some
one-line haiku comments plus/in response sorta.........
marlene mountain, US
i'm not sure what i've said over the years about one-line haiku though
two ideas still have meaning to me.
first. i don't care for the term one-liner. or three-liner. i do have
a habit of calling haiku other than one-line as 'other-line haiku.' a
silly and serious 'critique.'
second. one-line is a shape. it's like a 2 x 4 with little notches
between words. it just hangs in 'space' with no intention of looking
like anything other than its own shape. it has no margins other than
the first and last words. a lot of other-line haiku margins seem
arbitrary. and seem to produce chopped-up poems. i can hear the ding
of a typewriter—and the carriage moved to the next line. i often
glue the piece/s together in my head to see what is written.
there are many other-line which don't have that feel and i can take in
the shape without any pasting together. a visual other-line. not
arbitrary but shaped by context/content. since i'm not much of a
'listening' writer/reader i go by the 'visual.' i leave
rhythm/beat/etc to those who can do that—even if i don't hear it. not
all poems come from an ear. ears are arbitrary in the history of art
and music and such. as are eyes.
whatever happens between the first word and the last depends on
conception. if one thinks/notices/lives within one-line the content
arrives in that manner. as with those who think/notice/live within
other-line. no mystery to it. to step out of how one regularly
thinks/notices/lives is the challenge. to unlearn to relearn to
learn—whichever it takes. to step out long enough to think without
thinking
i rarely consider that a haiku might be written in the 'semi-colon'
style or the 'sentence' style or whatever. since one-line is a given
anything can happen within. it makes me no difference. and since i
almost always write in the context of a 'linked piece' anything even
worse can happen.
in a 'linked piece' i respond to the previous link along with whatever might
pop up
or happen to be churning around inside [from
dubya to daylily].
the link and the leap of
one cloth if possible. i don't
analyze the way i write [ie the technique eg juxtaposition]. often
i've wondered: now where did that come from? it's often comforting to
have no answer.
back in 1977 i wrote to r. clarence matsu-allard that i had hopes for
one-line.
a wish that one-line wouldn't get bogged down with rules and
definitions and opinionated opinions. i related it to a spring morning
in haiku.
through all of these years the majority of poets overlooked or ignored
or snubbed one-line. or called it experimental in an underhanded way.
and still do. i'm rather glad it happened this way—until the
potential of content itself became/is becoming more recognized. some
people, however, still equate weird content to the realm of one-line.
or an occasional place for pure poets to hang their non-pure haiku.
i can write any content or mood that arises. in one-line. heck—in
other-line as well. anyone can. it's merely a matter of waiting out the
decades. or waiting out oneself. or not waiting at all.
experimental? experimental content? experimental shape? i believe
artists do what they do. a creative endeavor. artists create art. art
[ie something that's already done by oneself or others] doesn't create
the artist.
so far one-line hasn't gotten penned down or penned up.
actually i don't want to understand one-line. for that matter i really
and truly don't want to understand haiku.
marlene
6/11/05
Marlene Mountain
http://www.marlenemountain.org
