Shogun 2: Fall of the Samurai Winners Announcement

[News Portal]

Two weeks ago, we kicked off our [app=7086]Shogun 2: Fall of the Samurai[/app] competition to win one of ten copies of the game, plus two limited edition metallic Shogun-themed chess sets that you can't buy anywhere. Now it's time to announce the winners - read on for all the details!

Read full article by Tim Colwill

[Lord_PorkSword]

Gratz all!

Puny mortals better enjoy them chess sets or the Lord shall not be pleased!

[PinothyJ]

Some of those do not follow the usual haiku formula…

[Ralph Wiggum]

Lost haiku contest
Will go play Call of Duty
To make me feel worse

[Ezelek]

I feel bad for winning because there was some pretty badass haikus in there, and mine started as a haiku version of the Riddle of Steel before I refined it.

[PURITy Kin]

Medal of honour.
Battlefield bad company.
Call of Duty 4.

Combine sound garden
With Rage Against The Machine.
Makes Audioslave.

[PinothyJ]

*high fives the winners*…

[Marius]

Some of those do not follow the usual haiku formula…

English haiku don't have to.

[vcatkiller]

Oh what's the point then? You could just as well say a haiku is just three lines of whatever length you feel like then...hell why make it three lines, let's just make it whatever number of lines we feel like? <_<

Still, grats to the winners. Well done and all that...

[Marius]

The point is that a well written poem is better than a poorly written poem, regardless of technicalities.

The defining part of a Haiku isn't the line length, anyway. It's the juxtaposition of two different ideas.

See wiki quotes:

The essence of haiku is "cutting" (kiru).[1] This is often represented by the juxtaposition of two images or ideas[2] and a kireji ("cutting word") between them, a kind of verbal punctuation mark which signals the moment of separation and colours the manner in which the juxtaposed elements are related.[3]

Modern Japanese gendai (現代) haiku are increasingly unlikely to follow the tradition of 17 on or to take nature as their subject, but the use of juxtaposition continues to be honoured in both traditional haiku and gendai.[1] There is a common, although relatively recent, perception that the images juxtaposed must be directly observed everyday objects or occurrences.[7]

[vcatkiller]

You could write a single line sentence of a few words that can do that, how does that define anything?

[Marius]

Because again, it's not about a fixed format. It's about writing a good poem. Anyone can put together a string of nonsense words, fewer people can write something that actually sounds good.

And here's a haiku that breaks the syllable pattern, written by the Japanese master Basho: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matsuo_Bash%C5%8D

s haiku by Bashō[21] illustrates that he was not always constrained to a 5-7-5 on pattern. It contains 18 on in the pattern 6-7-5.

富士の風や扇にのせて江戸土産

ふじのかぜやおゝぎにのせてえどみやげ

fuji no kaze ya ōgi ni nosete Edo miyage

the wind of Mt. Fuji
I've brought on my fan!
a gift from Edo

[vcatkiller]

But what's the bleeding point? I could technically now point to any piece of writing and call it a haiku, because it's got 3 or more lines of arbitrary length and sounds nice.

Sorry if it seems like I'm being nickpicky and silly, guess it's my programmer side coming out a bit, I like structure. You've pretty much showed me haikus have no definable attributes that separate them from any other clever creative writing. So...

your logic confuses me
perhaps my artistic ability is lacking
so I shall commit seppuku

[Marius]

The point is still using as few words as possible to paint a picture that shows the subject matter without going overboard.

So that one you just wrote, wouldn't be a haiku per se, because it focuses on telling rather than showing.

Anyway, grats to the winners. I just wanted to chime in here to defend any of the haikus criticised for 'not being traditional'.

[vcatkiller]

I give up. Haiku are stupid, I won't be entering if there's another haiku contest. *sigh*