One of the beauties of constraining forms, especially those such as the ghazal and the haiku, is that it often allows for greater expression than those forms that place less restrictive reins. As per the Poetry Foundation, again like the ghazal, the haiku is crafted so as to evoke specific emotions from the reader, although, in contrast, those feelings do not necessarily have to be those of loss or grief (Poetry Foundation 1).
The haiku’s greatest strength, as is evident in Paul Muldoon’s “Hopewell Haiku,” is to construct an image with little. The first line, “that wavering flame,” echoes and calls to mind hope, a spark of something that stands out. We as readers don’t have a complete understanding of it until we read the last line, “Star of Bethlehem,” and are able to connect the flame to the religious meaning likely intended by Muldoon (Finch and Varnes, ed., 219). In calling upon the depiction of the birth of Jesus, the author of the poem calls upon the image of the beginning of Christianity, much in the same way that the haiku form originally evolved as the beginning of a renku form.
The middle line of this poem ties in with the second, which then directly contradicts the third. Overall, this helps establish the pair of images that are supposed to be established in typical haiku form (Poetry Foundation 1). The starting letters of each line of this poem, whether coincidentally or not, spell out t-i-s, and while that may not be intentional, given that the mere style of a haiku is designed to be evocative, they further add to the evocation of Christian themes as ‘tis.
Overall, the haiku, lacking rhyme, evokes rawer images than those more contemporary forms that do include it. The fact that this poetic form is so old, yet still makes beauty out of words without rhyme, shows the power of language to make beauty out of simplicity. On the other hand, poems that rely on a rhyme scheme, it appears, tend to evoke the opposite in simple beauty.
Beauty is not simple, and to reduce the haiku? What a travesty.
[Now put that in form.]
To put it in the most simple terms, a haiku is like an abstract painting, evoking strong imagery, that the reader has to then divine, through the use of minimalistic language.
Chu, Jean Hyung Yul. “Haiku” An Exaltation of Forms: Contemporary Poets Celebrate the Diversity of Their Art, Edited by Anne Finch and Kathrine Varnes, U. of Michigan Press, 2002, pp. 217–222.
“Haiku.” Poetry Foundation, Poetry Foundation, www.poetryfoundation.org/learn/glossary-terms/haiku.