crag, curious about these here hay/na/ku's i looked around for definite descript but it seems it's just one two two three three three is that right? is there another constraint involved? subject? length? mood? syllabic? is it a blog product? or something that quivers herein unchecked
Nico, as far as I can tell, the two primary criteria of an hay(na)ku poem are tercets comprised of a one word line, followed by a two word line, capped by a three word line.
A blog product? The form first caught my eye on the As-Is blog, especially the hay(na)ku produced by Mark Young and Tom Beckett. These poems had the immediacy of haiku with more, much more surface and sub-surface/versive potential. Word count shapes the line, not a syllabic, accentual, parsing (though I think hay(na)ku is open to a variation that could include a tercet made up of a one-syllable line, followed by a two syllable line, underlined by a three syllable line). I’ve been attracted by the line I’ve seen in these poems: limber, bending, stretching, a yoga, something I haven’t felt much in the poetics of the line in poetry of the last twenty years. These lines have hinges, armature, as well as full-ranging shoulders and hips. Check some of Mark Young’s poems out on As-Is and Pelicandreaming. They’ve got a dance I’ve found quite appealing of late.
I’m not sure when Eileen Tabios birthed this form, but it’s grown exponentially. Although it must not be more than a year old, there’s an anthology in the works. I'll past in the submissions call which provides some more information:
THE HAY(NA)KU ANTHOLOGY: A SUBMISSIONS CALL
Meritage Press is pleased to announce a Submissions Call for THE HAY(NA)KU ANTHOLOGY, co-edited by Jean Vengua and Mark Young. Deadline: December 31, 2004. Send submissions (cutnpasted in body of e-mail) to [email protected]. Submissions are limited to no more than ten (10) hay(na)ku per poet. If you have any commentary about the form itself, please feel free to share that as well as we'd like to incorporate other poets' thoughts in an Afterword essay.
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"Cameron was a counter. He vomited nineteen times to San Francisco. He liked to count everything."
--from The Hawkline Monster by Richard Brautigan, as quoted in June 10, 2003 WinePoetics Blogpost at http://winepoetics.blogspot.com
The "hay(na)ku" is a Filipino and diasporic poetic form conceptualized by Eileen Tabios, as inspired by the character "Cameron" in Richard Brautigan's novel The Hawkline Monster and Jack Kerouac's thoughts on the "American haiku." More information on the hay(na)ku's background is available in the June 2003 posts at Tabios' former blog "WinePoetics" at http://winepoetics.blogspot.com, as well as at the New Zealand Electronic Poetry Center at http://www.nzepc.auckland.ac.nz/authors/young/tabios.ptml. As illustrated by Oliver de Paz's hay(na)ku below, the hay(na)ku is a tercet where the first line consists of one word, the second line of two words, and the third line of three words:
Dogs
tongues loll.
Emphatic earth sponges.
--Oliver de la Paz
For this anthology project, variations on the hay(na)ku are also acceptable, e.g. hay(na)ku sequences where the poem consists of more than one tercet; reverse hay(na)ku where the lines unfold as three words, two words and one word; and any other such variations as the poet may propose. Hay(na)ku in non-English languages are also acceptable, as long as they are submitted with English translations.
For examples of hay(na)ku, feel free to check out the Hay(na)ku Blog at http://eileentabios.blogspot.com
THE HAY(NA)KU ANTHOLOGY will be published either in book form or as an e-book. If the latter, authors will receive contributors' copies. Expected release date will be in 2005.
BIOS OF EDITORS:
Jean Vengua lives in Santa Cruz California. She is co-editor with Elizabeth Pisares of Tulitos Press. Her poetry has been published in various print and online journals and anthologies, including Proliferation, We (print and audio CD), Babaylan, Returning a Borrowed Tongue, Moria, Sidereality, Interlope and X-Stream. As Jean N. V. Gier, her introduction "Variations on a Circle in Blue," appears in Eileen Tabios's book of short stories, Behind the Blue Canvas; other essays appear in Jouvert (N.C.S.U.), Critical Mass: A Journal of Asian American Cultural Cultural Criticism (U.C. Berkeley), and Geopolitics of the Visual: Essays on Philippine Film Cultures (University of Ateneo Press). "Flux & Abilidad: Notes on a Filipino American Poetics," is forthcoming in PinoyPoetics, edited by Nick Carbo. She maintains the blog "Okir" at http://okir.blogspot.com.
Mark Young is a New Zealander who has lived in Australia for a number of years. He was published widely in both countries during the 1960s & the first half of the '70s, but then drifted away from writing for almost 25 years. A request to include some of his poems in the anthology Big Smoke: New Zealand Poems 1960-1975 (http://www2.auckland.ac.nz/aup/books/big_smoke2.html) was the prompt that got him back writing again. In the last few years his poems have appeared in both print & electronic journals from Alba to xStream & many places in between. His books include New Zealand Art 1950-1967 (1968), Blues for New Lovers (1969) & The right foot of the giant (1999). He has two weblogs, Pelican Dreaming (http://pelicandreaming.blogspot.com) which is his main one, & Series Magritte (http://seriesmagritte.blogspot.com) which is an on-going series of poems inspired by the great Surrealist painter. There is also an author's page at the New Zealand electronic poetry centre (http://www.nzepc.auckland.ac.nz/authors/young).
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