Very short poems you like

luka

Well-known member
You can't write an English haiku, they're always bad, with petals on a wet bough being the exception that proves the rule
 

Benny Bunter

Well-known member
Wink

He closes his eyes
It is the end of the world
He opens his eyes
It is another world

And when everything was consumed
Everything still remained in place
Only the lighting had changed


Roger Lecomte
 

Benny Bunter

Well-known member
Lorca was obviously inspired by haiku as well, but even more so by Andalucían folk coplas, which are similarly condensed poems or songs, so maybe that's why he was more successful and the poems read more naturally than English haikus (not that I've read many of those).
But aren't Pounds translations of Chinese stuff supposed to be good? I liked that canto which is a translation of a Chinese picture book.
 

jenks

thread death
I like those early Pound poems and Imagist collections he put together with h d, Adlington, T E Hulme and others.
 

Benny Bunter

Well-known member
I'd like to get the bottom of why it's impossible to write a good English haiku, if indeed that's true. I can understand translation from Chinese as being the major problem, and following strict numbers of syllables etc to attempt write an 'authentic' English haiku seems a bit pointless. But then again, why should it not be possible to write a very short, beautiful (possibly haiku inspired) poem in English?
 

Benny Bunter

Well-known member
Another thing I like about Lorca's short poems is how he arranged and collected them in 'suites' on a particular theme or motif. There's a good one on the theme of mirrors he's got, maybe I'll type them up when I get the chance, though they definitely lose a lot in translation as I said earlier.
 

linebaugh

Well-known member
I'd like to get the bottom of why it's impossible to write a good English haiku, if indeed that's true. I can understand translation from Chinese as being the major problem, and following strict numbers of syllables etc to attempt write an 'authentic' English haiku seems a bit pointless. But then again, why should it not be possible to write a very short, beautiful (possibly haiku inspired) poem in english
Doesnt english have a massive amount of words, more than most languages? Chinese also doesnt use verb tenses or conjugate nouns for gender/number. Seems way more apt for brevity than english.

I had a spanish teacher once explain situations where spanish was 'better' than english but unfortunately I remember none of it
 

catalog

Well-known member
Yeah English is not a poetic language cos its a samizdat of several other languages and concept worlds, is what I've heard.
 
Top