+8+

Permalink Reply by Mark Holloway 7 minutes ago

Kris, the word you were looking for is "onji" - phonetic sound symbols which, as you say, are not the same as English syllables. If there is, at the bottom of it all, a confusion between onji and syllables, then there would seem to be no reason whatsoever to follow the 5-7-5 rule for haiku written in English.

For me, syllable-counting is the very least significant aspect of haiku. But in all other respects, Storm, I would very much agree with you. The real discipline is to be found in all those other important elements, (the ones that most people are not aware of).

In the very worst cases of Twitter "haiku", people may put their shopping list into 5-7-5 and call it haiku. Most are well-meaning, but you immediately know that they have not bothered to dig into the subject in any meaningful way.

It is precisely that self-indulgence that I find so jarring. Even though, in theory, I can loosen up a bit in gogyohka, I still find it almost impossible to use the "perpendicular" personal pronoun. It is that self-indulgence, incidentally, that puts me off poetry in a wider sense, too. That, and pointlessly flowery language.

Hence my tongue in cheek (slightly) gogyohka

i

like

very

little

poetry

Sorry, everyone, I've wandered away from the point of this discussion thread.

I'll stop now!