Scifabulaiku

Scifabulaiku: Notes towards a new speculative vanguard haiku by John W. Sexton

A scifabulaiku is a one-line haiku expressing science fictional and fabulistic elements. The themes and subject matter being all those elements common to the literature of science fantasy, from alternate history to alternate worlds to future visions to sociological satire, all encompassing the general impingement of the fantastic into the logical universe. Scifabulaiku are a one-line form separate to contrails and one-breaths.

The distinguishing feature between scifabulaiku and scifaiku is that scifabulaiku are more self-consciously poetic. This is not to imply in any way that three-line scifaiku are unpoetic, but simply that scifabulaiku have the poetic principle explicitly stated in their blueprint. As well as containing concept there must be rhythm, style of expression, an attempt at virtuosity of language. Although stressed internal rhyme is not routinely recommended, other more subtle rhyme techniques are: assonance, consonance, sibilance, any of the more sophisticated relationships in sound between one word and another. Scifabulaiku must engage the audio senses as well as the intellect. There is no claim here for the invention of a new form, merely an attempt to name a form that is separate. Or, perhaps more precisely, to rescue a form that up until now has mainly been the remit of renga and scifaiku-string linking. And of course, many scifabulaiku and fabulaiku have been published in the past but have been labelled under the general heading of one-line scifaiku.

Scifabulaiku should be composed in one line, with absolutely no punctuation whatsoever, no capitals, no interspacial breath-units (spaces to denote caesura), and no other such devices. The only intrusive device acceptable is the hyphen or possessive apostrophe, and only where appropriate as in normal usage. (The only other exception would be in the employment of capitals in linked forms like scifabulenga where the other participants are not avowed scifabulaikists, but pertains to the use of capitals only.) Scifabulaiku should contain nothing that attempts to "design" the line. Caesuras, whenever they occur in poetry, are immediately obvious and do not need to be pointed out to readers. The reading experience of the one-line poem should be one of discovery for the reader. The words should be left to themselves to account for themselves.

There is no intention here to put one form above the other. Scifaiku and scifabulaiku are simply two different haiku forms that treat of the same subject. The difference is in delivery and register.

Scifabulaiku should contain a discernable narrative or fantastic "situation". No less than its cousin, the fictional story, its scientific concept or premise should be encapsulated in a compressed "plot". The aim here should be to approximate what the Guatemalan writer Augusto Monterroso was attempting in his celebrated one-sentence short stories.

Techniques found in general haiku composition should be employed as much as possible, but the scifabulaiku is as much an example of the French mono-stitch (modernist one-line poem) as it is an example of haiku, the both forms of which it is a hybrid. In traditional haiku the desired attainment or attitude is "ordinary mind", but in scifabulaiku it is "extraordinary mind" that is sought. And unlike traditional haiku, scifabulaiku seeks to intellectualise, is self-conscious in its cleverness.

Fabulaiku, a closely related form, are one-line mono-stitch haiku that pertain to the fabulous environment of fantasy, dream and folktale, without the added rationale of science. In some cases individual fabulaiku may even stand comfortably on the borders of mainstream one-line haiku.