Re: a comment on #20 by mikejedw	20-Apr-04/12:58 PM
Haiku doesn't have to rhyme--it is unnecessary to the English version of the form. That said, repetition of sounds and words is not at all uncommon in anglicized haiku. Here's a translation on one of Issa's haiku by David G. Lanoue: "First snowfall!" and then, soon enough three or four feet There you have "three" and "feet". Issa himself also repeats the hell out of words. Do a search on "dewdrop" in this work sometime. While we're on the subject, it's not technically rhyming, but, rather, a technique called assonance that is at work in grouping "breeze", "creeps", and "feet". It appears frequently in Old English poetry, but it has been used quite a lot since then by poets in this language. The fact that English techniques get applied to Japanese forms is just the way things work. Our obsessive attention to counting syllables, in fact, is pretty much an English convention, since the whole syllable counting thing works differently in Japanese. Take a look at really good modern translations of Haiku, particularly by Robert Hass--he sticks with short-long-short rather than 5-7-5--it's just one of those accommodations that get made when you go from one language to another very different one, each with their own literary conventions and histories. By the way, the "knees" thing just doesn't make any sense at all. And I won't even start on that roundeye bullshit, kid. That said, it isn't my strongest haiku; I totally admit that.
Re: a comment on #20 by mikejedw	20-Apr-04/6:57 AM
Point #1---damn it. I haven't read much Sandburg, but something did sound very familiar. Looking up his poem, it's different enough in tone and intent to be okay with me. I'll just chalk it up as another contribution to the "air with feet" motif--not as grievous a crime as adding another "fire as desire" poem to the pile ;) For the curious, compare the above with Sandburg here: http://eir.library.utoronto.ca/rpo/display/poem1791.html Point #2 well taken--I made an edit to correct that.
Re: a comment on 18 by mikejedw	13-Jan-03/12:40 AM
No mere mortal can resist The evil of... The Thriller
Re: THE MISSING HEART by Prince of Void	12-Jan-03/9:01 PM
It's six lines too short to be a sonnet. What's with the capitalization?
Re: a comment on 18 by mikejedw	12-Jan-03/4:03 PM
The letters in my bowl sink-- Winter's sly typography. (renga time! http://www.ahapoetry.com/rengfmwi.htm)
Re: #3 by mikejedw	30-Jul-02/10:20 PM
Obscurity? The idea of the "floating world" is a foundation of Buddhist mythology. Plus, I'm riffing on one of the world's most famous haiku, by Issa: "In this world/we walk on the roof of hell/gazing at flowers." Oh, and Nietzsche was beloved by the Nazis, so pick your heroes wisely. Hey, it ain't a great haiku, so don't take it too serious, and I won't do the same.
Re: To Kiss by Jody Conn	21-May-02/8:56 AM
Holy Georgia O'Keeffe, Batman! The line "I savor at any hour" doesn't scan well, but, otherwise, I like it.
Re: Sleep Well by jriemerm	21-May-02/8:31 AM
This is a really, really nice poem. It's great that you've introduced the use of "Sometimes/Some nights" to join a free verse poem together syntactically. The images are fresh and compelling.
Re: #9 by mikejedw	21-May-02/8:17 AM
Ah, comments on comments! You've been really busy, man--this is pretty great. Anyway, the numbering is there because I tend not to like giving haiku titles. I think, in larger poems, that I've actually written titles that are longer than haiku. It just seems overwhelming for such a short poem.
Re: #7 by mikejedw	21-May-02/8:11 AM
"Inhaled," to my ear, is two syllables, but you do raise an interesting point. I've long wondered whether "fire" is properly one or two syllables--the triphthong of "ire" makes for a very long vowel sound (long in the classical prosody sense) and can, in some dialects, sound much better broken in two. In fact, in the Carolinas, many "r" triphthongs, such as "there," come across as two syllables--"they-air." I make use of this ambiguity with "fire" in my haiku, "Fireflies."
Re: sonnet by hoopoe	20-May-02/8:45 AM
Ohhh, I know this feeling. There's something about formal poetry that propels us through the writing of a poem, a birth-like struggle. This is a very funny piece of ars poetica, particularly the abundance (and alternation) of feminine rhymes from a "female poet".
Re: This Is The Sound of My Heart Breaking by Owner of the Sky	10-May-02/8:24 AM
It's not a bad evocation of the scene, but I think there's too many modifiers. For instance, you don't need to say the water is sucked down "powerfully" in the toilet--it doesn't add much. "cheap plastic lighter" could be reduced to one adjective or, better still, none. Etc.
Re: Birth by nentwined	10-May-02/7:18 AM
This is good. It's content suggests more of a senryu than a haiku. It's use of the form is very faithful. Spell checking would've helped ;)