Slight words of feelings
Juxtapositioned herewith
Loverly poems


Time to share them here
five, then seven, five again
syllables in lines


Is it poetry?
Or perhaps just clever prose?
Which idea wins?

My favorite is Basho's:

古池 / 蛙飛び込む / 水の音
furuike ya / kawazu tobikomu / mizu no oto.
old pond / frog jumps in / water's sound

But it might be a hokku instead of a haiku.

Can anyone hope
To make sense in a haiku,
In only three lines?

Feathery lightness,
Arid as the desert air:
Minimalist? Bare?

Few love poetry
As much as I do, but
Does this qualify?

Could brevity be
Merely clever posturing,
Signifying nothing?

ethyl alcohol
is C 2 H 5 O H
april fuel for you

I'll just quota an old favourite again...


To convey one's mood
in seventeen syllables
is very diffic

John Cooper Clarke

You show me shoyu
Ho'ike'ike koiu*
I show you soy sauce.

* * ** *** ***** ******** *************

Items you may jot down in your Book of Little-Known Facts:

1) All telephone numbers in the town of Haiku, Maui Island, Hawaii, have the prefix 575.

2) Ukiah, California, is Ainrofilac, Haiku, spelled backwards.

* * ** *** ***** ******** *************

*Line two is Hawaiian Language, saying "Show me Shoyu**

**Shoyu is Japanese Language, and is the commonly used term for Soy Sauce in Hawaii.

quote:

To convey one's mood
in seventeen syllables
is very diffic

, Bob. Laughing here.

Is it not a bit
Self-centered to presume folk
Care, about my mood?

A few years ago, my daughter had to write a haiku for school, fifth grade, and she didn't understand what she was supposed to do.

I told her, "Any monkey can write a haiku." Then I proceeded to prove my point by writing the following one.

Haiku: Japanese
form that is unworthy of
the English language.

Actually, like my daughter, I've never understood the point of the haiku. Perhaps it's just genetics.

There are a number of problems. First and foremost, and it's surprising how many people don't get this, Japanese and English are different languages. Forms that make sense in one won't necessarilly make sense in the other. Haiku was never designed to be written in English.

Second there is the idea of what actually constitues a haiku. It isn't, alas, just the syllable count. If it were I'd agree with you that anyone can write it. In traditional haiku only certain subjects are permissible - specifically relating to nature.

There is a long article on Wikipedia that will tell you more than you could ever want to know.

But if that fails to convince you, try this article.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: BobHale,

There seems to be an assumption that poetry is rhymed and metered verse, but many cultures have/had poetry that did not rhyme: the Romans, Greeks, Hebrews, and Indians. Rhyming didn't really become popular until the Middle English period in England. Earlier Old English poetry (like many other forms of Germanic poetry) used alliteration and did not have fixed meters. Once you know a writing system, it is easy to write, ("Why a child could do this!"), but writing good poetry, as well as good prose, takes something ungenetic and learned, talent.

[typo fixed]

This message has been edited. Last edited by: zmježd,

Bob, I've had to be convinced, too, and while I am better, I am still not in love with haikus.

However, I was at a medical conference once, and everyone got into writing haikus about what we were talking about. I happened to be at a table with a Japanese physician who was very into haikus. He went nuts with all the gibberish people were writing. He explained all the nuances of a good haiku to me, and it bagan to make a little sense. So, I agree, Bob, that we often we just don't understand haikus, and even when we do, they sound so much better in Japanese.

Thanks for the Wikipedia reference. Obviously I haven't read through all the links, but here's one that was cited that I found entertaining: badhaiku.com . It's apparently in it's tenth year.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Frank Hubeny,

There is bad poetry, just as there is bad prose, but it has precious little to do with the form that a poem takes. For instance, I've read a lot of bad limericks, but occasionally a good one gets through. I particularly like the earlier, nonsensical ones by Lear, before they were even called limericks.

I agree, z.

Often my favorite limericks don't follow some of the more intricate limerick rules, such as unstressed syllables at the beginning of lines or using homonyms as rhymes. A famous limerick (and a favorite of mine) starts: "Nymphomaniacal Jill..." Yet it wouldn't meet the "rules" because of no unstressed words in the first line. The same goes for this wonderful limerick:

A flea and a fly in a flue
Were imprisoned so what could they do
'Let us fly' said the flea
Said the fly 'Let us flee'
So they flew through a flaw in the flue

What a clever play of words...yet, it wouldn't meet those so-called rules.

Making intricate rules often limits the creativity. Of course verses need some kind of rules to be called a particular verse form.

quote:

some of the more intricate limerick rules, such as [requiring] unstressed syllables at the beginning of lines or using [prohibiting] homonyms as rhymes

Whatever in the world made you think that these are "rules" of the limerick form? Just because the tin-ears at OEDILF impose them on their acolytes does not make them correct "rules".

There are two things I like about OEDILF. First, the editors usually want the form to be correct; and, second, they want the limerick to make sense.

I've missed on both counts for some of my submissions, but who cares? I'll just revise until I get bored with it. I'm glad someone likes limericks enough to construct a site and find an excuse to write them.

Oh, I agree with you, Frank. Also while there are a few anal retentives there, there is a much larger group who are reasonable about limericks that are excellent, but might not meet every tiny detail.

BTW, my original post about limerick rules here wasn't about OEDILF. There are many others besides OEDILFers who write limericks! In fact, OEDILF wasn't even the first site to write a dictionary with limericks. Another word board has several members that started a similar project years before OEDILF did. I don't think that is common knowledge though.

Kalleh, do you recall the site that set up a similar project to OEDILF?

Also, I've enjoyed your limericks on OEDILF, as well as those by Richard English and Bob Hale. I'm not sure who else is on that site that also contributes to this one.

It's amazing how different we all are. You can sort of see a person's character by reading a few dozen limericks that they wrote.

A few others from Wordcraft have written limericks...Saranita, CW, Arnie, and some who wrote them early on and donated them to the project.

I have sent you a PM about the other limerick dictionary.

quote:

Originally posted by Hic et ubique:

quote:

some of the more intricate limerick rules, such as [requiring] unstressed syllables at the beginning of lines or using [prohibiting] homonyms as rhymes

Whatever in the world made you think that these are "rules" of the limerick form? Just because the tin-ears at OEDILF impose them on their acolytes does not make them correct "rules".

Good point, Hic. I've always been much more malleable in accepting limericks, working in my own pronunciation and timing to nudge the verses into the familiar limerick lilt. There seems to be less "give" in the readings of some of the writers/ editors of limericks when they're working to acheive that project. I don't really mind, it's not necessarily a bad thing, it's just an observation.

quote:

Originally posted by BobHale:
Haiku was never designed to be written in English.

Why is Haiku written in English, especially with the dominance of free verse?

Why is Haiku written in English, especially with the dominance of free verse?

Because the poets writing it are anglophones? There's still haiku written in Japanese, you probably just don't read the right poetry magazines. Some poets write in free verse, some write sestinas and sonnets. There are a lot of poetic forms out there. Should be enough for any language.

Hi Zmjezhd,

I don't think you understood the question. At least your response doesn't suggest that you did.

I'll try again.

What makes the haiku a valid English form? Or why is the haiku taught to children as English poetry? Or why do adults even write in the form? Or why are adults not embarrassed to write a haiku? Or why this form and why is it so popular?

I suspect there is an historical explanation as well as an explanation that might say something about how we use language in general.

Are you getting the idea of what I'm trying to ask?

But thanks anyway for your comments. You basically said that the question of "why" is irrelevant. I, on the other hand, find the question quite interesting.

You ask the board why
The haiku is popular
And deemed 'poetry'.

Perhaps it's because
The haiku's non-threatening,
Being so simple.

Three lines, and no rhyme?
The requirements are so few
That anyone can write one.

I could toss these out,
One following the other.
Endless progression.

Sometimes verbs or
Prepositions omitted.
That helps extremely.

What makes the haiku a valid English form?

Sorry, Frank. I don't think you understood my answer, so I'll try again. Haiku is a valid English poetical form, because a lot of poets have chosen to write poetry in the haiku form. What makes the sonnet a valid English poetical form? (It's from Provencal via Italian.) Same thing. Poets like to write poetry, and they also like to experiment with new forms: vers libre / free verse being one of many. Of course, many people seem to think if it doesn't have meter and it doesn't rhyme (and that they happen not like the subject matter) then it isn't poetry. Nonsense. As I've posted, most traditional European doesn't rhyme. Rhyme is one poetic device. Get rid of free verse and you have to chuck out Walt Whitman, Robert Frost, T S Eliot, and a bunch of other poets and their poetry. Not me. Some people don't consider limericks poetry because their frivolous and humorous, the subject matter is not elevated enough, and the subject matter is not elevated enough. Not me. Some people don't consider the poems on OEDILF to be limericks. The final line does not repeat the first line's rhyme: e.g., "There was an old Bishop of Smyrna" ... "That crazy old Bishop of Smyrna". Not me.

Thanks, shufitz for the haiku sequence and zmjezhd for the expanded explanation.

I'm not sure what I'm trying to ask when I question the value of haikus as an English form. There is something about language as a tool for controlling others that keeps coming to mind, but I'm not able to articulate it. There is also something about language as the only way we know how to lie and then make others accept the lies we create. The problem is far more general than the haiku.

So, maybe I could re-phrase my concern like this.

Accepting the haiku as a poetic form is like accepting a lie and justifying the controlling authority that reinforces that lie. Not accepting the haiku as a poetic form is a way of challenging that authority. This authority is not external. It is in our own minds.

Of course you are both welcome to your opinions. In fact, I'm glad you have them, otherwise, I would not be able to articulate these ideas. There would be no one to speak them to. So thanks for responding!

Just some specific comments, zmjezhd. No challenge is intended by these.

quote:

Haiku is a valid English poetical form, because a lot of poets have chosen to write poetry in the haiku form. What makes the sonnet a valid English poetical form? (It's from Provencal via Italian.) Same thing.

What makes the Petrarchian sonnet a partcularly beautiful poetic form in English is the iambic pentameter line and the two stanzas, one with 8 lines and the other with 6. This break in the story line of the poem is crucial and makes this sonnet form far superior to the Shakespearean sonnet. The rhyme scheme is secondary, but holds the two parts together by the similarities and differences the sound generates. I see nothing like this in the haiku.

quote:

Of course, many people seem to think if it doesn't have meter and it doesn't rhyme (and that they happen not like the subject matter) then it isn't poetry. Nonsense.

Meter is what makes poetry, not rhyme. I agree with you that rhyme is not as important as it is promoted. However, non-prosaic sound repetition is important for poetry and it needs to be present in some way to emphasize the meter.

You are, respectfully, wrong about the "many people". Most people, especially those with external authority, value neither rhyme, meter nor even meaningful communication in poetry today.

quote:

Get rid of free verse and you have to chuck out Walt Whitman, Robert Frost, T S Eliot, and a bunch of other poets and their poetry.

I once tried to introduce my children to Eliot through the musical Cats, which is almost entirely taken from Eliot's Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats. The only part they found interesting, even though these childrens' poems rhymed, was Memories which was largely written by Trevor Nunn and was responsible for the success of the musical. In retrospect, it is the only part that I also found interesting.

I think this says something about the future value of Eliot's work. There is no need to chuck it. It may already be chucked.

quote:

Some people don't consider limericks poetry because their frivolous and humorous, the subject matter is not elevated enough, and the subject matter is not elevated enough. Not me.

I actually don't like limericks, but they have meter, and so are poetry. The form is too brief to tell a good story in English and so it is used for humor.

quote:

Some people don't consider the poems on OEDILF to be limericks. The final line does not repeat the first line's rhyme: e.g., "There was an old Bishop of Smyrna" ... "That crazy old Bishop of Smyrna". Not me.

I think the "authorities" would say that Lear wrote something called "Learics" or primitive limericks and the limerick form developed after him in the twentieth century. But have it any way you want. The name of the form is irrelevant.

Again, I just reponded in detail out of respect since you responded twice. No challenge is intended and I welcome any comments you might have.

quote:

I see nothing like this in the haiku.

You hit the nail on the head. You don't like haikus. That's okay. Lots of people (including some on this site) don't like limericks. The world is a better place because we all have different taste.

That doesn't mean that we shouldn't consider haikus or limericks poetry. Haikus can be very beautiful, especially in Japanese. I found this site interesting in explaining some of the language differences. Even when written correctly in English (and I am by no means an expert!), haikus can be breathtaking. However, you can't just concern yourself with the numbers of syllables, which many do. Wikipedia has a nice discussion of other considerations, such as the special season word (the kigo), two elements in a unified sensory impression, with a major grammatical break after the first 5 or second 7 morae. Here is an example that the Wikipedia article gives of a classic Haiku:

an old pond—
the sound of a frog jumping
into water

or

the first cold shower;
even the monkey seems to want
a little coat of straw.

As I mentioned above, I had talked with a Japanese physician about Haikus, and he gets quite annoyed at how Americans think they are so easy to write...just count the syllables. That's not the case.

So, haiku is not poetry, even though it has meter, because it is too short a form. And the same is true of limericks/learics. Also, the latter's form is mainly used for humorous effect, rather than serious, high art. Interesting. The Waste Land is not poetry because it does not have meter, though it is surely long enough, and, though playful, it is serious enough in tone, but perhaps not intent. And Eliot's star has waned, and he is to be chucked onto the midden heap of history, because Mr Hubeny and his child don't like his work. Hmm. Too bad. I really liked Eliot, and he is usually described as a poet and his work poetry. la! I, too, am sorry that we disagree, but that's that I'm afraid. OK, back to words.

I was thinking of changing my signature but perhaps I'll leave it for a while.

OK, I'll jump into the "What IS poetry?" morass with my dos Colones.

First, poetry is NOT defined by ANY specific convention or device such as rhyme, meter or syllable count -- or alternating long and short vowel patterns in languages that don't have (strong) accents. This is pretty basic, 1st-year lit stuff. Rhyme, meter etc. are (I think, and many agree who have looked into the psychology of human creativity) deliberate hindrances imposed to shake the mind out of its prosaic (sorry!) rut and force it to come up with something more original. I personally find my limericks are better and less trite than my free verse. The specific conventional obstacles vary from language to language, but I think they all serve the same ultimate end -- and to insist "no meter no poetry" (say) is to be guilty of cultural chauvinism, and to exclude entire languages from having poetry simply because metric inflection (as opposed e.g. to tonal inflection) is not a big deal in those languages.

What poetry IS is beautifully illustrated in the German word for poetry, Dichtung. Dicht means thick (semi-cognate), dense, concentrated, so Dichtung is concentrated language, packing a maximum of meaning and association into a minimum of words. There's a nice apropos German saying: In der Kürze liegt die Würze. -- roughly, "brevity is the soul of wit" (literally: "In shortness lies the spice.").

This, BTW, is what makes poetry so damned hard to translate (and why non-native speakers rarely "get" the full depth of a poem): words and phrases evoke all sorts of side associations and synonyms and even cultural/historical references that seldom have fitting analogues in the target language. I may previously have mentioned the delicious Italian phrase Traduttore traditore, "The translator is a traitor." This is true to some extent of all translation, but applies a fortiori to poetry.

Based on the above, Haiku is most definitely poetry, in fact quintessentially so, since brevity is its first conventional restriction.

Phroggye

PS -- I see that I may have given the impression above that ONLY short opi (?) are poems -- so then what about epic poetry, or even sonnets (compared to Haiku)?

I should have added that the brevity, or compactness, is at the phrase/sentence/stanza/idea level.

Another image: if prose is grape juice, then poetry is a vintage wine, where every little sip contains a kingdom of tastes and aromas and aftertastes and sidetastes, no matter how many sips you take in all (up to a point, of course!).

To belabor the analogy a bit: and who says wine HAS to be made from Riesling (etc.) grapes?

Phr.

Here, here. One minor correction. The plural of Latin opus is opera; it's a third declension neuter noun. There seems to have been some influence on the word Dichtung from Latin dicto 'to say often; pronounce, declare'; see Kluge dicht, dichten. (Cf. German dicht 'close, dense' is cognate with English tight and may be related to German dick 'fat' with thick.)

Thanks for all the comments. I'll have to digest them a little more before I say anything specific.

It was few years ago when my daughter was writing haikus as exercises for 5th grade that I realized how simple they were and wondered (to this day, as you can see) why anyone would write them in English. Anyway, the haiku that I offered my daughter as an illustration, and showed you earlier, I later expanded.

Here it is:


Haiku Drivel, Youku Drivel

1

My teacher insisted a haiku be written.
I sharpened my pencil and let out a scream.
I chewed the eraser. My nails were bitten.
I hoped I could puncture some part of this dream.

But, no, it was real, and she said she would flunk me
If I didn't do it, and do it right then.
I felt like a fool with a sign that said, "Dunk me!"
Who falls in the water, and falls down again.

Then suddenly something occurred. Was it clever?
I proudly displayed it. She freaked with surprise.
She said it was awful, the worst she'd seen ever.
She flunked me with pleasure in spite of my cries.

2

Haiku: Japanese
form that is unworthy of
the English language.

quote:

Originally posted by zmjezhd:
Here, here. One minor correction. The plural of Latin opus is opera; it's a third declension neuter noun.

I was joshing, zm; once again, I failed to bulge my cheek out sufficiently with my tongue. Mea culpa.

Slight irony: it's the same device as in your "Here, here" above (I'm assuming).

Since you introduced the word, here's a nice little Latin palindrome that maybe 2-3% of this crowd might not have heard of yet (from fading memory: hope I get it right): sator arepo tenet opera rotas.

Phroggye

PS -- BTW, zm, I just now noticed that, if your WC moniker represents what you once told me it did, namely your first name backwards rendered phonetically, shouldn't it be "zmjehzd"? -- or else "zmjedzh" if you take 'dzh' as a phonemic unit?

F

I was joshing

Sorry, Froeschlein, it's a common enough error online where people try to hypercorrect Latin plurals for words like virus (which has no plural in Latin; the English plural is viruses, the incorrect plural most often assumed is virii), opii for opera or English opuses, etc.

Yes, my here, here was based on some dialog in a movie whose title has left me: Mr A: "Hear, hear!"; Mr B: "Where, where?"; Mr A: "There, there."

The Sator magic square (i.e., sator arepo tenet opera rotas), has been found in various locations, one in England and the others on the continent. The sentence is almost gibberish, and, in the square, tenet forms a cross.

As for my online moniker: yes, you remember as I told you, but ... I said the zh is a digraph, like ll or rr in Spanish: two letters in the making, but used as one for spelling and sorting: ch, too, if memory serves me. Whether dzh is a single phoneme or two in English is a bit of an obscure footnotely contention amongst phonologists. I would prefer zmježd. In IPA, my name should be: /zmjedʒ/, but the alternative would be /zmjeʤ/.

Quote: What poetry IS is ... packing a maximum of meaning and association into a minimum of words.

Arguably that's characteristic of great poetry, but isn't that a different thing entirely?

When I write in stanzas with meter and rhyme
I trust I am writing a poem.
Consider my mortification to find
They don't constitute poems as you know'm!
They're admittedly doggeral; poets of note
Feel no competition made by me
But though it's not up to the standards you quote
You reject it? Sir, you mystify me!
I admit that "compactness" is oft on display
In poems you deem great and exquisite,
But nevertheless I would ask: would you say
That this post is a poem? Well sir, is it?
If so then I'd say that you have to admit
That a poet (albeit at poor one)
Can write without being compact, not a bit
It's a poem and no less so than your one.

Wonderful, Hic! Great "poem."

quote:

Originally posted by Hic et ubique:
Quote: What poetry IS is ... packing a maximum of meaning and association into a minimum of words.

Arguably that's characteristic of great poetry, but isn't that a different thing entirely?

When I write in stanzas with meter and rhyme
I trust I am writing a poem.
Consider my mortification to find
They don't constitute poems as you know'm!
...
/LIST]

Well dang, and here I thought my posting was fighting against more exclusive definitions of poetry: now it turns out I'm spozetabe the exclusivist!

WHen I said that poetry is not defined by rhyme, meter, whathaveyou, I meant that it was limiting to make these criteria exclusive. Of course poems can have these attributes, but they don't have to.

So ... what would a poem have to have to be a poem? What distinguishes it from prose? This is the question I (and numberless others) seek the answer to.

[LIST] (BTW, I specifically disagree that only great poetry achieves the compaction of which I spoke, for the pretty clear reason that compaction, like greatness, is a matter of degree, and not an on/off switch.

And isn't it so that any author strives, if not for greatness, at least for "as good as possible"?)

I gave the grapejuice/wine analogy, here are some others: house/church (not perfect and not to be taken too far); fiction/literature. But NB: some houses are more beautiful than some churches; some fiction is better than some literature.

Poetry is something set apart from prose -- but by what? It's that it's somehow not 'natural' -- tho it can flow and, with a lot of effort and genius on the author's part, feel natural and unforced. Well, but all Art is not natural (i.e. artifice), otherwise it's a John Cage movie of a man sleeping for 8 hours, unedited. So again: what's the difference from prose? Maybe this: 'ordinary' speech (or letters or memos) is to prose literature as prose literature is to poetry.

Where my argument runs into trouble is, ironically, when it comes to my beloved limericks and doggerel in general. Keep in mind that I've just said that I love limericks (and I've written hundreds in 3 languages) when I say that, to my mind, this kind of work is playing at (or with)(some of the possible) forms of poetry. It is pre-poetry, practice (on the formal aspects of) poetry, the anteroom to poetry, a poetry playpen.

Frankly, I'm not entirely comfortable with the above paragraph (but I'll let it stand to limn the meander of my musings -- going out on a limn); I think I'd rather have poetry be like the former Czechoslovakia, with two distinct but closely related parts -- and with, of course, a rather broad and somewhat fuzzy boundary between them. Of course, I could just say that there's literary poetry (that aspires, at least, to greatness) and fun (or occasional, or experimental, or godawful) poetry.

This has been an improvisatory ramble, kinda fun, contradicting itself here and there -- or, rather, discovering new and possibly interesting side-paths. Hopefully (Yes! Wanna make something of it, eh? (I miss German 'hoffentlich' in English, and this is the closest we have.)), there are a couple of nuggets of interest &or amusement &or enlightenment in this farrago.

Phroggye

otherwise it's a John Cage movie of a man sleeping for 8 hours, unedited

I think you mean Andy Warhol's Sleep, though it was edited. It consisted of shoots consisting of 100 foot rolls of 16mm film, some of them were shown twice. The original film was 6.5 hours long, but Warhol shoot a supplementary 1.5 hours a month after the original shoot to stretch things out to 8 hours. The John Cage piece that sends folks into a tizzy is 4'33", the nortorious four and a half minutes of silence. Both the Warhol and the Cage piece are about extreme experimentations with artistic form and content.

quote:

Originally posted by Froeschlein:

What poetry IS is beautifully illustrated in the German word for poetry, Dichtung. Dicht means thick (semi-cognate), dense, concentrated, so Dichtung is concentrated language, packing a maximum of meaning and association into a minimum of words.

Others quoted this definition. I remember reading in some book, but I can't remember the book at the moment, where the author responded to a similar definition of poetry with something like the following.

Well, then, are dense, concentrated statements, packing a maximum of meaning, like 'f(x) = x^2' poems?

Parts of the problem of distinguishing poetry from prose are the following:

(1) We assume that there are only two basic modes of writing, poetry and prose, and we need to justify that assumption with whatever definition we come up with.

(2) We assume that "doggerel" is not "poetry" and have to make sure that whatever definition we come up with excludes "doggerel" or "drivel" from the definition of poetry. Sometimes one hears the term "pure poetry", which is likely meaningless, but when used is essentially trying to make this distinction. I guess "doggeral" is then part of "prose".

(3) We assume that "free verse" is "poetry" and not "prose" since calling it prose would somehow degrade it.

(4) We assume that "meaningless" communication be considered "poetry", if it has the sanction of an appropriate authority, rather than as a third mode of writing, such as "jibberish".

Another problem has to do with social status. An academic might not want to consider the lyrics of some song as poetry because that might debase the meaning of the word "poetry" to the academic. On the other hand, the teenager singing that same song also might not want to consider it as poetry, because the teenager actually likes the song, and doesn't want it associated with what is boring in school.

Just adding to the argument.

As I've mentioned, I don't consider haikus to be part of English poetry. They may be Japanese poems because of the way the Japanese language is spoken. They don't seem to be prose either.

quote:

As I've mentioned, I don't consider haikus to be part of English poetry. They may be Japanese poems because of the way the Japanese language is spoken. They don't seem to be prose either.

Now, that I could agree with.

I feel that what constitutes poetry is largely determined by one's cultural language upbringing and habit, which are obviously very different in different countries. Each to his own.
Haikus don't do anything for me in the English tongue, but then most of us were reared in poetry dominated by rhyme, metre, or descriptive blank verse. I have no regrets at being ignorant of the Japanese customs, in more ways than just the Haiku motif.

Do other WCs get a guilty, sinking feeling when they find their post on a topic is the last one. That's bee my lot on more than one occasion. It's as if you've sealed off the subject with a boring, unfruitful message. Sackcloth and Ashes. Sorry.

Many of the traditional English poetic styles and meters were borrowed from other languages and cultures. I don't see what that's got to do with it. Japanese is just a little more exotic than French or Greek.

Speaking of seeking the cause of thread stoppages, this Limerick comes spinning off ... nothing personal ... <grin>

Discourse detectives, please note,
When the thread gets tied up and won't float,
Was the exodus led
By something we said?
No? Then it must have been something we wrote.

I liked the limerick, jerry.

Although I've whined about haikus here, I actually wrote one for Bad Haiku. I don't recommend that you click on the link.

As far as getting responses to posts, it is sometimes difficult to get the time to even read posts. I'm amazed at how many Kalleh has responded to.

quote:

I'm amazed at how many Kalleh has responded to.

As are we all!

She's the winner of the total posts every month, isn't she? I beat her once, but that was when I was still rather new to the board, and I was going back into the archives, practically, and dredging up old discussions - oh yes, and I was off work at the time.