Friday, April 15, 2005

Haiku Cont'd / Haiku Quiz

A couple of years ago my friend Zack and I were arguing about poetics, and he quoted a haiku by Buson as an example of the kind of poetry he likes:

The lights are going out
in the doll shops—
spring rain.

In return, I quoted a haiku by Basho as an example of the kind of poetry I like:

The morning glory also
turns out
not to be my friend.

I’m not sure if this is an argument between the poetics of Basho and the poetics of Buson or not—I suspect not—but it made me think that you can determine a person’s poetics on the basis of what haiku they like and dislike, and in that spirit I offer the following quiz. (To keep it simple, all the poems are taken from The Essential Haiku, edited by Robert Hass.)

Match the school of poetics with the appropriate haiku:

A) Postmodern
B) Post-postmodern
C) Neo-Formalist
D) Confessional
E) Post-Confessional
F) Neo-narrative
G) Neo-romantic
H) Beat
I) Deep Image
J) New York

1)

A snowy morning—
by myself,
chewing on dried salmon.

2)

A cold rain starting
and no hat—
so?

3)

Year after year
on the monkey’s face
a monkey face.

4)

Just say the word “cherry”
and it storms down the mountain,
the autumn wind.

5)

A flying squirrel
chewing on a bird
in the withered fields.

6)

Naked
on a naked horse
in pouring rain!

7)

These sea slugs,
they just don’t seem
Japanese.

8)

Writing shit about new snow
for the rich.
is not art.

9)

The withered fields—
“Once upon a time, deep in the forest,
lived an old witch …”

10)

Even as
my father lay dying,
I went on farting.

5 comments:

Unknown said...

Can we cheat? Could you just post the answers?

Peter said...

My guesses:
A:3
B:2
C:5
D:10
E:1
F:9
G:4
H:8
I:6
J:7

. . . this was fun to play with.

Robert said...

Wow--someone actually read this! Thanks, Peter! Does this mean I have to come up with answers now? Your guesses are as good as mine. Actually my answers would pretty much match yours. I was going to call #2 New York, but I think your answer of #7 for New York is much better. We might call #4 Neo-Formalist on the shaky ground that it's the only translation that actually has 17 syllables.

Peter said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
Peter said...

Robert: I am a sucker for any test with questions. It is from my 13+ years in universe-city. *grin* --Peter