4 ms·

While this conforms to the popular 17 syllable rule, I would argue it is not technically a haiku because it is weak in providing an evocative image (related to

While this conforms to the popular 17 syllable rule, I would argue it is not technically a haiku because it is weak in providing an evocative image (related to nature) which in turn conveys a sublime mix of emotions. The 17 syllable thing is more of a guideline. See also: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haiku_in_English http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haiku_in_English Apologies for nitpicking, the bigger story here is obviously the resignation of the CEO of Sun rather than the manner in which he did it.

alanthonyc 17y ago
I'm with you on this. The "haiku" is overplayed. Nature is needed. And also, not to forget, the common form of response.
- DannoHung 17y ago
  I eagerly await a web site for communicating in sonnets.
  - paulgerhardt 17y ago
    Yes, but can you write it in 14 lines of Clojure? =D
patio11 17y ago
If you were doing Japanese poetry it might be a senryuu rather than a haiku. In English, I think a fair case can be made that the word "haiku" means something different than 俳句 does, and that's OK. (For one thing, your notion of a syllable as an English speaker is related to the mora Japanese counts by, but they're not the same thing, even when counting for corruptions of English words. Patrick is 2 syllables, パトリック is 5 mora. This means every haiku you've ever heard much longer than is "acceptable", for a certain very proscriptivist form of "acceptable".) This is a topic of accidental interest to me because one of my undergrad theses was on autogenerating haiku. (If there were a Turing test for haiku, one my program wrote is better than anything I've ever written. The next hundred were crappy. The great thing about it as a CS problem is that haikus force the reader to do so much of the work that as long as you have a good dictionary of seasonal terms to work with mashing a few of them together may actually result in something pretty, even with a very minimal understanding of grammar.)

alanthonyc 17y ago

I'm with you on this. The "haiku" is overplayed. Nature is needed. And also, not to forget, the common form of response.

DannoHung 17y ago
I eagerly await a web site for communicating in sonnets.
- paulgerhardt 17y ago
  Yes, but can you write it in 14 lines of Clojure? =D

patio11 17y ago

If you were doing Japanese poetry it might be a senryuu rather than a haiku. In English, I think a fair case can be made that the word "haiku" means something different than 俳句 does, and that's OK. (For one thing, your notion of a syllable as an English speaker is related to the mora Japanese counts by, but they're not the same thing, even when counting for corruptions of English words. Patrick is 2 syllables, パトリック is 5 mora. This means every haiku you've ever heard much longer than is "acceptable", for a certain very proscriptivist form of "acceptable".) This is a topic of accidental interest to me because one of my undergrad theses was on autogenerating haiku. (If there were a Turing test for haiku, one my program wrote is better than anything I've ever written. The next hundred were crappy. The great thing about it as a CS problem is that haikus force the reader to do so much of the work that as long as you have a good dictionary of seasonal terms to work with mashing a few of them together may actually result in something pretty, even with a very minimal understanding of grammar.)