Me, The Etymologist
February 19th, 2004
For those just joining us, Etymology is the study of words.
I spent this morning in the shower taking a break from my current list of songs (which has been relegated to one-hit wonders from the 80′s and 90′s this month) to contemplate just how many different ways a human like myself could enunciate the word Haiku.
Me: Hi, Koo.
Me: High, coooo.
Me: Hike, ooh.
Me: Huh, Iku.
Me: Ha! I, koo.
After saying it about one-hundred times, I came to a very interesting conclusion. The word Haiku makes no sense whatsoever. It doesn’t sound like a real word. It doesn’t look like a real word. It doesn’t even smell like a real word. It got me thinking that maybe I picked the wrong word for my water-test. So, I tried a more mainstream one.
Me: Apple.
Me: Ah, pole.
Me: App, pile.
Me: A, ppffbtt, ill.
Why is it that, no matter the word… If you say it over and over and over and over and over again, it will eventually render itself useless as a coherent word. It suddenly becomes babble. It no longer makes sense as a real word and seems ludicrous that any one in their right mind would ever even name a real-life item with such strung-together consonants and vowels.
As for Haiku, someone out there pulled a big one over the world of poetry. I mean, c’mon! What slacker decided that a new form of poetry would be no more than THREE LINES, with easy to remember syllables (5, 7, 5) in those three lines? Haiku is like a dressed up version of the “There once was a woman from Nantucket… poems.
Poems, pome-s, po-ehms, pooooooomms….
God, please help me.
Pauly, it’s soooo funny that you write about this today because I JUST had this conversation with a friend. I am taking the, obviously unpopular, stance of just saying NO to haiku. I know I will be mercilessly attacked by haiku-junkies everywhere for my lack of artistic sophistication or some other hoo-hah, but I HATE haiku. To me it is the logical answer to…Art is to Craft as Poetry is to XXXX? And here we arrive back at my original question of “what makes art art?” And my exclusion of haiku from my “Things That Are Art” list is troubling being the big reception theorist that I am…oh well.
Comment by lori — February 19, 2004 @ 12:17 pm
To try and make peace with the haiku people, I wrote one. Don’t know that it’s the olive branch I was going for, but I offer:
How I hate haiku
Not art, But sometimes clever
Crap, But fun I guess
Comment by lori — February 19, 2004 @ 12:24 pm
You soil, Haiku
Your hatred eats you alive
Not fun, destruction
Comment by Pauly D — February 19, 2004 @ 12:43 pm
Here’s one I rather like…
Three Men On a Hill:
Jesus and Two Thieves or
Am I Crucified?
Comment by Meh — February 19, 2004 @ 1:27 pm
Jack Kerouac loved the haiku but hated the restrictive nature of the form. He mostly came at it from a William Carlos Williams’ stance; in other words, no ideas but in things. Kerouac called his works Western haikus, saying “Western languages cannot adapt themselves to the fluid syllabillic Japanese. I propose that the ‘Western Haiku’ simply say a lot in three short lines in any Western language.” An example from him:
In my medicine cabinet,
the winter fly
has died of old age.
Sorry, didn’t mean to go Lit prof. on you.
Comment by Jeff — February 19, 2004 @ 4:25 pm
I’m confused. Where can I download the syllabus?
Comment by Pauly D — February 19, 2004 @ 4:43 pm
Heh! Sorry again. Next lesson: the villanelle.
Comment by Jeff — February 19, 2004 @ 4:57 pm