It doesn't matter to me whether I write haiku or senryu or whatever, as long as what I am writing is a satisfying expression of my need to share experience and thought. It would do no good to say a particular poem of mine is senryu and show me how to make it haiku, or to say I should withdraw it because it is not haiku.
It isn't the form of poetry that matters. I'm not trying to write haiku, I'm trying to express myself. That's a crucial difference. Beginners want to know how to write haiku. But I what I tell you is that you want to find the form that enables you to express yourself, not learn to write haiku or iambic pentameter. You need to learn from these forms the form that suits you best, or a form in between no one has ever imagined yet. Each form you may take something from, you may move toward one or the other, or among them, but there will be a form that liberates your expression and you should use whatever form that is. Haiku is the just form of expression that gets closest to perfectly expressing what I need to express.
Some of my poems may be failed haiku, but they are not failed expressions, if a poem I thought was a haiku, is not really a haiku, but expressed perfectly what I wanted to express, I am satisfied with not bothering to to classify or "correct" it to meet the requirements for haiku.
If making it more legitimately a haiku would improve that communication or expression, I would gladly do it, but without that reason, I would leave it well enough alone.
I am mindful when writing of an experience I wish to share, to write it as I think a haiku should be written, consisting of statements about concrete objects, which taken together erect in the mind of the reader a metaphor that creates a satisfying "buzz."
It isn't the form of poetry that matters. I'm not trying to write haiku, I'm trying to express myself. That's a crucial difference. Beginners want to know how to write haiku. But I what I tell you is that you want to find the form that enables you to express yourself, not learn to write haiku or iambic pentameter. You need to learn from these forms the form that suits you best, or a form in between no one has ever imagined yet. Each form you may take something from, you may move toward one or the other, or among them, but there will be a form that liberates your expression and you should use whatever form that is. Haiku is the just form of expression that gets closest to perfectly expressing what I need to express.
Some of my poems may be failed haiku, but they are not failed expressions, if a poem I thought was a haiku, is not really a haiku, but expressed perfectly what I wanted to express, I am satisfied with not bothering to to classify or "correct" it to meet the requirements for haiku.
If making it more legitimately a haiku would improve that communication or expression, I would gladly do it, but without that reason, I would leave it well enough alone.
I am mindful when writing of an experience I wish to share, to write it as I think a haiku should be written, consisting of statements about concrete objects, which taken together erect in the mind of the reader a metaphor that creates a satisfying "buzz."
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