Haiku Demystified
Haibun: The Joy and Journey of Poetic Engineering, part 6 and last
By Pravat Kumar Padhy
Composite Micro-Haibun or Multi-Haibun
Interestingly, many poets tried including different parts (a sort of ‘Multi-haibun’) within haibun. Patrick M. Pilarski and few others experimented within a titled haibun, composite micro haibun, each ended with one haiku, have been included. There is a broad thematic interrelationship in the series of micro-haibun. Diana Webb attempted writing composite micro-haibun Magical Mystery: a haibun novellarettee (Fragile Horizon, 2022, The Magic Pen Press, UK): not related to a specified theme, naming with numbers instead of sub-titles. Owen Bullock’s Out Of The Valley, Stanley Pelter’s The Short Straw, Max Verhart’s Oh brother etc. Michael McClintock: Mazatlán In July wrote 4 parts / multi-haibun each starts with a haiku followed by prose (inverted haibun) . Lynne Rees’ haibun in Across The Pond comprises seven parts.
Netley Marsh Poems
by Patrick M. Pilarski
Pelicans
Our boat cuts through brown water, leaving a slow groove to tickle the marsh grass. The reeds map a warren of hidden channels—shallow tracts of mud. Around every corner is a pelican. As we approach, they turn, one by one, beat soft thunder on the water. Rise on world-heavy wings to join the motion of the sky.
broken clouds—
a carp slides
between the weeds
Herons
From the waterline, the marsh goes on forever, grey sky traced by the sharp tips of cattails and migrant bamboo. Our channel narrows into the shade of trees—a small ridge perched above the water line, a tight serpentine between the snags. Then, in an instant, the rain comes. Drops hammer the water. I see a heron break free from the bank, fold into itself, become the whisper of wings.
a bowl of sky thunderheads crossing the marsh
Carp
Blackbirds and kingbirds line the branches of dead trees. Sagging with each other’s weight, dragonflies mate only inches above lead-smacked waves. The boat engine slows and we coast to a dead end. Pale bellies boil in brown water. The surface parts, ripples replaced with the hungry, anxious, mouths of carp.
between trees
the sagging arc
of a pelican’s glide
Collaborative Haibun
In literature, based on the fundamental blocks, experimentations have been skillfully tried to augment the literary horizon with time like Garry Gay’s rengay, Peter Jastermsky’s split sequence or recent proposal of hainka (fusion of haiku and tanka with an image link and shift) by Pravat Kumar Padhy. The collaboration of poetry writing has been a part of art in Japanese literature. Haikai is a linked-verse (collaborative) in haikai no renga poetry style developed during the Edo period (1602–1869). There has been a collaborative or association of two parts, one writing prose and the other haiku to render a creative synthesis.
Catherine Mair & Patricia Prime ; Aurora Antonovic. Collaborative with the art of switching narrator with same prose and different haiku in haibun Jardins Du Luxembourg by Aurora Antonovic and Yu Chang is an interesting attempt.
The Horizon’s Curve, Lew Watts & Rich Youmans (CHO, Issue 16.3, 2022) is another beautiful collaborative (linked haibun) work with the art of link and shift.
In the haibun, each haiku serves as both a cap to one haibun and a springboard into the next in spontaneous style without any predetermined theme or season.
In 2005, a collaborative haibun ‘from Apricot Tree’ by Ion Codrescu, Rich Youmans, and David Cobb was written each with prose ended with a haiku.
Tanya McDonald and Lew Watts,Whitecaps (2021) is also an interesting collaborative form.
The excellent presentation of the longest linked forms of haibun Her Dance Card Full by Terri L. French & Jane Reichhold originally appeared in the October 2013 Lynx: A Journal for Linking Poets (Vol. 28, No. 3). It is based on a traditional kasen renku format, alternating between two-and three-line haiku.
The following is the first 3 paragraph out of 36 links in total.
1.
spring clouds
sailing into a new venture
friends
2.
The first day of Spring. Tiny pellets of hail fall from the sky beating the heads of daffodils who again this year have arrived too soon. After the storm I go outside and prop them up, forming a circular hedge of stones around the base of their weakened stems. The earth is wet with the last of winter. A crocus nose pokes through the softened soil.
an old Farmer’s Almanac
on the back of the commode
3.
Finding an old and forgotten book is such a gift for that day. A couple of weeks ago I was looking for a book I was sure I still had in order to share it with a friend. In the search a decrepit haiku picture album fell off the shelf and scattered photos across the floor – a riverbed of memories. Yesterday the book was published as Naked Rock.
newest entry
in the old journal
mildew
Here is an initial part of the collaborative haibun to exemplify how the linking and shifting effectively make the stream of the haibun to meander!
by Catherine Mair & Patricia Prime
On my arrival the remnants of a party: balloons on the veranda, a piece of chocolate cake in the pantry, birthday cards on the dresser and toys spread over the floor. The children play with cars on the carpet, making roads and roundabouts with coloured clothes pegs. Later I offer to baby-sit the children while my friend and her daughter visit great-grandma. They decide to take the oldest boy with them.
wide-eyed she welcomes her visitors
The youngest two occupy themselves with the road works, but when they become bored I play “Hangman” with them using simple three- and four-letter words. Next they want to play “Chinese Checkers,” which lasts until they realize they are going to be beaten. As we play hide-and-seek in the bedroom, a Selwyn’s friend spies us through the window. When the rest home visitors return it’s time for dinner.
in the bath
four arms, four legs,
a monster
Next morning the family packs up leaving the house empty and quiet. Thistledown floats across the rain-drenched sun deck.
folding the washing
we find a pair
of boy’s socks
Frogpond-Spring Summer 2009
Jardins Du Luxembourg
by Aurora Antonovic and Yu Chang
As we walk around the gardens, tears stream down her face as she retells the horrors she endured at her ex-husband’s hands. Again, I place both arms around her and repeat what I hope will be comforting words, to no avail.
mid-park
where the old oak
used to be
As we walk around the gardens, tears stream down his face as he retells the horrors he had to endure at home. Again, I place both arms around him and repeat what I hope will be comforting words, to no avail.
old scar
how carefully
his touches my hand
Frogpond, 32.2, 2009, p.60
Ekpharastic Haibun
Like ekphrastic tanka prose (prose and tanka poem), a haibun with an image is known as Haibunga. The Graphic Haibun (combination of image and text) by Linda Papanicolaou are some of the most beautiful creations in haibun literature.
Ekphrastic haibun have been written with an aim to unveil the sublime essence of classical paintings. Angelee Deodhar’s Remnants and Dharavi, Peter Butler’s Instructing Mona Lisa are some brilliant examples of haibun. Similarly, Charles D. Tarlton and Gary LeBel frequently refer to historic paintings in their tanka prose. Many poets like Réka Nyitrai, Alan Peat and others write beautiful ekphrastic haibun based on classical and contemporary paintings. It adds a different literary dimension to haibun.
Ekphrastic haibun:
By Angelee Deodhar
For months my friend and I have exchanged quotes, jokes and news of our families. On more than one occasion she sent me cards she had made herself… a collage of paper flowers, lace and sequins on stiff card paper. I marvel at the suppleness and dexterity of the hands, now stiff with arthritis of this former concert pianist, who sends these miniature works of art, half a world away.
I am reminded of a postcard by Charles Spencelayh, an English painter, around 1920. Its title is “The Lacemaker (Mrs Newell Making Lace)”. Recently, I sent her a packet of different scraps of coloured lace and some U.S. stamps to cover the postage she would need to send some more cards.
crickets –
koi swim through
lacy blue clouds
Braided Haibun
Rich Youman in his scholarly article Plainting Poem & Prose writes the art of braided haibun (the term introduced by Clare MacQueen). Rich explains “each line of the haiku can resonate with the prose” and in writing such haibun the “Braiding can help to pace the narrative while the haiku subtly infuses it” …. and “can control the pace of the haiku for greater effect”.
Some poets namely Fay Aoyagi, S.H. Bjerg, Peter Newton, Roberta Beary, Kat Lehmann, Clare MacQueen, Lorraine Padden, Dian Duchin Reed, Harriot West, Steven Carter, Kala Ramesh and others excellently experimented this format. Confession by Fay Aoyagi published in the winter-spring 2015 edition of Modern Haiku is the first trial of writing a sort of braided form of haibun by splitting 3-line haiku and interspersed within prose section. Both Fay and Peter evolved the form out of sheer fun. Fay confesses, “I … just wanted to try something new…..” she said, “to break a pattern people have used. . . I just wanted to say something strange” to surprise the reader. There is a strong literary value of this parallel blending of prose and poetry.
Confession
by Fay Aoyagi
Rorschach test
His favorite flower is a white chrysanthemum.
I cut the night
He is the only child, but says he has many ghost cousins.
with my knife
He confesses that he’s never been comfortable with his thorns.
I personally enjoy the innovative poetic blending of the haibun, Vanishing Point by Lorraine Padden (Autumn 2021 issue, Frogpond) and Walking meditation by Kala Ramesh.
by Kala Ramesh
wary of stepping on insects and worms, i move with my eyes glued to the earth.
through a bamboo forest
i once saw a group of Jain monks walking barefoot, their soles barely touching the surface to avoid stamping out any living being.
the whistling winds bend
the rhythm of life—back home, a 100-legged centipede glides across the backyard.
a piece of music
In an attempt of verse envelope haibun, Pravat Kumar Padhy tried fusing with ‘One-word’ haiku interspersed by a micro prose (Drifting Sands Haibun, Issue 13, 2022, Ed. Adelaide B. Shaw). In her acceptance email, Adelaide B Shaw comments the micro haibun: “A lot of meaning is conveyed in just a few words.”
by Pravat Kumar Padhy
dawn
The battlefield fire … tears fall short of as the silence shrinks with the shrill of a blackbird.
dusk
In fact, the idea of introducing two one-word verse-envelope micro haibun came as a flash to me. The one-line prose juxtaposes both one-word expressions. The emotional feeling and diving into darkness have been symbolically represented by ‘blackbird’. This is the first time I introduced two one-word haiku in this micro-haibun. Both ‘dawn’ and ‘dusk’ are of one syllable each. I feel the one-line prose symbolizes as the backdrop image for both the one-word haiku to sustain and signify the importance. The prose constitutes a sort of white space that inter-weaves the one-word haiku and imparts meaning to the wholeness. It threads the micro-poems for juxtaposition in a minimalistic way with a distinct poetic signature. The above haibun portrays the tragic scene of the battlefield on the time axis. The silence is metaphorically expressed through ‘blackbird’ with screams and shrill deepening further into darkness.
Recently, based on the concept of ‘Found Poetry’, torrin a. greathouse has introduced a sort of prose-poem and named it as Burning Haibun (Frontier Poetry).
The haibun genre has witnessed many experiments over time to unfold the literary curiosity of the poets and flavor for the readers. I recall the philosophical sentence of the Genjuan International Haibun Awardee, Geethanjali Rajan: “As change is the only constant, it is exciting to see how haiku and haibun are evolving around the world.”
Concluded
Coming next – the Elements
Cafe Haiku 
