{"id":312,"date":"2019-09-20T16:07:14","date_gmt":"2019-09-20T20:07:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/redgiantbooks.com\/?p=312"},"modified":"2019-09-20T16:07:46","modified_gmt":"2019-09-20T20:07:46","slug":"breath-burns-away","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/redgiantbooks.com\/?p=312","title":{"rendered":"Breath Burns Away"},"content":{"rendered":"

AMERICAN STYLE HAIKU AND SENRYU<\/strong><\/p>\n

Many of the poems in this collection are not haiku in the strictest sense. Yes, they are composed of three short lines in the present tense releasing a moment of revelation \u2014 outsight insight \u2014 in short, a verbal rendering of the \u201caha\u201d moment of zen awareness. And they often depict that intersection between human and nature. But they do not employ a 5-7-5 syllable format which is, anecdotally anyway, the first response for a layman\u2019s definition of the form. \u00a0Nor do they have a \u201ckigo\u201d, or season word \u2013 in traditional Haiku one word from a set list to denote the time of year in which the poem occurs, for instance \u201cfrog\u201d for spring. Neither do they use the \u201ccutting\u201d word, a verbal particle to accentuate the juxtaposition of images which usually occurs at the end of the second line; although they do occasionally use a \"\"dash to that effect. Many of the poems here could be called senryu, comic haiku that describe incidents of human nature. \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0I feel compelled to mention this to warn off purists\u2019 criticisms. \u00a0These are American English haiku\/senryu. I make no claim otherwise. \u00a0Those seeking traditional Haiku should learn Japanese and peruse the copious lists of \u201ckigo\u201d that a highly formal and ritualized literary tradition (based on Chinese models) created over centuries. \u00a0But bear in mind that Basho, the poet most identified with haiku, upended that very tradition in many of his latter haiku \u2014 the famous frog pond haiku being an example of that. \u00a0 \u00a0 These are haiku and senryu in an American style, more akin to Kerouac\u2019s beat \u201cpops\u201d, Richard Wright\u2019s efforts, and Robert Hass\u2019 translations of the big three \u2014 Basho, Buson and Issa. Some haiku herein hew to the aforementioned formats, while others are aphorisms, imagist collages, short short narratives, and even jokes with a set-up\/ set-up\/ punchline structure. \u00a0They are influenced by my zen studies and my own idiosyncratic interpretation of the form. \u00a0They are a direct response to a moment, be that moment in nature, from reading the news, or a passing thought, with the technique of \u201cnotice what you notice\u201d and get the ego out of the way as much as possible. They are not about capturing that moment, but realizing it and releasing it on breath \u2014 \u00a0breath which is nothing but the basis of the universe.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

AMERICAN STYLE HAIKU AND SENRYU Many of the poems in this collection are not haiku in the strictest sense. Yes, they are composed of three short lines in the present tense releasing a moment of revelation \u2014 outsight insight \u2014 in short, a verbal rendering of the \u201caha\u201d moment of zen awareness. And they often depict that intersection between human and nature. But they do not employ a 5-7-5 syllable format which is, anecdotally anyway, the first response for a layman\u2019s definition of the form. \u00a0Nor do they have a \u201ckigo\u201d, or season word \u2013 in traditional Haiku one word from a set list to denote the time of year in which the poem occurs, for instance \u201cfrog\u201d for spring. Neither do they use the \u201ccutting\u201d word, a verbal particle to accentuate the juxtaposition of images which usually occurs at the end of the second line; although they do occasionally use a dash to that effect. Many of the poems here could be called senryu, comic haiku that describe incidents of human nature. \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0I feel compelled to mention this to warn off purists\u2019 criticisms. \u00a0These are American English haiku\/senryu. I make no claim otherwise. \u00a0Those seeking traditional…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":311,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"image","meta":{"spay_email":"","jetpack_publicize_message":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"http:\/\/redgiantbooks.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/09\/breath-burns-away-cover-1.jpeg","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/redgiantbooks.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/312"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/redgiantbooks.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/redgiantbooks.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/redgiantbooks.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/redgiantbooks.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=312"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/redgiantbooks.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/312\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":313,"href":"http:\/\/redgiantbooks.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/312\/revisions\/313"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/redgiantbooks.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/311"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/redgiantbooks.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=312"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/redgiantbooks.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=312"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/redgiantbooks.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=312"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}