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Haiku Poems Format
By Jason CaneyArticle Word Count: 304 [View Summary]Comments (0)
Superior Song Writing. New! FromThe Makers Of Singorama, DiscoverProfessional Songwriting Secrets.http://singorama.com/songwriting/
The 5-7-5 "rule" was only an early attempt by English-language poets toapproximate the rhythms of Japanese speech. However, the Japanese language isdifferent than English in that the Japanese "syllable," the onji, is actually a veryshort sound unit in comparison to many English syllables. An English word thatapproximates the feel of Japanese speech would be "radio" -- note how muchquicker this word can be spoken than, say, "breathe." Yet English is populated bymany words like "breathe." To put it simply, syllables do not = onji, so we shouldnot treat them as such.
Haiku poems
written in the old 5-7-5 format are often too long and wordy,and misinformed though well-meaning people often pad, chop, or otherwisemutilate their poems in order to meet this "goal." Just as American poetry hasgravitated towards the "naturalness" of free verse, so English-language haikupoets have, for the most part, abandoned the 5-7-5 constraints. This is just howit is, and it's a rather sensible development. Flip through any contemporary haiku journal, and you'll notice the majority of haiku poets favor poems with fewer than17 total syllables, as, in English, less is often more.Rigid attachment to a mostly-abandoned form does not guarantee goodhaiku. Many other factors warrant greater consideration, such as attention toimage, careful juxtaposition, the usage (or non-usage) of articles/punctuation,subjectivity/objectivity, etc.I hope you might find this new description of the form an aid to yourreading and writing of haiku, and I sympathize completely with your preference of the 5-7-5 form--it's the first kind of poetry I learned to write, in 2nd grade, andfor years and years I thought 5-7-5 was the only haiku there was. Now that Ihave relaxed my view, whole worlds of brilliant poetry have opened up for me.
Sad Poems- Words, prose,Haiku Poemsand thoughts. Article Source:http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Jason_Caney
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