Higginson on the one-line haiku

From One-line Poems to One-line Haiku

A seminal essay from the late William J. Higginson on the 1-liner was published in SimplyHaiku, Fall 2004. He defines four basic types, the latter being more a failure than a class of the genre:

1. One-Stroke Haiku. Those that seem to drive the reader instantly from one end to the other, without a pause for reflection or even noticing the grammar involved.
   
2. Classical-Style One-Line Haiku. Those that have a classic haiku rhythm, dividing easily into three phrases, often with the middle one longer, as do traditional Japanese and three-line haiku in other languages, but which may benefit from being read all at once—as the authors apparently intend. I consider these borderline cases between one-stroke haiku and the following group, but notice that the classical style allows for more play with the internal rhythms of a haiku than may usually be found in a three-line poem.
   
3. Multiple-Meaning One-Line Haiku. Those that may have a classic haiku rhythm, but which also offer the reader a number of syntactic elements, allowing for different interpretations of the poem according to how the reader decides to follow the poem's movement.
   
4. Multi-Line Haiku Written on One Line. Those that include a marked stop or pause, and which therefore are not true one-line haiku in my sense of the term. They usually include extra space between two or more sections, or punctuation marking a grammatical shift, or some other substitute for a line-break.
   

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haiku bibliography

Books Helpful To The Haiku Poet ~ from The Nisqually Delta Review: A bi-annual poetry magazine of distinction

Basho: On Love And Barley: Haiku Of Basho translated by Lucien Stryk, Copyright 1985, Penguin Books, Middlesex, England.

Classic Haiku: A Master's Selection edited by Yuzuru Miura, Copyright 1991, Charles E. Tuttle Company, Rutland, Vermont.

Haiku:A Poet's Guide by Lee Gurga, Copyright 2003, Modern Haiku Press, Lincoln, Illinois.

How To Haiku: A Writer's Guide To Haiku And Related Forms by Bruce Ross, Copyright 2002, Tuttle Publishing Co, Boston, Mass.

Narrow Road To The Interior And Other Writings by Matsuo Basho, translated by Sam Hamill, Copyright 1998, Shambala Publications, Inc.

The Essential Haiku:Versions Of Basho, Buson, And Issa edited by Robert Hass, Copyright 1994, Harper Collins

The Genius Of Haiku: Readings From R.H. Blyth With an introduction by James Kirkup, Copyright 1995, The Hokuseido Press, Tokyo.

The Japanese Haiku: Its Essential Nature, History, Etc by Kenneth Yasuda, Copyright 1957, Charles Charles E. Tuttle Co, Tokyo.

The Haiku Anthology edited by Cor Van Den Heuvel, Copyright 1999, W.W. Norton and Company, New York.

The Haiku Handbook edited by William J. Higginson, Copyright 1985, Kodansha International, New York.

The Narrow Road To Oku translated by Donald Keeene and illustrated by Miyata Masayuki, Copyright 1996, Kodansha International, LTD, New York.

The Spring Of My Life And Selected Haiku, Kobayashi Issa translated by Sam Hamill, Copyright 1997 Shambhala, Boston, Mass.

Writing And Enjoying Haiku: A Hands-On Guide by Jane Reichhold, Copyright 2002, Kodansha International, LTD, New York.

Zen And Japanese Culture by Daisetz T. Suzuki, Copyright 1959, Bollingen Foundation Inc, New York.

Zen Poetry: Let The Spring Breeze Enter translated and edited by Lucien Stryk and Takashi Ikemoto, copyright 1991, Grove Press, New York.
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