where to post: beginner vs advanced

[matthew murphy]

All,

To begin with, I can't tell you how elated I am to find such an active group with such quality content and such diligent moderators. This place and the community are truly priceless.

Could someone clarify please when it is appropriate to post in New to Haiku > Advanced vs. New to Haiku > Beginner? If I am new to writing haiku 'correctly', but have a goal of becoming published, where should I post? If I post a poem in Beginner and gather feedback there, is it redundant to post it to Advanced for in-depth review? And, in general, how to I know if I'm a Beginner or Advanced?

I am new to the forum and didn't see these questions answered on my first pass, but feel free to point me to clarifying posts or discussions if my questions have answers elsewhere.

Cheers,

Matthew

[John McManus]

Matthew, I can only speak for myself here, but generally I try to be a bit harsher on the advanced board, as most if not everyone in there has been published at least once and in many cases much more than once. I'd say it all depends on how well you take criticism and that you understand the importance of fair and honest critique.

I hope some of the others share their thoughts on this question. Thanks for asking!

warmest,
John   

[Alan Summers]

John has put it well.

I can only add that it's best to get the most out of the beginner stage as much as possible before moving onto the advanced stages.

There's a lot to haiku, more than is obvious just reading a few, and writing a few.

Are you au fait with juxtaposition; disjunction; cut; yugen; sabi; ma; negative space; shasei; kigo and kidai etc...?

Enjoy your time in the beginner's section because once you are in the advanced section you can't realistically go back. :-)

Alan

[Hosscooper]

Now I have only posted a few , but so far not as much feed back as I would have liked. Since I am new I think beginner is best for me, but feel like I need, well more? I want to understand but don't know enough to know how to express myself here. Maybe I need a "teacher" or mentor. HOSS

[Alan Summers]

Two key components are to read extensively, get to know what is accepted in contemporary publications, and also have a good library.

A good start is to go to A - Z in the Haiku Registry at The Haiku Foundation:
http://www.thehaikufoundation.org/haiku-registry/?Search1=A
http://www.thehaikufoundation.org/haiku-registry/?Search1=Z
and all the letters of the alphabet inbetween.

Make use of the THF digital library:
http://www.thehaikufoundation.org/digital_library/

The Montage Archive:
http://www.thehaikufoundation.org/montage/

Enjoy the THF forum past discussions and other posts, as well as the THF blog.

Bill Higginson's Haiku Handbook is a great book to have if you don't have it.

We all need to be good readers and close readers in order to become, or stay, as good writers, so read, read, read, as much classic (pre-20th century 'haikai literature' in translation); modern haiku (1900-1990s) and contemporary haiku (2001-2012) as possible, every day.

It's a lot of work, but it pays to do so.  And in the meantime, make notes, makes plenty of good, bad, indifferent, drafts, but keep writing.  It's like being in the olympics, you have to warm up before the race or you pull a muscle.

Alan

Now I have only posted a few , but so far not as much feed back as I would have liked. Since I am new I think beginner is best for me, but feel like I need, well more? I want to understand but don't know enough to know how to express myself here. Maybe I need a "teacher" or mentor. HOSS

[Julie B. K.]

Thanks, Alan, that answers a question of mine.  I recently picked up The Haiku Anthology (1986) at the library, and, while it's been an interesting read, I don't relate to most of the poems in the same way that I do to haiku published today.  It's almost like they aren't haiku, or more accurately, they aren't what I currently think of as haiku.  Is that the difference between modern and contemporary?  Did something happen in the 90's to shake everything up in the haiku community or was it a gradual evolution?

[Alan Summers]

Hi Julie,

Good point. 

Haiku really isn't an ancient form that's barely moved from its time aeons ago.  That's as daft as saying I'm going to use the ancient form of music, done millennia ago, on my iPod and thinking that's retro.

Haiku moves on rapidly, goes through experiments that work or don't work.  Japan does this far more than we do.  I remember the 1990s of haiku as if it's a century ago. <grin>

There are many classic non-Japanese haiku from the 20th century, but it's the same for any medium including music.  Beethoven and Mozart might not date, but pop music from even the late 1990s would be very old-fashioned and out of kilter with today's new generation of music lovers.

The haiku we are writing, or attempting to write today, however successfully published, will mostly be outdated except for perhaps five per cent that'll be anthologised, and still appreciated and recognised as haiku.

Everything is ephermeral, otherwise MacDonalds wouldn't need to constantly day in day out advertise on Television and other media.

The Haiku Anthology changed so much for those who came across it, followed by the Haiku Handbook.  The advent of the internet, and eventually proper quality online references and sources, partly down to Bill Higginson, and later to others, really moved things on.

I was involved with one innovative online magazine that dealt with humor in haiku:
http://www.haijinx.org

It changed things too, and when we went away for a few years more quality online magazines started appearing, and we also came back too.   Now we are offline except for archival material, but will be back late in 2012.

Things change and move on in every aspect of life, and haiku reflects this.

I did an impossible task and did a potted history of haiku right up to 2000 when things really started to change: http://www.withwords.org.uk/history.html

It gives a sense of how fast moving haiku is in fact.  The last 10-12 years have been incredible, and I'm grateful I was involved in a lot of innovative and long-lasting projects, both online, and in physical events and projects.

Now we have Facebook which has an incredible amount of good haiku writers, and then Twitter has a few fine writers of haiku and tanka, and is beginning to produce its own fine work.

Here's a  twitter based anthology now available on iPad etc...
http://www.upperrubberboot.com/tag/alan-summers/

So much is happening at a fast rate, hold on to that safety belt as you enter warp factor twelve. :-)

Alan

Thanks, Alan, that answers a question of mine.  I recently picked up The Haiku Anthology (1986) at the library, and, while it's been an interesting read, I don't relate to most of the poems in the same way that I do to haiku published today.  It's almost like they aren't haiku, or more accurately, they aren't what I currently think of as haiku.  Is that the difference between modern and contemporary?  Did something happen in the 90's to shake everything up in the haiku community or was it a gradual evolution?

[Tom THC]

Thanks for all the information in this particular thread.  I would like to echo something that Hosscooper wrote.  That is, I have posted on both the Beginner's and Advanced forums, and the feedback is different on the two boards.  John McMannus did draw the distinction between the degree of feedback on the two boards very well.  However, I  do find the feedback on the Beginner board less helpful and, at times, merely whimsical.  So, the rule of thumb I derive from this discussion topic is to choose which board to post haiku in progress depending on the amount of feedback one hopes to get on a particular poem.

I will say that I find just reading the Advanced board entries and feedback to be extremely instructive and helpful.  I frequently pick up a pointer that resonates closely enough to some skill I am trying to develop that it does help me.