[stylist] Interesting article on Haibun

Thu Jun 9 19:01:30 UTC 2011

I love all you guys too!

-----Original Message-----
From: stylist-bounces at nfbnet.org [mailto:stylist-bounces at nfbnet.org] On
Behalf Of Jacqueline Williams
Sent: Thursday, June 09, 2011 1:29 PM
To: 'Writer's Division Mailing List'
Subject: Re: [stylist] Interesting article on Haibun

Donna, Myrna, all,
I am learning so much from all of you. Donna, thank you for your insight on
posting a piece in the works on this site, and how it differs from
publishing on-line.
Myrna, I loved your Haibun. This surprised me because we had studied the
form in my last poetry class before summer break. I am not good at nature
poems so I did not save the handout to scan. Your piece was a wonderful
melding of human-interest, pertinent to understanding of the blind, yet
connected strongly to nature. So I am saving your included article, Donna,
on the form.
Shawn, I have studied your 40 word poems, and think they are great.
Jacqueline Williams

-----Original Message-----
From: stylist-bounces at nfbnet.org [mailto:stylist-bounces at nfbnet.org] On
Behalf Of Donna Hill
Sent: Wednesday, June 08, 2011 2:32 PM
To: Writer's Division Mailing List
Subject: [stylist] Interesting article on Haibun

Hi Friends,

Spurred on by Myrna's excellent piece, I Googled Haibun and thought you
might enjoy reading this. I'll list the URL and then copy the article below
that.

Enjoy,

Donna

From:

http://raysweb.net/haibun_Ray/pages/haibundefinition.html

Block quote

Haibun Definitions

Contemporary haibun is a combination of prose and haiku poetry, sometimes
described as 'a narrative of epiphany'. Like English haiku, English haibun
is

evolving as it becomes more widely practiced in the English speaking world.

In 1690, Basho Matsuo is said to have initiated the travel or diary haibun
genre in a letter to a friend (Genjuan no ki, The Hut of the Phantom
Dwelling)

that concluded with a haiku. The letter referred to the period when Basho
lived for several months on a hill on the southern shore of Lake Biwa east
of

Kyoto.

Bruce Ross in an essay entitled "North American Versions of Haiku", in
Modern Haiku, Winter-Spring 1997, states that haibun has "syntax that is
dominated

by images" and cites Makoto Ueda's four characteristics of haibun:

1) a brevity and conciseness of haiku

2) a deliberately ambiguous use of certain particles and verb forms in
places where the conjunction 'and' would be used in English

3) a dependence on imagery

4) the writer's detachment

Ken Jones, in a book review posted in Blythe Spirit suggested the following:

A haiku collection can be reviewed within a broad consensus of discourse.
But in the more eclectic haibun tradition there are no such recognized
markers.

Reviewers and editors therefore need to set out some criteria so that their
readers are aware of the standards to which they are working. Here I have
used

four sets of criteria. They are based on Basho's view of haibun as haikai no
bunsho - 'writing in the style of haiku'.

First, I would expect direct, concrete, economical imagery, infused with
life and energy and eschewing abstraction and intellection. The editors
refer to

'sensibility and revelation rather than narrative and disclosure'.

Second, I would expect haibun prose to be light handed, elusive, open-ended,
playful and even ironic, 'in the style of haiku'. And at a deeper,
existential,

level should we not expect something of that ambiguity and mystery found in
the best haiku? Presumably this is the 'narrative of an epiphany' which the

present editors claim to have sought.

Third, just as haiku are literature in miniature, with their own internal
and external disciplines, so should we expect haibun also to have the
complexity,

subtlety and unfolding of literary artifacts. Corresponding to the feeling
of the 'haiku moment' is the emotional experience which itself appears to
write,

energize and organize the haibun for its writer.

Finally, at least as a bonus, we might hope to find something of Haruo
Shirane's 'vertical axis' of myth, literature, history - and life in the
postmodern

... 

From: Ken Jones, A Review of Up Against the Window: American Haibun and
Haiga, Volume 1, ed Jim Kacian and Bruce Ross, Blythe Spirit, v11 No 2, June
2001

Paul Conneally, Haibun Director of the World Haiku Club, defines current
English haibun as: "Prose that has many of the characteristics associated
with

haiku-present tense (and shifts of tense though predominant voice
'present'), imagistic, shortened or interesting syntax, joining words such
as 'and' limited

maybe, a sense of 'being there', descriptions of places people met and above
all 'brevity'. The haiku ... should link to the prose but is not a direct

carry on from the prose telling some of what has already been said - no - it
should lead us on - let our mind want for more, start traveling."

The Haiku Society of America [HSA] has posted the following definition of
haibun: "A haibun is a terse, relatively short prose poem in the haikai
style,

usually including both lightly humorous and more serious elements. A haibun
usually ends with a haiku. Most haibun range from well under 100 words to
200

or 300. Some longer haibun may contain a few haiku interspersed between
sections of prose. In haibun the connections between the prose and any
included

haiku may not be immediately obvious, or the haiku may deepen the tone, or
take the work in a new direction, recasting the meaning of the foregoing
prose,

much as a stanza in a linked-verse poem revises the meaning of the previous
verse. Japanese haibun apparently developed from brief prefatory notes
occasionally

written to introduce individual haiku, but soon grew into a distinct genre.
The word "haibun" is sometimes applied to longer works, such as the memoirs,

diaries, or travel writings of haiku poets, though technically they are
parts of the separate and much older genres of journal and travel
literature. [From

the HSA Definitions Web site]

Block quote end

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