Tanka - Poetry

Lahore Grammar School Quetta

[BUKCOLLECTOR]

Haiku is 17 or less syllables—NOT 5/7/5 in strict syllabic sequence. And most of the time, less. My major gripe is that 90% of teachers online are doing a huge disfavor by teaching students the wrong way to write a haiku and if the students decide to submit their haiku, it will never get published in any noteworthy haiku journal like Frogpond, Heron’s Nest, Shamrock, etc
Same with Haibun which has a max of 32 syllables but most of the time far less and not in 5/7/5/7/7 strict syllabic sequence.
I’ve been writing haiku senryu tanka haibun for decades and over the years have been published in the major journals. I was taught 2 decades ago by a Chinese haiku Master and it takes years of practice and workshopping before I was accepted. If you were to see the first few drafts of all your major haiku writers; in fact all your notable fiction writers like Hemingway, F. Scott, Faulkner, etc you would be in shock and utter “they will never be any good as major writers. But what makes them good is their ability to edit, and edit and edit...in other words, the true art is in the editing. There are exceptions like Jack Kerouac whose spontaneous writing of his classic novel “On The Road” was mostly spontaneous. ( but originally published with revisions). But the overwhelming majority of notable writers revise revise revise...
All love in isolation from Miami Beach, Florida,
—-Al