Scifaiku

The following descriptiion and example is reposted with permission from Poetry Magnum Opus, with thanks to Judi Van Gorder for years of work on that fine resource.

The SciFaiku is what the name implies, science fiction haiku an invented verse form introduced by Tom Brinck in 1995. Scifaiku combines science fiction themes with some of the elements of the haiku.

The elements of the Scifaiku are:

  1. minimal, in the moment with human insight.
  2. written with a haiku frame, normally, 17 syllables or less. The poem can be written in the classic 3 lines of 5-7-5 or a variation of line and syllable count. (because of the nature of the subject some technical words could exceed the standard syllable count per line, therefore, as long as minimal amount of words and syllables are used to get the point across, there could be more or less than 17 syllables in the poem.
  3. composed of a single concept or image.
  4. written with “uncluttered and direct words”.
  5. written in the moment.
  6. finding the Ah-ha, light bulb realization through the understanding of the possibilities of science.

    poets dance with words
    cyber ballroom fills with song
    line dancing in space
                       –judi van gorder

My Example

Form: Scifaiku

[untitled]

big bang disputed
universe is infinite
it matters not

© Lawrencealot – February 12, 2015

Ethnographic Haiku

Ethnographic Haiku: 7 stanzas. Syllable Count: 5-7-5
Relationship of particular subject or community with the environment.
Evoke at least 3 of the 5 senses ( touch, taste, smell, hearing, sight ).
Each stanza symbolic of one day with the entire poem representing a full week in the life of your particular subject community.

Poetry Caching in Spring

A realtor box
with free poems staked in yard
awaits visitors

Some walkers pick up
poems, thinking house for sale
crumble, toss poems

Rain seeps in the box
dribbles down smudging pages
Sun will curdle them

Walkers sit on wall
resting, reading poems, put
in backpacks or hands

Yanked up by the stake
to mow lawn, rests on trash cans
near camellias

Hail pelts plastic
casing, white as snow, soft ping
droned out by traffic

Stick-on, raised letters
offer poetry to all
who come to pass by

http://www.rainbowcommunications.org/velvet/forms/
My Thanks to Linda Varsell Smith for her contributions above.

Note: The form is Titled, and apparently punctuation is optional.

Atom

Atom: three line stanzas=tercets.
Count letters: 5-7-5.
This poem linked tercets under title.
No punctuation or capitalization like haiku.

Momentary Stay Now

an owl
hoots to
bug me

robin
pecks at
Earth

eagle–
they now
pause

it’s my
chance–
laugh

http://www.rainbowcommunications.org/velvet/forms/
My Thanks to Linda Varsell Smith for her contributions above.

As far from the American Sentence as you can get in Haiku analogues.

Specifications Restated

A Stanzic poem, consiting of one or more tercets
LETTER BASED POEM, with 5/7/5 letters per line
TITLED, Without PUNCTUATION

My attempt

Few Atoms Found

form’s
lacking
usage

per my
googles
today

maybe
we’ve got
’em all

© Lawrencealot – December 21, 2014

American Sentence poetry form

American Sentence: Invented by Allen Ginsberg.
An American haiku variation. 17 syllables written in a sentence.
Any topic.
In a series:

James and Basketball
James plays basketball with cough and red cheeks activating asthma.
Grounded from playground basketball, he sees ball fall through hoop in his mind.
He watched beloved Trailblazers on television from his bed.
He calls Grandpa to discuss the game as both keep scores, critique players.
In his yard the hoop net droops waiting for him to play, to take his shot.

The Lightening Whitening Crone
My hairdresser calls my blonde/gray/white hair “dowdy” as she layers hair.
To cover thinning bald spots she poofs and puffs my crown which will whiten.
When too long, my hair hangs limp and will not turn under; fine strands just fall.
No Rogaine or woven weaves, wigs will not work for me, so I endure.
I forget about getting haircuts until bangs appear near eyebrows.
When grading or writing I like to see the page un-fringed and clearly.
My hairdresser knows she will see me when I’m teaching and need light head.

http://www.rainbowcommunications.org/velvet/forms/
My Thanks to Linda Varsell Smith for her contributions above.

_________________

So, the qualities of such a sentence? Like most other good poetry it should be Imagistic, with that gap of meaning between the writer and the reader; ie: phenomenology. Some kind of juxtaposition helps create a tension. For example:
 
1.19 — Get it in your mouth, not sure if you should swallow or not — oyster.
1.24 — The look on RR’s dream face when the army crushes a piano.
2.09 — Steve’s Civil Service motto: Why work for an asshole when you can be one?
3.04 — After I got her email, I pulled the extra pillow from my bed.
4.05 — They want a stool sample, what a load of crap! No Pop, it’s just a smidge.
4.05 — The sign at dairy queen says: New Flamethrower Chicken Now Hiring.
4.08 — Tell Richard I’m laying off women — he says You gonna wear the patch?
4.18 — Each from our respective cars watching her tennis game, the ex- & I.
5.16 — Ma before the Wednesday pillbox — Cholesterol or Tranquilizer?
7.03 — Hour’s wages shot up in three sparkly minutes — Happy Independence Day!
7.04 — Cat corpse on sidewalk, rabbit corpse on the bike trail — Happy Independence Day!
7.26 — I told you I don’t have time on my phone, that’s why I keep hangin’ up on you!
7.31 — Sign of age? She puts on vanilla perfume, I wonder who’s got cake.
8.27 — If you can crawl out your chair to get on her man, you can take a beatin’.
9.07 — That’s an experience I’ve never had he says, nose full of menstrual blood.
9.08 — Good thing I cleaned the kitchen floor shiny target on which the cat could urp.
10.02 — At the spot where my car was totaled, five years later, a traffic circle.
11.05 — Distracted, I can’t get by the cat urp before it becomes a hot lunch.
11.16 — Post Traumatic Stress Disorder at Lowe’s — Rotorwash of ceiling fans.
11.17 — This piece of free-range chicken may be live, would taste better w/ floor dirt.
11.20 — On the beach he skidded to a stop & then someone sucked out his heart.
11.27 — Yesterday doctors gave Dick Cheney shock treatment on the wrong organ.
12.19 — His T-shirt said: Vegetarian is Indian for Bad Hunter.
 
These poems are all from 2007, and we can see several categories. There are cat poems on July 4, September 8, November 5 and on November 17, the poem was written from a cat’s perspective. Found poems are entirely transcribed, or set up in the poem, from January 19, February 9, April 5, July 26, August 27 and December 19. Some poems are from dreams (my daughter Rebecca Rose is often called RR to save a syllable) and some are from relationships. (That has been a rich source of sentences over the past 8 years.)
 
The key comes from a Ginsberg notion, poets are people who notice what they notice. This is a mindfulness exercise and, the more aware you can be, the better the poems. They do reflect the play of the intellect, so a dull mind will create especially dull poems, but at least they’ll be short! In seventeen syllables there is enough room for rhythm and word music. Dig that line, rotor wash of ceiling fans.Dactyllic meter if you’re scoring. You can find other examples above.
 
Avoiding some of the rules of grammar, such as the poem September 8, also add a nice effect and just enough busted syntax so not as to obscure meaning, but be another Ginsberg Mind Writing Slogan,Maximum information, minimum number of syllables. (Condensing.) Ginsberg also comes from the William Carlos Williams school of using demotic speech, so the found sentence of July 26 provides a good example of that, as does use of the word urp.

Pasted from http://globalvoicesradio.org/American_Sentences_Workshop_Handout.html

Restated specifications:
Single line poem of 17 Syllables invented by Allen Ginsberg
May be titled or not.
May be in series, but USUALLY is not.

My example

Class Act

Class Act (Form: American Sentence)

Pants hanging below their hips. Gotta be a trick; hidden suspenders?

Brazilian Haiku

Brazilian Rhyming Haiku

Quite an interesting variation of the haiku which originated in Brazil, a haiku which rhymes in a set pattern:

x x x x A
x B x x x x B
x x x x A

I suppose it is easier to rhyme in Portuguese than in English:

flowing amazon
paltry vapors so sultry,
steamy paragon

Michael Chellew 4-20-2006

Pasted from <http://theversifieronlinepoetryandartforum.yuku.com/topic/1340/Brazilian-Haiku#.VGwPcvnF9qU>

I have also seen rhyme patterns aaa and abb indicated.

My example

crying little boy
was stopped by the thoughtful cop
handing him a toy

© Lawrencealot – July 4, 2016

Abbreviated Haiku Poetry Form

Abbreviated Haiku is written in either 2 lines with syllable count 7/2 or 3 lines with syllable count 3/5/3 or 2/3/2. This is sometimes called Miku.

creeper weeds 
cover garden path
blistered hands
–jvg

Pasted from http://www.poetrymagnumopus.com/index.php?showtopic=1137#abbreviated
My thanks to Judi Van Gorder for years of work on this fine PMO resource.
 

See Haiku Related form Links.

My example

anxious dog
fetches walking leash
daddy sighs

© Lawrencealot – November 9, 2014

Zip

Another English language Haiku analog, for which, excepting the Wikipedia entry below, after seeing this form mentioned on IPF, I found zip.
In the “zip” form developed by John Carley, a haiku of 15 syllables is presented over two lines, each of which contains one internal caesura represented by a double space.[19][2
buoyed up   on the rising tide
a fleet of head boards   bang the wall
John Carley (Magma No 19, 2001)
My Example:
a mob assembled  it was great
flash-mobs  I appreciate

Crystalline

Crystalline Verse is a small poem, limited to 17 syllables, whose primary focus appears to be to match the Japanese clarity of image with the English harmony of sound. It was inspired by the Haiku and like the haiku it may be at its best when written in present tense. Any reference that can place the verse in context much like the Japanese kigo (season) or kidai (symbolic seasonal reference) is recommended. 
The Crystalline employs the kireji (cutting word) of the haiku. The kireji in haiku is a word that “cuts off” one view and turns the reader to a different view. In a longer Japanese poem the kireji is 2 long lines inserted midway in the poem that change the direction of the poem not only in structure but in thought. A stand alone small poem such as the Crystalline emulates the long poem’s kireji couplet long line frame and it should “cut” or turn the view from one line to the next.
Unlike haiku which observes the image with objectivity and attempts to keep the ego out of the verse, the Crystalline invites the poet’s subjectivity and permits the poet’s thought and feelings to be communicated through the verse.
The verse form was created by American poet Denis Garrison and more information can be found at his site, Short Verse
The Crystalline is:
  • a complete couplet. It can be a stand alone poem or written in any number of couplets as a longer poem. Like the Renga, a longer poem of Crystalline stanzas can be written by alternating more than one poet.
  • syllabic, 17 syllables. A regular Crystalline is 8/9 or 9/8 syllables per line. An irregular Crystalline is 2 lines totaling 17 syllables and broken where appropriate other than the 8-9/9-8 regular form.
  • written with the English grammatical rules of syntax, caps and punctuation. In other words no all lower case, omitted punctuation, nor incomplete sentences commonly seen in English haiku. Good grammatical English applies.
  • at the poet’s discretion, written with poetic devices such as rhyme, onomatopoeia, metaphor, allusion etc.
  • composed with a “cut” or pivot most often between L1 and L2.
  • untitled.
    The dust of summer covers the shelf
    where in spring you last left your ring.
    Judi Van Gorder
A big thanks to Judi Van Gorder, other than the inventor, I found nothing else of much help.
The Crystalline: A Haiku Couplet
Denis M. Garrison
Four crystallines by Denis M. Garrison:
# 16
Rain-soaked barnyard’s a muddy bog,
but amidst the muck, blooms marigold.
#17
This primeval sea of prairie grass
is grackle-peppered … bison-strewn!
#18
In banyan roots enwrapped,
the granite Cross glows in the midst of lilies.
#19
Turtle shell found on grandma’s grave:
vacant, yet it bursts with violets.
DEFINITION: The “crystalline” is a new haiku analogue; a seventeen syllable couplet that assimilates as much as possible from the Japanese haiku tradition into the English poetic tradition. A primary concern for the crystalline is the euphony of the verse. See examples above
A Big thanks to Dennis M. Garrison
My own example:
In  the backyard grass my dogs all go-
The sidewalk’s game if there is snow.
(c) Lawrencealot – December 4, 2014

 
 

Trilinea

  • The Trilinea, one more haiku copycat from Berg‘s Pathways for a Poet, created by Nellie Amos. It seems a bit superficial to me since the defining feature is the word “rose” must appear somewhere in the 3 lines.
    The Trilinea is:

    • a tristich, a poem in 3 lines.
    • syllabic, with syllable count per line, 4/8/4.
    • rhymed, L1 and L3 rhyme.
    • composed to include the word “rose”.
    • titled.tattoo by Judi Van Gorderteardrops of dew
      cling to a red velvet rose
      the touch of you
Thanks to Judi  Van Gorder, who has done a marvelous job with PMO.  I agree with her feeling about this form.
My Example
Hardly Matters
I rose to say
something;  what is was I forgot
but that’s okay.
 
(c) Lawrencealot – December 8,2013

Kimo

  • There should be no movement in the imagery.The Kimo is:
    • a tristich, a poem of 3 lines.
    • syllabic 10/7/6 syllables per line.
    • unrhymed.
  • My Dog Angel by Judi Van GorderCoffee grounds and egg shells on kitchen floor
    next to overturned trash pail,
    Angel sleeping nearby.
Thanks to Judi Van Gorder for all her work on the PMO resource.

 

My attempt
“The Yard’s Done”     (Kimo)
Backyard neat with no unraked leaves in sight
rake leaning against tree trunk.
No tracks in fresh snowfall.
© Lawrencealot – December 3, 2013