equations

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something unexpected

“. . . I am inclined to think that short poems, even short poems with a seasonal reference and a 5-7-5 syllabic structure, written in English can’t be, strictly speaking, haiku. Or to say it another way, the haiku is still acclimatizing itself, in this country, to the cultures of American poetry. . . .  I expect something unexpected will eventually evolve from our admiration for and attempts to translate the practice of the short Japanese poem.”

                                       —Robert Hass (from R’r 7.4, November 2004)

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