Techku

ProetryPlace Blog 40 The Techku: Art, Science or Both?

(or Neither)

    I have written and published scientific theses and technical reports. I have written and published fiction, nonfiction and a variety of poetic forms. Each kind of writing has its own style, its own linguistic requirements or conventions, even its own formal or esoteric vocabulary. Each genre has had its own distinct place in my writing—its own different and distinct means and purpose of communication.

    I often write and read haiku and about haiku. It is an ancient Japanese poetic form that was greedily adopted and adapted by English writers more than a century ago. I and many other poets often tamper with the classical 17-syllable constraint or the three-line format in favor of even shorter statements. Traditional references or allusions to nature are often omitted in modern English haiku in order to apply it to a broader range of subject matter.

    The best haiku, however, preserve certain essential characteristics: brevity, imagery, appeal to or reference to the various senses, immediacy of the moment and the unexpected turn in the final line to some adjacent image or thought.

    My haiku comprise a range from serious or somber to humorous or featuring human foibles. Here are two recent examples:

we laughed and we joked

almost ‘til the day he died

glad I did not know

A stealthy odor

rises, permeates the pews.

Who farted in church?

    In spite of my willingness to adapt various forms of writing to accomplish some specific objective or convey some particular thought or emotion, I have never gone so far as to mix such widely divergent forms as poetry and scientific essay. Now comes the news, reported on the internet and newspapers across the country, that a scientist has used haiku, the briefest of poetic forms, to distill and communicate the meaning of a lengthy and involved report on environmental research.

    Greg Johnson is a veteran scientist with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and contributor to the 2000+ page report, “Climate Change 2013: The Physical Science Basis.” A few days ago, Greg published on the web a series of 19 illustrated haiku to distill and accentuate the meaning of that report. Here are three.

Big, fast carbon surge.

Ice melts, oceans heat and rise.

Air warms by decades.

Glaciers and ice sheets

melt worldwide, speed increasing.

Sea ice, snow retreat.

Fast, strong action will

Reduce future warming, but . . .

rising seas certain.

And this final comment, including Johnson’s drawing:

    As much as I admire Johnson’s imagination and innovation in creating these interesting statements of technology results and interpretation, even I cannot consider them to be haiku. They are certainly succinct and deal with nature, but they lack some of the essential qualities of haiku that I mentioned above. Maybe we can dub them “Techku” and let it go at that.

    I also enjoyed seeing Johnson’s pencil and watercolor sketches like the one illustrated above. These little drawings do haiku one better by communicating without words at all. Do yourself a favor and Google Greg Johnson or the Climate Change report to see all of his words and artistic works.

    One final encomium must go to my sister who alerted me to Johnson’s work with this headline haiku:

Seattle author

distills global warming tome

into hot haiku  

Richard Allen Anderson, 26 January 2014, http://richardandersonblogs.blogspot.com