Crossroads.

I am at a crossroads, of sorts. Today's discussion had an underlying tone of duality in it, and it made me think about my audience. Likewise, the criticism that presented itself towards my work (it was all in good intent, no harm done) was like looking down the barrel of a shotgun.

"I" or "you", which to use? Two paths diverged in a wood, one leading to philosophy, the other to meaningless prose. But that brings about a question: who is more important, the writer or the reader?

It looks like this post is taking the first path.

"You", as an assertive word or a passive one, delivers a sense of security or lack thereof to the reader. "You" as an accusation automatically puts the writer in an assertive mode and forces the reader to take a defensive stance. Likewise, using "you" in a passive sense lulls the reader into a sense of security, false or otherwise.

Oh, the intricacies of writing.

But, let's get back on topic.

I have two distinct styles, as any of you can see. The "you" style, in this case, will be the prose or poetry that I have written, that has received some sort of acclaim at some point in time. They are useless creations, three paragraph lamentations lacking any character development or distinct purpose, they are writing for the sake of writing. Often times, they lack any real message, and usually result in death, the ultimate Deus Ex Machina. What better way to close a piece than to leave such a resolution?

The "I" style would be the philisophical pieces that I have begun to compose. A thought can encompass all of a paragraph or an extended compendium or theory and conclusions. Prose, on the other hand, deserves a certain degree of length and care when being created and read. Nobody would read one letter from Bram Stoker's Dracula, because it does not make for an especially interesting short piece. Similarly, reading (or watching) Shakespeare in many fifty-line segments is the bastardization of his works, be your interpretation literary or theatrical.

That being said, I have approximately five minutes of your time to make some sort of impact or to say something that evokes a revelation if I am to succeed as a writer. One man's revelation is another's obvious truth, and I am afraid that I cannot feign realization of that which I have known for years. That would be the greatest sin that I could commit in writing. The only other thing that I could write in the acceptable time frame would be memories, and those are a complex matter. I want to tell about my past about as much as most of you want to read about it. Let's leave it at that.

You've made it this far? That's nice, it's good to see that you are giving this piece the time of day to explore what I have to say. It really means something to me, honestly. You cannot gain any knowledge or wisdom by keeping your mind shut off from the outside world.

There are three kinds of writing that present themselves when dealing with a Creative Writing class. Four, actually, if you count a lack of writing as a type of writing, which it really is. The first of the three, and probably the most unfortunate, is writing for a grade. In this form, writing is trite, meaningless, and is chock full of brown-nosing and molding to fit the requests of a teacher. The second, writing for an audience. Speaking as a critic, Kyle's writing, some assorted class writing and a lot of Sasha's pieces are catered to their respective target audience. This is not a bad thing, per se, merely an observation. The final form of writing is writing to evoke a response. Usually, these pieces keep a reader guessing and are more memorable, if for no other reason than the "challenge" that they present to the reader, if I may be so bold.

Of course, there's more writing than those three categories, but I just wanted to touch on those three. Because I am the writer, and you are the reader, and we must co-exist. I have chosen to write in the third category, if for no other reason than this:

You're reading this now, aren't you?

And you're thinking, aren't you?

Mission accomplished.

---

On Haiku.

I'm posting this here because it will get more notice than a simple comment on Dave's blog.

Dave wrote:
"However, I was thinking about the haiku stuff yesterday. If english haikus can't hope to do the same things that japanese haikus do, then is there a point in writing them? Or are english haikus meaningful as well?

If they are, then what makes a good english haiku?"

If I may digress for just a moment,:Chelsea, darling, you were wrong today. Not a cheap shot at your character or anything like that, but you can't try to argue that Japanese as a language has so few rules, at least not in relation to a haiku. Oddly enough, I will not be in class to defend myself, so I guess I'll need to end whatever debate should arise here, won't I? Simple particles such as "wa", "wo", "ga", "e", and "no" take up one of seventeen precious spots for syllable placement.

The surrealism of a Japanese haiku is an art in and of itself, if not because it deviates from normal speech patterns than because of the way that it avoids certain words. "I" in Japanese is formally said as "Wa-ta-shi" (3 syllables), which is far too long for a haiku. If you look at a well-translated haiku, one that retains the original message of the poem, you will see no "I" and probably no verb. This is because of the way that the Japanese language sets itself up, in part.

In order to mark the subject of a sentence, you need to use a syllable, the same applies to a direct or indirect object, or any type of ownership or connection between two nouns. When you have seventeen syllables to convey a message, you don't try to make it gramatically correct.

Thus, a haiku is separate from any sort of speech pattern. They rarely address the self and are more zen-like than western poetry in that they do not. The haiku is more about the environment, about the moment in time, it is about detachment. However, a haiku written by an American high school student lacks this focus.

And that, my loyal readers, is what makes a haiku. Without that kind of dedication and surrealism, a haiku by an American is just another piece of hay through which you dig to find a needle.