[Julie Steiner]

The influence of what she called Oriental-inspired forms--and in particular, the "haiku sensibility" of trying to capture an ephemeral moment in a spontaneous way--has a lot to do with the freshness in M.A. Griffith's work.

Below I've quoted her own comments relevant to this.

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At WHCvanguard, one of six Yahoo! Groups under the aegis of the World Haiku Club (5 November 2005):

Context: D— had taken umbrage at Griffiths’ statement that, in her opinion, most of the poems then appearing on the WHCvanguard list did not even meet the minimum standards of poetry, let alone the minimum standards of haiku, senryu, and other Oriental-inspired forms.

D— wrote: ‘Yes Maz, Can you please tell me, define what is “poetry”?’

Oh, is that all you want?

Actually, D—, people have been trying to define poetry for centuries, and I don’t think anyone has come up with a definitive description yet – but I think we know it when we see it.

Ezra Pound described poetry as ‘charged language’, and I think that’s a very perceptive comment. It captures my sense that poetry is not about what sensitive souls we are, or how deeply we feel or think, but more about the way we try to use language in a special way.

For me, prose cannot be transformed into poetry by line breaks.

Here is something I wrote about poetry, trying to express something serious in a light way:

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Goldilocks’ Poetic Maxim #3

Poetry is that magic stuff
between ‘too much’ and ‘not enough’.

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In my opinion, most of the pieces I see posted here are ‘not enough’ to delight, move and satisfy me as I expect good poetry to do.

I hope that makes my position a little clearer.

Dear D—,

You wrote: ‘Thank you for telling loudly, your honest opinion.’

I simply answered the question you asked me, to the best of my poor ability. I was not aware there was anything ‘loud’ in my reply.

I think you are mistaken if you think this is in any way about winning or losing an argument. It is not an argument in a derogatory sense, but a discussion. If the nature of poetry doesn’t matter to anyone, and isn’t worth discussing, why do we have poetry lists which we (presumably) use to share our views?

Of course the subject of what is or is not poetry is very subjective – particularly when we say we don’t consider something is poetry; what we often really mean is that we don’t think it is good poetry.

I write all sorts of poems, free verse and formal, and the thing that struck me about haiku, which perhaps differentiates from other forms, was something about the intensely inspirational and spontaneous nature of the form. Sometimes we find out what a poem is about as we write it – the writing is itself the revelation. But with haiku I have the sense that the revelation comes, then the haiku is written to express best that revelation or insight.

It’s very easy to write a haiku (especially if we abandon the traditional elements, so there are no rules remaining), but to write a GOOD haiku requires great craft and judgment, I feel.

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At the Pennine Poetry Works, re: "Butterfly Bawl" (16 April 2003):

K—, this was based on my actual reactions to a production of Madama Butterfly on tv a few days ago. At first, I found myself totally put off by the unattractive Pinkerton, and the way they’d dressed Butterfly and given her clown’s make-up. But as soon as the familiar aria began, disbelief was suspended.
[...]
I’m actually putting this forward as a new genre – a haiku-sonnet, as I wrote it off the bat after seeing the opera. It is quite a truthful transcription of my reactions to the opera.
[...]
I hope the sonnet reflects just a bit of the complexity of our response to a piece of great art, which Madama Butterfly definitely is.

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At the Pennine Poetry Works, re: "The Exchange" (2 June 2003):

P—, this is another ‘haiku sonnet’, which I wrote after a phone call which knocked me for six – as one way of trying to deal with the shock, I think.

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At Burgundy, re: "The Biographer" (14 September 2003)

By the way, I wrote this after reading a biography and then finding out the biographer had been dying when he wrote it.

At the Gazebo, re: "The Biographer" (14 September 2003)

K—, a
s I explained to J—, this was a response to an actual biography, so writing about an imaginary autobiography would have been a very different poem.

I’ve written a few of these sort of quick-reaction sonnets, which I think of as haiku-sonnets, trying to capture a reaction to something.