The Haiku Meme Imitation and Influence in American

The Haiku Meme: Imitation and Influence in American Modernism Hoyt Long and Richard Jean So Global Literary Networks, University of Chicago literarynetworks. uchicago. edu

From Survey of Modernist Poetry (Riding and Graves, 1927) Fig. 1

From Survey of Modernist Poetry (Riding and Graves, 1927) Who was the inventor of the style of the first two pieces, Mr. Aldington or Mr. Williams? or yet H. D. or F. S. Flint? …. In the two last pieces, who is responsible for the form? Who first thought of imitating the Japanese hokku form? Or rather who first thought of imitating the French imitations of the hokku form? Did Mr. Aldington suggest a slightly shorter poem to Mr. Stevens or Mr. Pound or did Mr. Pound suggest a slightly longer poem to Mr. Aldington, etc. , or did Mr. Pound and Mr. Stevens and Mr. Aldington and Mr. Williams decide, as mutual pairs, to work as a school team, or did Mr. Williams and Mr. Stevens and Mr. Aldington and Mr. Pound pair off, as being by nationality more pairable? Fig. 2

Hokku haikai and haikuin the Google Books Corpus (1890 -1930) , , Fig. 3

Hokku haikai and haikuin the Google Books Corpus (1890 -Present) , , Fig. 4

Translations of Foreign Poetry into US Journals, 1915 -1930 Translations from Chinese or Japanese Fig. 5

“In a Station of the Metro” Ezra Pound (April, 1913) Fig. 6

80 Distribution of Hokku Texts in Corpus 70 Number of Hokku Texts 60 50 40 Hokku 30 20 10 0 1899 1900 1901 1902 1903 1904 1905 1906 1907 1908 1909 1910 1911 1912 1913 1914 1915 1916 1917 1918 1919 1920 1921 1922 1923 Year Fig. 7

1800 Changing Poem Lengths in Poetry Magazine 1600 Length of Poem in Characters 1400 1200 1000 Average Median 800 Minimum 600 400 200 0 1912 1913 1914 1915 1916 1917 1918 1919 1920 1921 1922 1923 Fig. 8

Learning Features of Each Corpus based on “Bag-of-Words” Model Word “snow” is 3. 7 times more likely to appear in a hokku text sky = True shall = True sea = True man = True last = True snow = True earth = True blue = True pass = True voice = True white = True house = True child = True give = True lo = True sun = True life = True full = True things = True morning = True Label not-ha : haiku not-ha : haiku : not-ha : haiku haiku : not-ha : haiku not-ha : haiku : not-ha haiku : not-ha Probability = = = = = 5. 7 5. 0 4. 3 3. 7 3. 0 3. 0 2. 3 : : : : : 1. 0 1. 0 “sky” is 5. 7 times more likely to appea in a non-hokku text as in a hokku text Fig. 9

Accuracy Scores for Text Classification 77% 76% 75% 72% 71% 69% Poetry Magazine (1912 -1923), 400 poems 64% Contemporary Verse (1916 -1919), 108 poems 64% Little Review (1914 -1922), 119 poems Masses (1911 -1917), 113 poems Pre-1914 Hokku, 103 Poems Post-1914 Hokku, 335 Poems Fig. 10

Being thirsty, I filled a cup with water, And, behold! Fuji-yama lay upon the water, Like a dropped leaf! Meekness and Pride Are fruits of one tree; Eat of them both For mastery: Take one of Pride Of the other, three. It was an icy day. We buried the cat, Then took her box And set match to it In the back yard. Those fleas that escaped Earth and fire Died by the cold. Fig. 11

SPRING O my grey hairs! You are truly white as plum blossoms. - W. C. Williams (1919) CHINOISERIE Is it the moon afar Yonder appears? Nay !-'tis the evening star Seen through my tears. - J. K. Wetherill (1915) IN THE GARDEN I have come into the garden. It is spring-time and there are flowers everywhere Even on the tails of the peacocks. - Malcolm Erskine (1917) A SWALLOW A swallow flicks my shoulder And turns off in the twilight A twitter on the terrace, A spot against the skylight. - Lyon Sharman (1917) Fig. 12