[stylist] Interesting article on Haibun

Thu Jun 9 19:32:36 UTC 2011

Thank you Jaqueline very much... and I too am saving  Donna's article.  It 
is excellent and in my 'poetry stuff' folder  already.   I am still new to 
writing those darned haibuns and each  time I write one I learn a little more 
about them and  myself.

In a message dated 6/9/2011 1:29:25 P.M. Central Daylight Time,  
jackieleepoet at cox.net writes:

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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