Once it stands alone, it's a haiku, regardless of when it was written
 * waka covers all old Japanese poetry, only tanka has the 5-7-5-7-7 structure

This is in line with the Japanese version:
 * 俳諧連歌の発句が独立したものであると考えられており、さらに起源を遡り、短歌の上句に由来すると言われることもある.

The Japanese version also covers pre-Shiki haiku poets as 江戸時代の俳人 ("Edo era") and post-Shiki as 近代の俳人 ("modern era"). Jpatokal 03:18, 19 August 2005 (UTC)

>only tanka has the 5-7-5-7-7 structure

Tanka and tanrenga (short renga) have the structure.

--Koast 10:09, 28 November 2005 (UTC)koast

"Hokku" covers works by pre-Shiki haijin (haiku poets), indeed. --67.83.183.201 06:20, 20 апреля 2008 (UTC)

Old Pond Translation
How about this version :

old pond -

the splashing of water

when frogs jump in

who says it was just one frog? usually around the old irrigation ponds of Japan, there are frog families and they tend to all jump at the same time ! ha ! Basho lived in a rural area with wet rice fields (and millions of frogs) all around his place.

A Japanese Friend

..................................

I posted a brief commentary on Basho's 'old pond' hokku in the article page a few days ago, and now it's removed; I agree it wasn't appropriate for that section, but also do believe Kai Hasegawa's interpretation was remarkable. So I'd like to srart a discussion here on Basho's best-known hokku.


 * An old pond;
 * A frog jumps in—
 * The sound of water.

Do you guy's think there's any notable sensation in this?

I guess this is R.H. Blyth's translation. There are many others with this typical 1 - 2 - splash pattern, perhaps obsessed by the convention of three-line translation.

The original doesn't have a verb, and the frog's jump is combined in a noun phrase, like "The sound / of a diving frog" (tr. Kenneth Rexroth). There's no visual description of the frog. The Blyth-type translation may appear more dramatic to some people, but it certainly blurs the original's poetic focus.

Hasegawa's note as I posted says that the pond is an image that arises in Basho's mind, as he hears the sound of water (he guesses that a frog jumped in). Presumably neither the pond or the frog is in sight at the beginning. This reading made the hokku's sensation much clearer to me.

As this hokku in the West is perhaps best known of all hokku/haiku and as more and more people are looking up for infos on the web today, I think the choice of translation in this article affects the future of hokku/haiku. I personally don't think the Blyth's translation is genuine at all.

--Koast 10:12, 28 November 2005 (UTC)Koast

I couldn't subscribe to Blyth's translation with two breaks, and replaced it with my own which I believed to be as literal and faithful to the original as possible.

--Koast 10:12, 28 November 2005 (UTC)Koast


 * I'm going to have to think about the new translation. I am so used to seeing versions of the haiku that are similar to the old translation. Both Makoto Ueda's and William Higginson's versions, for example, are not too different. I don't have my Blythe volumes handy, but it turns out that writing the haiku that way probably goes back to Lafcadio Hearn's 1900 translation:


 * Old Pond&mdash;frogs jumped in&mdash;sound of water


 * (found in The Classic Tradition of Haiku, edited by Faubion Bowers ISBN 0-586-29274-6)


 * If nothing else, if the translation is going to have an article, it probably should be "the" instead of "an", since the poem referred to a specific pond near Basho's hut (as I understand it). <sup style="color:green;">Blank <sup style="color:#F88017;">Verse 11:30, 28 November 2005 (UTC)

I've checked both Ueda's and Higginson's translations: as you say, they're not too different from Blyth's. Hearn's translation you've put, published in his Exotics and Retrospectives (1898), has the same 1-2-splash structure. In Basho's original, as is usually the case in most hokku and haiku, there's only one break (kire). So there should be only two parts to the hokku, and the order of these parts doesn't necessarily represent time progression. There's no active verb; the frog's jump is combined in a noun phrase which centers on the sound of water.

A Basho disciple Shiko records in his Kuzu no Matsubara that Basho came up with the latter 7-5 part, "kawazu tobikomu" (precisely, "kawazu tobitaru" then) first, that he rejected Kikaku's suggestion to put "Yamabuki ya" for the first part and chose "Furuike ya". The sound of water evokes an old pond; the pond is not a setting but an active object of sensation, as the exclamatory kireji "ya" confirms. This hokku has a structure similar to that of another Basho classic, "Shizuka sa ya iwa ni shimi iru semi no koe". So the article for the old pond should rather be "An".

Hope this makes the matter clear. Regards, --Koast 20:21, 28 November 2005 (UTC)

An apt response to vandals
I've just corrected a bit of missed vandalism on here. An apt response to vandalism on this article would be to send the following haiku to the vandal:

You take pleasure in

The trashing of others' work

Need to get a life.

Maybe then they'll get the message. Jamyskis <font size="-3">Whisper, Contribs 00:41, 18 January 2006 (UTC)
 * If only this could stop them :) --67.83.183.201 06:20, 20 апреля 2008 (UTC)

sakura
The sakura bloom

The orchards sweet aroma

Waves of white & pink

Comment
This page is very detailed. I would, however, reconsider basic definitions; for example, not all haiku contain kigo, not all senryu is humorous, senryu can contain kigo. There are also many innovative forms of haiku: you've touched upon one, but failed to recognise it as 'haiku noir'. The links section lacks in online journals that publish this and other new forms, such as Haiku Harvest, Triptych Haiku, and Lynx. I think it could be more balanced.

Elaboration on various rules
Wouldn't it be appropriate to add another section elaborating the various rules about length, structure and content applied when writing haiku? i.e a list of the traditional rules, variatioins thereof, later changes etc? I know the article has a lot of good information about both haiku poetry both regarding historical origins and contemporary usage, but an individual section elaborating and clarifying the nature of various rules applied, differentiating between original, "authetic" rules (or lack of such rules) and later developments (like free-verse haiku etc.) would be nice. It would help clarify this aspect of haiku poetry; there seems to be a lot of confusion, disagreement and arbritrariness concerning writing "proper" hakko/haiku. The reason I'm asking and not doing it myself is because my knowledge on this matter is too limited. Anyway, I hope I'm not making too much of an ass of myself here. Mogura 22:33, 4 July 2006 (UTC)

Section On Basho
The information provided about Basho in this heading is contradicting to other information in the Wikipedia about Matsuo Basho and the section about Haiku. It states that Basho had no disciples, then goes on to tell you that his Disciples carried on his school. I don't understand what that is supposed to mean.

68.218.180.71 21:08, 13 November 2006 (UTC)Maciader

Basho did indeed have disciples. He mentions them frequently in his prose, especially in the Narrow Road to a Far Province, a prose/hokku book describing Basho's late life journey across the extremities of northern Honshu. Accompanying him on this journey was a disciple of Basho's, one whose hokku appears in the book. --Bentonia School 10:30, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

Morae or on?
Mora is not a traditional Japanese word, and Japanese haiku don't really count morae, since the introduction of the concept of morae to Japan significantly postdates the flowering of the Haiku. I put the word "on" into the first paragraph defining a haiku; I'd like to invite anybody with a better understanding of contemporary Japanese vocabulary to correct this. Since "on" isn't in Wikipedia, I'll also put a brief stub in under "onji", and link it to mora. Geoffrey.landis 17:06, 18 January 2007 (UTC)


 * Morae = onji (an obsolete Japanese term last regularly used by the Japanese roughly 80 years ago that is now only used in English-language books on haiku) = hyouon moji (modern Japanese). BlankVerse 01:09, 19 January 2007 (UTC)


 * Agreed; I mentioned that explicitly when I wrote the short Wikipedia article for onji, but if you wanted to elaborate, it would be useful to have better information. I put the Wikipedia listing under the term "onji "instead of "on" so that English-speakers trying to find a definition of this elusive word used in discussing haiku could find it (if I filed it under "on" I would have to put a redirect page from "onji" anyway); also partly because "on" has so many meanings in English, the meaning would be almost invisible at the bottom of some disambiguation page.  It would be nice if a native Japanese speaker would correct this section; I am writing based on information based entirely from translated sources.  Geoffrey.landis 15:07, 24 January 2007 (UTC)


 * Unfortunately, there is almost nothing that is available in English. The best information that I know is in a haiku mailing list that I can't quote from because of the mailing list's rules. BlankVerse 15:00, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

Anishinaabe
I've added 'First Nations' to the section that mentions the Anishinaabe People. The article previously stated simply 'Native Americans', which is not the ethnical term used for Native Peoples in Canada. The Anishinaabe range spreads widely into central Canada where they are not referred to as "Native Americans", but as "First Nations". --Bentonia School 10:26, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

Examples
Perhaps some better examples are needed. Traditionally, a haiku follows the 5-7-5 rule. The Japanese haikus break this rule when translated in to Enlgish. I'm thinking that an English haiku should be added that does follow the 5-7-5 rule, as to not confuse the readers. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Contributions/ (talk) 206.207.175.164


 * If you look at all of the leading English-language haiku journals, such as Modern Haiku, or Heron's Nest, you will see that almost none of the haiku that is being published in English has 5-7-5 syllables or 17 syllables total. This has been true for roughly thirty years. To include English-language haiku that was specifically 5-7-5 would not be representative of modern English-language haiku.  Blank Verse  14:07, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

Sadakichi Hartmann
I'm afraid that the reversions of "strange things" removed some very real information from the page. First, haiku writers are indeed called haijin by the Japanese. Second, Sadakichi Hartman was one of the earliest, if not the first, to write haiku in English. Information about Haiku doesn't begin and end with English language sources, ladies and gentlemen. Changes are in order. Also, I believe it's Wikipedia policy to inform the writers in question when reversions are contemplated. Not only was this reversion wrong-headed it was also illegally done. Jesse Glass Sadakichi Hartmann added again. Jesse Glass

Wonder Haiku Worlds
To the editors of this article:

I would like to propose that Wonder Haiku Worlds be added to the external links list on this article. This website is quite relevant to haiku, as it is the only interactive community portal active in haiku and related forms such as photo haiku, senryu and tanka. It is also the only other active photo haiku forum (other than photo haiku gallery). There is a great deal of useful, general information for haiku writers in the form of essays, articles and a directory of links. The editors of the website are reputed in haiku circles (especially Narayanan Raghunathan, who has been published in most popular online magazines and has several books in print). We are acknowledged by the World Haiku Club and World Kigo Database, and extensively linked to both sites.

Shyamsanthanam 14:40, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

Old pond haiku
I've removed the pidgin English version, since it's an eyesore and an insult to the poet.

New version:
 * 古池や蛙飛込む水の音
 * Furu ike ya kawazu tobikomu mizu no oto
 * An old mere
 * When the frogs jump in
 * The sound of water

Parse tree: _              / \          ____/\  \      ___/    \ \  \    _/   \_    \ \  \   / \   / \    \ \  \ 古池 や 蛙 飛込む 水 の 音 Notes: I'm no poet, so feel free to discuss, modify etc. Shinobu 02:52, 9 May 2007 (UTC)
 * The particle "ya" denotes an incomplete list. The frogs can presumable jump in other stuff as well. Hard to translate
 * (edit) Since it can be used as a pause in thought, it's a possible "cutting word" (see article). Which brings me to another point... from the article "In Japanese, there are actual kireji words." - list them, or give examples if they're too numerous to be listed. Remember that every single bit of information must be sourced? Shinobu 03:12, 9 May 2007 (UTC)
 * Normally, you would expect 蛙が飛込む but apparently frog was absorbed in the verb. Perhaps for metric or poetical reasons.
 * As noted elsewhere on the web, in warmer climates like Japan and the Mediterranean (remember Ouidius?) frogs are never alone.
 * The whole first two lines are a preposition to water. So the whole poem actually is a noun phrase, like: the sound of water, when the frogs jump in etc.
 * Particles like "no" are often kept together with the modifying word (in this case "mizu") because they behave like inflections. But semantically it applies to the whole phrase, which is why I chose this layout.
 * Perhaps all the lines should be reversed? :-) No seriously, there's a good argument for that too.
 * Very insightful. It's rare that you see somebody pont out that the word "frog" can equally well be plural. (on a  page comparing thirty different translations, only one translation is plural.)  "Mere" is old-fashioned English; nobody would use that word in speech today.  Unless the original Japanese word is no longer used, sticking with the common "pond" would be better, I think. Geoffrey.landis (talk) 15:51, 12 January 2008 (UTC)

Is moden western haiku 5-7-5 or not?
I've always known haiku as beeing the 5-7-5 sylable rule. But alot of the ones in this article don't follow that patern. What is the right way? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Prof. Finn (talk • contribs) 14:02, 10 May 2007 (UTC).

5-7-5 form is still in use in Japan. English-language haiku are usually shorter - simply because English syllables are longer than Japanese onji. --Badvibes101 22:40, 12 May 2007 (UTC)

Favorite Basho old pond translation
MY favorite old prod traslation gos as follows.

Old frog; Earth water elemental breth, life.

If one looks at the original script it is in the 5-7-5 and requires that the sumation is the haiku it is meant to be read and is poetry in meaning rarther than pronunciation, there is some suggestion that the original verse was composed of minor verse hiku taking the form similar to the translations we see as feminine and beautifull, in this we see the japanies laguage, diigance, and refination of art. —Preceding unsigned comment added by FirmBenevolence (talk


 * One of the seven Bashido originals ilistreted in several partchemnts is held at the victoria and albert in london and has a suposed reference to Poe as a sorce of inspiration, Quoth the Raven Rare Japanise symbol predicting war, Aproximatly t` Remains unsighned but verifiable for quotation.

P.O.V.
One pararaph reads: "The poet-critic Bob Grumman,[3] applies the word haiku to his own brief, mathematical "poems," ("mathemaku") and to visual poetry by Scott Helms. This stretching of the definition of haiku is considered by others to be excessive, but Grumman defends his position by pointing to what he perceives, with absolutely no evidence but his own assertions, to be a similar blurring of definitional boundaries in Japan. In short, with no knowledge of Japanese, or access to current Japanese journals, Bob Grummen attempts to justify the misapplication of the word haiku by positing evidence that does not exist."

The issues brought up in this quoted paragraph are necessarily subjective, and so it seems rather inappropriate for this to appear in an article. It would seem as though whoever wrote this is exploiting Wikipedia as a place to vent their emotions regarding Bob Grumman and their point of view regarding haiku. This is the kind of paragraph that no amount of "verification" can remove from the category of purely subjective, so it would be better to just state factual things about Mr. Grumman, if you feel the need to mention him at all. It's also rather ironic the extent to which this paragraph complaining about B. Grumman's "positing evidence that does not exist" doesn't even bother to posit any evidence.

(It would be fair to say -- if true and verifiable -- that Mr. Grumman's views are controversial. But not to express opinions in an encyclopedia article.)

(P.S. There should also be a space after the comma before [3], and it's unlikely that Bob Grumman also spells his name "Grummen".)Daqu 00:56, 11 May 2007 (UTC)


 * Looks like this is where that section went wrong: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Haiku&diff=118223596&oldid=118185227
 * I've reverted that section to what it was before 59.171.31.130 made it POV. I'm not sure if the section is accurate/neutral or not, or even notable, so it might be better to just delete it.  But it's definitely better than what 59.171.31.130 put there.
 * 130.49.222.145 17:39, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

Germany and Brazil are English-speaking?
The article says 'Today haiku is written in many languages, but the number of writers is still concentrated primarily in Japan and secondarily in English-speaking countries, like germany and brazil.' Since I don't know much about where haiku are written, I wouldn't like to take it out, but Germany and Brazil don't really seem much like English-speaking countries to me (any more than any other country where people might speak it as a foreign language). I'm not sure what this is saying.. English-speaking countries, plus Germany and Brazil? A lot of Germans and Brazilians write haiku in English? -- Mithent 17:59, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

Kural
I'm putting this in "See Also", but I'm not certain it should be there: Kural

Which century?
The phrase "At the start of the 20th century": do you mean 21st century? Zaslav 18:07, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

Modern English haiku
From the article:
 * ''A modern English haiku (used with permission):
 * ''Haikus are easy.
 * ''But sometimes they don't make sense.
 * ''Refrigerator.

Used with the permission of whom? Where's it from? We can't just put stuff in here and put "used with permission" without any additional information. It'd be a better idea to use one that doesn't require permission in the first place. - furrykef (Talk at me) 01:13, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

Agreed, is this from the author? The magazine? Or is the editor assuming "fair use" (which does not work here, since the entire poem is published, which is definitely a copyright and "fair use" no-no).

This section also has some very "opinionated" comments:

This attempt at stretching definitions of haiku can be considered excessive, but Grumman attempts to defend his position by pointing to a similar blurring of definitional boundaries in Japan. However, Grumman's argument is weak because he offers no evidence and apparently does not know japanese.

I'd say this editor's "argument is weak," since THEY offered no evidence, as well as provided biased text about Grumman's "attempts" and supposed unawareness of Japanese. Perhaps someone who understands the arguments can retailor this text. Otherwise, it's biased and needs to be removed. 68.206.14.169 23:05, 16 July 2007 (UTC)

As for the information regarding Bob Grumman's stretching of definational boundaries, I would suggest that the editors of this page take a look at modern haiku in Japan as written by the Japanese. Traditional haiku is alive and well and there is no real stretching of definitional boundaries going on here as Grumman suggests both in his article and now in his self-published book. What is my evidence? I have lived in Japan for 15 years and I read and write and publish haiku (in Japanese) and have won several awards here for doing so. I keep up with the haiku journals published here and am quite aware of new trends in Japanese verse. I would sincerely suggest that you take a look at the situation carefully before taking Grumman or his so-called "evidence" seriously and allowing it to be referred to on this site without reservation. I have nothing against Mr. Grumman personally (who does not by the way, know Japanese), but I do oppose the spreading of misleading information in a venue that is supposed to be given over to the truth.

I like Wikipedia, but I think that this situation really highlights the weakness of the concept. I would bet that almost none of the editors of this page understand haiku in Japanese or have an understanding of the haiku writing scene in Japan, and therefore they are allowing the limits of their knowledge to dictate what stays and what is removed from this page and even attempting to be "ironic" to boot! Moreover, I wonder how many of the editors have actually taken a look at what Mr. Grumman is proposing to call "haiku"? A juried situation would be quite different. The disquieting thought remains, however: If this kind of "editing" happens at such a minor level, how are the hard sciences fairing? I'm not talking about the heavily read subjects, but what about the more recondite? Well, assuming Good Faith, I remain, Jesse Glass. 1:32, 22 Dec.,2007 (UT) I guess.

HAIKU

An unrhymed three lines Of seventeen syllables Five, seven, and five. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Special:Contributions/ (talk)

Jesse Glass, it would be ever so helpful if you would sign your name with a User link. I feel you have so much to give to this discussion. You sound like an authority, but without a more solid identification, how can we take your comments seriously? deepsack (talk) 05:30, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

"traditionally printed in one vertical line"
Would it not be better to have an example of the traditional layout instead of two examples written on a single line? I don't know enough about Haiku (hence my visiting this article) or Japanese to know if this is right or not, but I think it would make more sense especially to a newcomer like me.

Jumbles1971 10:10, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

Poupanca - what does this word even mean?
I have absolutely no idea what this word means, nor have I ever heard it before. And I am a native and educated English speaker. Furthermore, looking up this word on several online dictionaries returns no results. It's extremely esoteric and I can only guess what the original author was intending.

I doubt it ads any value to the article and has been removed. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.107.129.23 (talk) 17:03, August 28, 2007 (UTC)

Punctuation counting as a syllable?
I've seen mention that usage of punctuation in haiku composition is generally counted toward the syllable content. Is there truth to this or not? --71.156.85.19 21:08, 14 November 2007 (UTC)

Punctuation marks do not Your call, amigo. <font color="Black">J- ſtan TalkContribs 22:23, 14 November 2007 (UTC)
 * Syllables have sound


 * In Japanese, particles have a bit of the function of what punctuation is used for in English, setting off clauses and clarifying relationships between words. Thus the syllable count of a Japanese haiku is typically slightly more than the same verse translated into English, with no particles.  Since particles count as on in Japanese, I can see that some people could argue that punctuation should count in English-- but I don't think that this is standard. (Traditional Japanese haiku don't use any punctuation, so the question of how to count punctuation doesn't even make sense for traditional haiku).  Geoffrey.landis (talk) 19:38, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

Removed inappropriate examples
There were a large number of haiku by someone named "Julia H" in the example section. As far as I can tell, they were neither classic nor outstanding examples (and in some cases contained misspellings). I have removed them. 75.172.110.135 (talk) 03:59, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

About Basho's status in Japan
This quote from the article asks for citations and questions neutrality: "Oku no Hosomichi, or Narrow Roads to the Far North, is the most famous literary work in Japan[citation needed] and has been translated into English extensively. It even exists in play form as Banana Skies. [1] Basho is known as the ‘God of Haiku’[citation needed] (he was deified by both the imperial government and Shinto religious headquarters one hundred years after his death) because he raised the genre from a playful game of wit to the most sublime poetry due to his own nobility, humility, and spiritual advancement.[neutrality disputed] During his lifetime he was the most famous poet in Japan and still is today.[citation needed]"

Basho is indeed a shinto kami, I visited his shrine in Tokyo, which is just a few blocks away from the Basho museum. It's a small shrine with many images of frogs. There's also a "copy" of an old hut, where Basho has lived, also near the Basho museum. Most bookstores in Japan have haiku on stock, which always includes Basho and Santoka, and Oku no Hosomichi is very easy to get, in several editions (including a manga-version). There are countless monuments depicting Basho's haiku all over Japan, but mostly where he composed them. In Otsu I saw several of these and there are many more. There are three huts where he lived that I visited in the Kyoto area alone, that are still kept as monuments. I'm sure there are more. Basho still is very big in Japan, you can quote me on that. -- AJ3D (talk) 16:44, 27 December 2007 (UTC) Haiku is very simple and a cool way to refresh your spirit! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.230.89.136 (talk) 11:37, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

New section added
I gave the discussion of syllable or on count its own subtopic; it seemed to be growing enough that it needed to be a heading of its own, which gives it room to be elaborated as needed. I moved the first of the Basho examples here, so the "on" count could be shown in an example, and then added a different classic Basho haiku to the examples section. Geoffrey.landis (talk) 22:01, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

'Moku' deleted
I deleted the link to the so-called 'moku' blog (instaplanet.blogspot.com/2007/04/haiku-versus-moku.html). These 'moku' don't have anything to do with haiku, and, in my opinion, should NOT be mentioned in this article. It has already been deleted once by myself, and another time by somebody else, however it keeps reappearing on this page. It looks like the owner of the blog is trying hard to promote it here... --Badvibes101 (talk) 05:03, 18 February 2008 (UTC)


 * Linking to blogs is in conflict with WP:ELNO so I think you were right to delete the link on that basis. However I'd question your assertion that 'moku' have nothing to do with haiku; according to the site in question, these moku are modified haiku in that they do not conform with the 17-syllable 'rule' and often treat of urban situations. In these two 'modifications' they accord with much modern English-language haiku - but it seems their author is unaware of this! The moku appearing on that page are haiku (lousy haiku imo, but that doesn't mean they're not haiku).

--Yumegusa (talk) 23:43, 17 May 2008 (UTC)
 * In fact the external links list is seriously bloated, with many items in doubtful accordance with WP:EL

Chinese parallels?
I seem to note that there are Chinese poems on the 5-7-5 format also. What is the relationship here? Did one originate from the other, in parallel, or independently? --CodeGeneratR (talk) 05:10, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

For those of you who love haikus and Japanese stuff, check out [link removed]. There's a haiku in there, see if you can find it! 72.12.138.2 (talk) 02:11, 11 March 2008 (UTC)
 * beggining your pardon, we don't know what "haikus" means, and from what language it comes. The English language doesn't have this word, nor does it have words like 'musics' and 'informations'. As for the link to some spam site, I removed it. --Badvibes101 (talk) 09:40, 17 June 2008 (UTC)

Japanese vs. English-language Haiku
There appears to be a great deal of confusion between Japanese and English-language haiku in this article. It contains several statements that are true of one and not of the other, but without any indication of this. Is there a case of a major edit/rewrite to divide the article in two along these lines?--Yumegusa (talk) 00:07, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

There seems to be a great deal of discussion about this article, but not much done. Is there someone assigned to read through this and find the consensus point and present it--most likely section by section--for further discussion or possible(yeah, right) agreement? If not that, who is the head of the japan project of which this is a part? deepsack (talk) 05:49, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

Has anyone checked out this url? http://www.toyomasu.com/haiku/#whatishaiku to see if it has english translations of actual Japanese poetry and to see if it would be of any help to us? deepsack (talk) 05:52, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

--Yumegusa (talk) 09:39, 19 May 2008 (UTC)
 * That toyomasu.com site is already in the (overstuffed) external links section. With over 100 edits to this article in the last month, it's not quite accurate to say, "There seems to be... not much done". I agree about the confusion, and I (among others, I believe) am doing my best to address that. You can help e.g. by responding to my question at the head of this section.

Hi I would support the proposal to divide existing over lengthy Haiku article into two... namely Haiku in its traditional original Japanese form with its historical examples etc etc... and secondly its western form in the English language and the history thereof and current developments therein.A link between the two being appropriate and convenient for the Wiki reader.Maybe the second article could be labelled English Haiku.Rgds Ichthys England Ichthys58 (talk) 14:18, 27 June 2008 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Ichthys58 (talk • contribs) 14:11, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

Hi Further suggestions to shorten this article, in addition to the proposal to delete the 'media' section' ,would be to precis the reference to Yasuda,Henderson and Blyth and include that existing text in their Wiki pages and precis the 'The budding American haiku 'in similar way(transferring key facts therein  to other relevant related wiki pages AND deleting it as a heading section and including the shortened pricis version of it in 'Haiku in the west 'or in 'the English language haiku 'section .'Publications' section' useful as it is, could be signicantly condensed.Ichthys58 (talk) 07:56, 29 June 2008 (UTC)

--Yumegusa (talk) 11:40, 29 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Excellent proposals. Any dissenters? If not, please go for it!

Hi I have made the precis of the articles.Further shortening could apply by deleting 'Internet' section(seems irrelevant); 'Haiku Archives'could be a line in External link section; 'English language poets is very subjective ,selective and incomplete ,and most are already mentioned earlier in the 'budding American haiku' section and they could therefore be highlighted therein with a Wiki internal link .Ichthys58 (talk) 07:33, 3 July 2008 (UTC)

--Yumegusa (talk) 08:43, 3 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Nice work. I agree with all of your proposals, except to say that the importance of the internet in the spread of modern western haiku is of such importance that it would look like a lacuna to simply omit mention of it. That said, the two paragraphs appearing under that heading at the moment are not overly relevant.

Hi I have now completed a precis of 'Internet' section;highlighted the relevant poets in 'budding American haiku' section ;included the 'archives as an External link;and deleted 'English language poets section'highlighting the poets by link as mentioned above.Ichthys58 (talk) 16:04, 3 July 2008 (UTC)

External Links section
As requested ("Please improve this article by removing excessive or inappropriate external links"), I have removed a number of EL's, having first carefully read through WP:EL. Some of the removed links are to high-quality websites and journals, some containing superb haiku, others containing important information about e.g. haibun or HSA, both of which have their own articles in WP.
 * This is what some people call vandalism. I am among them. --Badvibes101 (talk) 09:35, 17 June 2008 (UTC)

Links in the "External links" section should be kept to a minimum

Before replenishing the EL section, please consider whether the link you wish to add adds value to the article. The EL section is not a list of links to websites containing or connected with haiku; neither should it be a list of journals which publish haiku. Note WP:NOTREPOSITORY. Thanks --Yumegusa (talk) 15:17, 16 June 2008 (UTC)
 * This is a very, very 'clever' thing to do - removing appropriate links to "high-quality websites and journals" (some Wiki participants, including myself, spent months working on these paragraphs), and at the same time keeping that video-games jabber that has nothing to do with haiku. --Badvibes101 (talk) 09:35, 17 June 2008 (UTC)


 * Dear BadVibes101, I have no doubt that our common goal is to create a quality article here, though we may disagree over what constitutes a quality article. Allow me quote from WP:VANDALISM:
 * "Vandalism is any addition, removal, or change of content made in a deliberate attempt to compromise the integrity of Wikipedia. The most common types of vandalism include the addition of obscenities or crude humor, page blanking, or the insertion of nonsense into articles. Any good-faith effort to improve the encyclopedia, even if misguided or ill-considered, is not vandalism. Even harmful edits that are not explicitly made in bad faith are not considered vandalism."
 * Accordingly, the very serious charge of vandalism which you have levelled against me is not helpful, and I would respectfully ask you to withdraw it.
 * Ungrounded removal of significant parts of the text has often been described here in Wikipedia as vandalism. Of course, I am far from describing the editing pattern of Yumegusa as such; I am quite satisfied that his contributions have so far been useful. I only tried to show what the editors who spent a lot of time working on the removed section of the article may think about its ungrounded removal. --Badvibes101 (talk) 22:34, 18 June 2008 (UTC)


 * More importantly, let's examine the substantive issue here. The EL section has been marked with the following two notices:


 * PLEASE BE CAUTIOUS IN ADDING MORE LINKS TO THIS ARTICLE. WIKIPEDIA IS


 * NOT A COLLECTION OF LINKS.


 * Excessive or inappropriate links WILL BE DELETED.


 * See External links and Spam for details.


 * If there are already plentiful links, please propose additions or


 * replacements on this article's discussion page. Or submit your link


 * to the appropriate category at the Open Directory Project (www.dmoz.org)


 * and link back to that category using the template.


 * so it seems to me that on the face of it, my action in removing those links appears to be in accordance with WP guidelines - see specifically External links. With all respect, I feel sure you will agree that the appropriateness of the links is of more importance than any consideration of how much time was put into editing them.


 * To revert my edit in its entirety, returning to the status quo ante, does not look to me like progress. I would appreciate an open discussion about this, as I have no doubt that all concerned editors agree that this article needs some work.


 * Just look closely at what I did. As you can see, after reverting your removal of the links section I transferred your other edits (where they were useful) from the previous version, and kept them. --Badvibes101 (talk) 22:34, 18 June 2008 (UTC)

--Yumegusa (talk) 10:41, 17 June 2008 (UTC)
 * As to "that video-games jabber that has nothing to do with haiku", you won't find me reverting your edit with a charge of vandalism if you felt the need to be rid of them ;D
 * The fact that some editor suggested reducing the number of links doesn't have to be used as an excuse for the removal of the list of haiku magazines. By the way, the whole article on haiku is also considered too long, and it is recommended that we shorten it. Yet we keep your info about that performance in the 'Music and haiku' section, the relevance of which is rather questionable. Let us be reasonable, for Goodness sake! --Badvibes101 (talk) 22:34, 18 June 2008 (UTC)


 * Let us indeed be reasonable. I have a great deal of respect for you as a WP editor. It is clear to me that you take the task seriously, and that is in fact the reason I am so aghast at your use of the V-word. If it were some fly-by-night IP threw it at me I'd hardly notice. It's obvious you disagree with that edit I made, but that's par for the course - two editors are never going to agree 100%, and we can discuss what's the best way forward here on the article's talk page.

--Yumegusa (talk) 23:14, 18 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Vandalism is clearly defined on WP:VANDALISM, and I must ask you to withdraw the explicit charge which you made, since my action does not accord with that definition. Believe me, I know what it feels like to have something you've put your heart into boldly edited away, and I'll fully understand if you momentarily saw red, and levelled your accusation in the heat of the moment. But now in the cool of day, is it too much to ask you to withdraw it, so we can draw a line under it and move forward together on a positive note? As you say, let us be reasonable.


 * Withdrawn with apologies. Indeed, it is about time we moved on. After all, the article on haiku in English Wiki is very good now (much better than in a few other European Wiki's, anyway), and both of us contributed to it, as did some other editors. --Badvibes101 (talk) 10:19, 19 June 2008 (UTC)
 * That's appreciated.--Yumegusa (talk) 22:12, 21 June 2008 (UTC)

EL's (again!) - criteria?
Wouldn't it make sense to establish some guidelines, as to what criteria new links should have to meet, before being added? Unless I'm reading the history wrong, we've just gained a big section of links to websites of national and regional haiku organisations. If there's a consensus that there should be an exhaustive list of such links, shouldn't they be limited to English-speaking countries? I see one to a German society - if that's allowed then by what logic should we exclude links to the hundreds of Japanese haiku groups, as well as, say, Polish, Finnish, Swedish, etc?

I'd like to see discussion of criteria for inclusion of links in the other sections too; else this really could turn into a 'link farm'. --Yumegusa (talk) 23:03, 23 June 2008 (UTC)


 * I think you are right and we should keep the links only to the haiku societies in the English-speaking countries (after all, we have German Wikipedia, where one can find the link to Deutsche Haiku Gesellschaft) --Badvibes101 (talk) 08:38, 29 June 2008 (UTC)


 * On a second thought, I trimmed the number of links, so now we only have the links to the national haiku societies in the English-speaking countries. Otherwise we'll get another huge list of local haiku groups. Hope that no one will object. --Badvibes101 (talk) 23:58, 29 June 2008 (UTC)

--Yumegusa (talk) 00:11, 30 June 2008 (UTC)
 * I've no problem with that, though I've reinstated Haiku Ireland, as it is the main national society (the IHS is a more recent affair)
 * Begging your pardon, Haiku Ireland is NOT the main national society. This little I know having been on the Irish haiku scene for quite a while. The IHS has been formed in 2006, i.e. exactly a year later than Haiku Ireland (founded in 2005). However the IHS now has about 50 IRISH members, while Haiku Ireland have only about 15. The latter have added some of their foreign correspondents as members, which, of course, increased the number of participants - to about 20. Still the IHS is a much bigger society. Both societies are active at promoting haiku nationally and internationally, so both of them deserve to be on the list. --Badvibes101 (talk) 22:09, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

Well, a term like "the main national society" is obviously subjective, so perhaps I was ill-advised to use it. But without defining what it means, it is meaningless to argue over it (and surely pointless in any case). However, I must ask where you got the misinformation that Haiku Ireland was formed in 2005? --Yumegusa (talk) 23:08, 15 July 2008 (UTC)


 * My dear, why 'misinformation'?? I don't normally suffer from memory lapses; moreover, some of the members of Haiku Ireland are my good friends (and so are some of the members of the IHS). I remember myself being invited to the Haiku Ireland inaugural reading at Poetry Ireland in spring 2005, although I couldn't attend. William J. Higginson, the editor of the DMOZ directory, states that Haiku Ireland was formed in 2005 (and he got this info from Haiku Ireland directly). Here's the link for you: . Google has the same info: . The first issue of Haiku Ireland newsletter was out in September 2005 (here's the link to it: ). As it happened, Haiku Ireland developed from a small circle of friends who met in the Chester Beatty Library in Dublin more or less regularly and had talks about haiku over coffee. Before 2005, they didn't call themselves Haiku Ireland, nor did they call themselves a society, so we didn't have one in those times. What we had was a good paper-based magazine, Haiku Spirit, discontinued at the end of 1990s. --Badvibes101 (talk) 09:30, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

I really don't know what is the relevance of this conversation to Wikipedia, but will just point out that Haiku Ireland was formed (and thus named) at a meeting in 2003 at which I was present, long before the Chester Beatty meetings began. If you check their website you can read records of ginko and other meetings prior to 2005, and their mailing list dates to early 2004. If you really feel the need to continue this conversation, I suggest you go to our Talk pages as it seems entirely irrelevant to the Haiku article. --Yumegusa (talk) 10:13, 16 July 2008 (UTC)


 * Frankly, I don't know why you started this discussion but the fact is, you did. And I had to reply because there was no point in calling Haiku Ireland, of which you are a member, "the main national society": this is a bit misleading and doesn't reflect today's reality. As for the Haiku Ireland site, I know it very well. This site shows that the only event organised by Haiku Ireland in 2004 was a ginko that took place on 16th October 2004 ( or here: ). I still keep the leaflet from that ginko. Talking about 2003, nothing happened then, apart from a few private discussions. For some unknown reason, Haiku Ireland always stated that they were formed in 2005 (see the links in my previous post) - maybe because it was officially launched in spring 2005 at Poetry Ireland. I suppose, the main thing about it is that the two Irish haiku societies have a good working relationship, and promote haiku writing. --Badvibes101 (talk) 16:04, 16 July 2008 (UTC)
 * This is totally irrelevant to WP. --Yumegusa (talk) 16:15, 16 July 2008 (UTC)


 * So what do you think is relevant? Was your misleading statement about Haiku Ireland being the "main national society" relevant? Of course, somebody had to come up with the facts, on this very page. What else did you expect? --Badvibes101 (talk) 17:31, 16 July 2008 (UTC)


 * By the way, some of these notes on the haiku movement in Ireland may come in handy if we really want to have a separate article on Haiku in English. As you probably noticed, the current version mostly contains information on American haiku. --Badvibes101 (talk) 23:29, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

--Yumegusa (talk) 14:14, 17 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Actually, it is abundantly clear what is and is not relevant to the article; whether one haiku grouping or another in Ireland started in 2003, 2004 or 2005, when it took its current name, and who was or was not at what meeting, is all of zero percent relevance. I suggest you drop the subject now, as perpetuation of such trivial debate is a waste of Wikipedia resources and everyone else's time.


 * Agreed. Actually, justice has been restored, so now we can return to discussing the split of haiku. I still have some reservations against it - unless somebody can improve the Haiku in English section (see my new post at the bottom of this page). --Badvibes101 (talk) 21:37, 17 July 2008 (UTC)

Modern Media
Perhaps the way to shorten it (the haiku article)is to delete the complete 'media' section Ichthys58 (talk) 16:08, 28 June 2008 (UTC)


 * That sounds like a good suggestion, though I'm doubtful how thoroughly it will address the underlying problem. My reason for suggesting moving this discussion to Talk:Haiku is so that editors who have an interest in the article may join in. The only reason I'm aware of your posts here is because of my involvement in the movement for deletion of monoku. I'd guess there are a number of editors watching haiku that ain't watching here.--Yumegusa (talk) 16:59, 28 June 2008 (UTC)


 * I second the removal of the complete 'media' section from haiku. By the way, we can even save it as a separate article called Haiku in Modern Media. How about that? --Badvibes101 (talk) 08:32, 29 June 2008 (UTC)

--Yumegusa (talk) 11:37, 29 June 2008 (UTC)
 * A nice bit of lateral thinking, BadVibes, but I'm a bit doubtful about its notability - i.e. does it really deserve an article of its own? I suspect not. In fact, the info in that section is so non-notable, I doubt if anyone who knows anything of haiku would mind seeing it deleted. The only exception, perhaps, is the first 2 paragraphs under the "Internet" sub-section. The role of the internet in the dissemination of haiku, from both writers' and readers' POV, is such that it would be inappropriate to omit mention of it entirely.


 * As I said, I won't regret if the whole 'Modern media' section is gone. As for the 'Internet' paragraph, I would like it to be as short as possible. --Badvibes101 (talk) 23:55, 29 June 2008 (UTC)

--Yumegusa (talk) 00:18, 30 June 2008 (UTC)
 * ...and it was so

Shortening the article
In section 10.2 (Famous writers > Shiki and later) I have have removed all but 8 of the 22 poets listed there. All of those removed were redlinked, and the only justification for their presence appears to have been their inclusion in a particular 1976 anthology - not sufficient to accord them notability from an English-language POV. If I've been ignorant about the role of some of them in the English-language haiku world, then I apologise, but please don't revert my edit without discussing here first. Thanks --Yumegusa (talk) 12:10, 29 June 2008 (UTC)


 * I have my sights on section 10.3 now (Famous writers > Non-Japanese poets). While I recognise that there's likely to be some contention around who to include/exclude in such a section, here are my proposals:


 * rename section to Famous writers > English-language poets
 * the section should list (only) English-language poets famous as haiku poets
 * Let's look at a couple of examples of poets listed there:

--Yumegusa (talk) 12:53, 29 June 2008 (UTC)
 * W. H. Auden: Look at his "haiku". They are 17-syllable poems strung out over three lines, not haiku by any reasonable understanding
 * Amiri Baraka (who?): Well, when we look at his WP article, it doesn't even mention 'haiku' once
 * Dezső Kosztolányi: He wrote only in Hungarian, and his WP article doesn't mention haiku either.
 * and so on
 * Any objections to pruning the list, based on the above criteria? thanks for any input


 * That's fair enough. No objections whatsoever. --Badvibes101 (talk) 23:52, 29 June 2008 (UTC)


 * In general, I think the cuts are good. However,  I would argue for keeping Auden in the list.  His work is important to the historical development of haiku in English, and at the time he was writing, there was no real consensus of what the important components of haiku in English were.
 * -on second though, though, maybe it would be better to just insert him into the sentence "a number of 'mainstream' poets, such as (list) have tried their hand at haiku."   (this does implicitly call Auden a "North American" poet, but then, he was living in the U.S. since 1939, so I don't think this is too unjust.)  Geoffrey.landis (talk) 21:18, 30 June 2008 (UTC)

--Yumegusa (talk) 09:16, 7 July 2008 (UTC)
 * There's been a lot of good editing recently, following discussion on this page, helping to move the article towards what's required for Wikipedia (see Summary style). Unfortunately much of it appears to have been undone, without any reference to the consensus. Comments?


 * I would like to suggest that this article does still do a lot of meandouring. It is also not clearly organized in a way that is approachable to someone is not familar with the history and particulars of this topic.  For example, the introduction goes in very detailed specifics that would be better served in an section later on, and only briefly addressed in the introduction.  Introductions shouldn't go into specifics because the often end up becoming their own separate articles unconnected to the articles they are supposed to introduce.  I think this is a problem with the Haiku article.  —  f c s u p e r ( How's That?, That's How! ) (Exclusionistic Immediatist ) — 19:32, 2 August 2008 (UTC)

Splitting the article
Hi the solution is to to make 'the budding American haiku' part of a separate article 'Haiku in English' with a reference thereto on Haiku page(there no justification for such a lengthy section on the development of haiku in just one western country)and also make the archives a one line reference link in 'reference section' and delete the list of English language poets and include it in the article (if needed) in my proposed separate article) Ichthys58 (talk) 07:08, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

--Yumegusa (talk) 08:36, 13 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Support for the reasons outlined above. This proposal makes good sense as a way out of the current impasse, where this article is far too lengthy, with disproportionate detail in specific areas.


 * Hm-m, and then we'll get such articles as Haiku in French, Haiku in Croatian, Haiku in Serbian, Haiku in German, Haiku in Swedish, etc., etc. They write lovely haiku in those languages, you know, so we won't have good enough reasons to object. I think we shall keep the haiku article as it is. It's big all right but also very informative. --Badvibes101 (talk) 09:59, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

--Yumegusa (talk) 10:12, 13 July 2008 (UTC)
 * I can't agree with that analysis. English is a 'special case' because this Wikipedia is in English. Yes, the article is informative (so is an entire book about haiku - that's not the same as being a good WP article), but it's not an argument against splitting.

Hi I still believe my suggestion will solve the problem.It will mean the current article will be significantly shorter and relevant to those enquiring about this poetic form.A separate article 'Haiku in English' can be expanded to cover English language developments in countries other than America.The other languages versions of Wikipedia could have their pages as appropriate.Ichthys58 (talk) 10:50, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

--Yumegusa (talk) 11:06, 13 July 2008 (UTC)
 * In the interest of getting meaningful consensus on this question, I have left a note on User talk:Geoffrey.landis requesting comment. Searching a good way back through the article's edit history, I can see no other registered editors who have made substantial contributions here. If there is anyone else who could be usefully called on to comment, please invite them to. Thanks.


 * Thanks. I don't have strong opinions here.  It does seem that the article is a little unbalanced, but it still seems readable IMO.  On the other hand, a separate article on haiku in English seems to be fine as well; I don't see any reason not to do this. Geoffrey.landis (talk) 17:06, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

--Yumegusa (talk) 20:33, 13 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Unless anyone else materialises, that looks like 2 support, 1 weak support, 1 object...

Support The article is too long and unbalanced a bit. Oda Mari (talk) 05:14, 17 July 2008 (UTC)


 * Just a simple question: the Haiku in English section as it is at the moment is mostly about haiku in the USA. If we separate it from the rest of haiku, wouldn't it be unbalanced? Or is there anybody who can contribute some info about the haiku movements in such countries as Australia, Canada, New Zealand, Ireland and the UK? --Badvibes101 (talk) 21:30, 17 July 2008 (UTC)

--Yumegusa (talk) 00:14, 18 July 2008 (UTC)
 * (...and South Africa and India)


 * Exactly! Actually, there's a paragraph on haiku in India in the original article; that's why I didn't mention this country. Mea culpa. --Badvibes101 (talk) 10:06, 18 July 2008 (UTC)

--Yumegusa (talk) 00:14, 18 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Good; looks like we have consensus then. The points raised by BadVibes are valid, but I think they have been alluded to in the conversations above, and I am sure we can rely on the commonsense of the editors. I would hope that the resulting two articles from the split will each be more in line with WP guidelines than the current article (with particular reference to External links, WP:NOT), so that those nasty templates can be removed. ἰχθύς: ignis caput!

Link to Word
Why exactly is "word" linked in the text? What English speaker would not know what a word is? — [  semicolons  ] — 14:46, 16 July 2008 (UTC)
 * WP:SOFIXIT--Yumegusa (talk) 15:42, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

'hokku' versus 'haiku' in section titles
I've changed the word 'hokku' to 'haiku' in the following section titles:
 * From renga to renku to hokku
 * Basho and the appearance of hokku

In the first case, Renga developed into Renku, from which emerged the Haiku - not the hokku, which has been present since the very first renga. In the second, the 'appearance' of hokku, as just stated, dates back to the very first renga, some 600 years before Bashō. This article is about haiku - there is a separate one named hokku. --Yumegusa (talk) 11:09, 20 August 2008 (UTC)

hokku and haiku (again)
I've changed,

"The latter term [haiku] is now generally applied retrospectively to all hokku appearing independently of renku or renga, sometimes even irrespective of when they were written, although this approach has often been challenged." to

"...all hokku appearing independently of renku or renga, irrespective of when they were written, although this approach has been challenged"

The citation that has been added today to support the former position hardly supports even the latter. It is a review in Modern Haiku by Bill Higginson, of a book by David Coomler in which the latter challenges the application of the term 'haiku' to pre-Shiki ku. Higginson effectively rubbishes Coomler's arguments, and Coomler has not been taken seriously by the English-language haikai community since. Does Coomler's position deserve a mention at all? The correct answer is, yes if it's notable. But what claim has Coomler to notability? His book is published by Octavo Press, who describe themselves as "a specialty publisher catering to the blogging market" (see http://octavopress.com/), i.e. they publish what anyone pays them to publish. Publication in such a press therefore accords no more notability to the author or his views than a blog.

Is there no more notable reference available to support the statement in question? --Yumegusa (talk) 20:14, 11 September 2008 (UTC)


 * FYI: David Coomler has been using and promoting a rather idiosyncratic set of definitions for haiku and hokku that are unsupported by historical fact and both modern Japanese and English word usage. I assume that he or one of his 'students' has been editing the Wikipedia haiku article to match his opinions. Feel free to continue to rewrite any reference to hokku that doesn't refer to the first verse of a renga or renku. 66.81.249.125 (talk) 10:21, 18 September 2008 (UTC)

Still, it wouldn't be right to state that Basho, Buson, Issa, etc. (i.e. poets who lived BEFORE Shiki's revision) wrote haiku. The word haiku didn't exist in that time, or at least wasn't used in that connotation. The term these poets used was hokku, which meant, of course, standalone hokku. David Coomler may have made some questionable statements in his books but he was absolutely right to challenge the application of the term 'haiku' to pre-Shiki poems (just in case, I am not one of his students; moreover, I've never met him, and I live in another country!) Higginson disliked Coomler (so far as I know, it was rather personal), and criticised his book, however Higginson only expressed his own opinion. To say that Coomler's position on pre-Shiki hokku "has not been taken seriously by the English-language haikai community" is nothing else but wishful thinking. Coomler made a good point here, and his position deserves to be mentioned. --Badvibes101 (talk) 03:20, 22 November 2008 (UTC)

Haiku in India
I have removed the following:

"In the traditional syncratic spirit of Gujarati literature, poets like Bhagavatikumar Sharma and Bhushit Joshipura have composed ghazals with shers formed as haiku. This type of poetry is called Haiku Ghazal."

as neither Google websearch nor Google Booksearch turn up anything useful for "Bhagavatikumar Sharma"+haiku, "Bhushit Joshipura"+haiku, nor "haiku ghazal".

I've also not found any result for "Rehmat Yusufzai"+haiku, but will leave that for some time since I've only just cn'd it. --Yumegusa (talk) 22:25, 18 October 2008 (UTC)

respectively
In the sentence "Traditional haiku consists of 17 on, in three metrical phrases of 5, 7, and 5 on respectively", the word 'respectively' is not used incorrectly:
 * Wordnet: in the order given; "the brothers were called Felix and Max, respectively"
 * Dictionary.com: in precisely the order given; sequentially.
 * Quotes in Websters:
 * let each man respectively perform his duty.
 * The impressions from the objects or the senses do mingle respectively every one with its kind. --Bacon.

The word has been deleted twice by the same anon IP, with the summary "English correction - "respectively" used incorrectly". If they, or anyone, wish to make a case for deleting the word, then please do so here. Failing that, I will reinstate it tomorrow. --Yumegusa (talk) 18:22, 30 October 2008 (UTC)


 * I support this. The word "respectively" should be reinstated. --Badvibes101 (talk) 03:23, 22 November 2008 (UTC)

ELs - yet again
I reinstated some of the removed external links (the main ones!) DMOZ is pretty good but it is not the best of haiku directories; another thing, there are some important links in this section that should be preserved in the article. Of course, the number of ELs shall be limited. Hope other editors will support me here. --Badvibes101 (talk) 03:32, 22 November 2008 (UTC)


 * Limited support. Let's be careful not to turn this article back into the wp:linkfarm it once was. It is also noteworthy that with Bill Higginson's recent demise it is likely the dmoz article is no longer being maintained.--Yumegusa (talk) 08:44, 22 November 2008 (UTC)

World Haiku Festival "irrelevant"?
An editor as removed reference to 2008's World Haiku Festival with the comment "Removed irrelevant info about some haiku gathering in India". As the annual worldwide festival of the first global haiku organisation, its "irrelevance" is not immediately apparent. As an arguably significant marker of the development of haiku on the subcontinent, its mention in the India section is entirely appropriate. Views? --Yumegusa (talk) 10:06, 24 December 2008 (UTC)
 * It's relevance isn't immediately apparent either. If it's a significant event, just dig out a reliable source - a newspaper or an academic paper - that has written about it. If you can't find one, then it's unlikely to be of enough significance for an encyclopaedia. --McGeddon (talk) 11:06, 24 December 2008 (UTC)
 * See the footnoted ref to i.a. Modern Haiku - normally accepted as a RS on related articles. If the criteria of finding mention in an academic journal were applied across the board, we might pare 90% of this and related articles. --Yumegusa (talk) 11:33, 24 December 2008 (UTC)


 * There are many articles to use as citations for a global haiku. Please check out http://www.peterborough.gov.uk/page-1874. The information (in the above discussion) about haiku vs senryu is incorrect and also syllable count, as Japanese haiku do not use syllables, they use 'on' (or sound bites) and their reason for using 17 sound bites goes way back into their culture (as does the use of each kigo). One of these sound bites is sometimes a word that means pause (where needed). English-language haiku poets use punctuation to create the same effect.  The argument about haiku vs senryu is loud and long. See AHA Poetry for articles on haiku techniques.
 * Some good websites to check out are:

The World Haiku Association, The Haiku Habit, The Haiku Society of America, Simply Haiku (there's a brand new article by George Swede about William J. Higginson), Modern Haiku on-line, Red Moon Press for the Red Moon Anthologies of English-language Haiku, and AHA Poetry. Books to read would be: first and foremost "The Haiku Handbook" by William J. Higginson and "The Haiku Anthology" by Cor ven den Heuvel. There's also "How to Haiku" by Bruce Ross, "Writing and Enjoying Haiku - a hand's on guide", by Jane Reichhold, and "Haiku - a poet's guide", by Lee Gurga. Information from articles by Japanese haiku poets can be found in past issues of Frogpond, Modern Haiku, and Simply Haiku by such poets as Emiko Miyashita, Susumu Takiguchi, and Ban'ya Natsuishi. Enjoy reading about haiku, however, stay away from www.poetry.com and The Children's Haiku Garden. smiles, Saucermoon (talk) 00:12, 25 December 2008 (UTC)
 * If anyone is interested in working on the haiga section, there is a great book on-line by Stephen Addiss (Haiga ISBN 0824817508). Most of the first part of the book appears on-line with examples of Japanese haiga. The original art was mostly brush-stroke (sumi-e), however, some of the paintings were more complex.  Today, haiga is created combining haiku with everyting from sumi-e to watercolors to photography, and even some collage and mosaic.  See also Contemporary Haibun (and Haiga) on-line, Simply Haiku, Susan Frame, Jeanne Emrich, Ron Moss, etc.
 * Also, about the frog poem, see "One Hundred Frogs: From Matsuo Basho to Allen Ginsberg by Hiroaki Sato and a great site I just found is The Haiku Path (http://www.eons.com/uploads/6/5/65957564_haiku_path,%20the.pdf). Check it out!  Lots more research to polish this site, but it can be done if we work together . . . thus a global haiku!  Enjoy! Saucermoon (talk) 20:09, 26 December 2008 (UTC)

Exception in example?
"富士の風や/扇にのせて/江戸土産 " This sounds like 6-7-5, or did I count (or break the lines) wrong? --Deryck C. 11:14, 11 March 2009 (UTC)


 * No, you didn't. It's jiamari. See and .   That is not the only one jiamari haiku by Basho. One of his best, 旅に病で　夢は枯野を　かけ廻る is also a 6-7-5 haiku.  Oda Mari (talk) 15:19, 11 March 2009 (UTC)

Advice on how to represent the newest forms of the art?
I was hoping to improve this article a bit by discussing contemporary forms of Haiku - social networks, SMS, picture books, etc. I'm new to Wikipedia and passionate about the subject.

thanks Robertsturm (talk) 18:33, 1 July 2009 (UTC)