Slashdot Mirror
Can You Create An Intelligent Haiku Generator?
BlueCalx- writes: "dotcomma has created a new programming contest: this time, to determine whether or not someone can create a program that can automatically parse an RDF file and generate a haiku based on its headlines or stories. Slashdot users such as 575 have essentially been doing the same thing for months: now, it's time to see if a computer program can do the same thing *g*. After witnessing the success of the AI Bots challenge a few months ago, it'll be interesting to see if a program like this is possible." Anyone who can generate intelligible, germane haiku from headlines without human intervention has my respect -- it's a lot thornier than it sounds.
This reminds me of something I saw at thinkgeek.com. It said "Go away, or I'll replace you with a very short shell script." 575 had better watch his back!
(*grin)
That's damned amusing.
I could have taken offense.
But AC's kick ass.
--
Haiku appropriate
From one who will emulate
David Brin's dolphins
I figured Perl would be a good language for writing a Haiku generator, so I popped over to CPAN to see what modules could help count syllables. Ah ha. Lingua::EN::Syllable
Read the docs:
"It guesses correctly about 80-90% of the time,
but it's smaller and faster than a dictionary
lookup. So you can't really use it for
writing random haiku."
Dang, these guys are _way_ ahead of me!!
Baz
Haiku may not have a separate plural form in Japanese, but that is no reason for it to do the same in English.
I don't know any Japanese but I'd guess that in a typical sentence, the number (singular or plural) of the word haiku can be worked out from the context. But English doesn't always have that context, and English speakers are used to just having the pluralness of a word thrust in their face. It doesn't sound right to use exactly the same word for singular and plural; English just doesn't work like that.
There is a similar situation with pronunciation of words borrowed from French. Although French nouns do change their spelling in the plural form, the pronunciation is usually the same. But you can instantly tell whether it's singular or plural by looking at the article. For example, 'objet' and 'objets' sound exactly the same most of the time, but you have 'un objet' and 'des objets'.
So what do we do when borrowing these words for use in English? Take cafe for example (which should have an acute accent, but Slashdot's HTML posting doesn't seem to allow them). Most people pronounce this the French way, or close enough, as 'caffay'. (We'll ignore caffs for this discussion.) But although the singular in English sounds like the French word, the plural cafes is prounounced with an s on the end, because 'the' and 'a' do not indicate number as their French counterparts do. People do not say 'I walked past two caffay', because that would sound silly.
To say 'I wrote two haiku' sounds just as silly. English is not Japanese, so there's no reason for it to follow Japanese grammar.
-- Ed Avis ed@membled.com
We all know about sheep and fish, and people just put up with them. But it's a bad idea to introduce yet more special cases.
As for the trend being towards -s plurals in the long run, what about words like 'antelope', which used to have a plural form but don't seem to any longer? It looks to me as if people are pretentiously discarding the plural for any vaguely foreign-looking word.
-- Ed Avis ed@membled.com
What's going on with plurals here? Surely the plural of haiku is haikus?
-- Ed Avis ed@membled.com
The bot's owner collects semi-interesting 5- and 7-syllable quotes and stores them in a database. Then, when someone types .haikux in the channel, the bot spits out three random lines in the appropriate order. It is more often interesting than not, and sometimes very amusing.
The channel's name starts with an R, it's on EFNet, and is currently -s and -p. Good luck! :)
--
Rainy Seattle
Steeled for early winter.
Hello Canada!
K.
-
-- Proud descendant of semi-nomadic cattle-herders.
Doh! That was a last second typo; I should have cut/pasted from my xterm. :-( So that should have been:
Thanks for pointing this out; sorry for the silly error.
Well, this is being *posted* from Missourah...but even though I'm not from the Midwest, "fire" is basically monosyllabic in my dialect. So I reject your criticism here. Hah! :-)
In any case, both are well-formed perl, and now also proper haiku. Thanks for your help.
Babar
I agree with you here, but for the sake of the Perl as Haiku Movement, I think we need a definitive ruling on the pronunciation of other punctuation. Especially #!, ', ", and ;. I think it's only fair to suggest that perl as haiku be executable, like other perl poetry, but I'm less sure that we can all agree on how to pronounce it correctly.
So is this a haiku?
Obviously, I pronounce the first line "shebang bin perl five", but I'm not an authority on this. I'm a bit squeamish about pronouncing "quote", though, although that would be consistent. If ' is silent, then the haiku could be:
The seasonal reference is to midsummer fireworks (duh...).
Dang; where's Tom Christiansen when you really need him here. :-(
Babar
Good idea. Let's go for serious poetry overloading, though, and give large additional bonuses for haiku that are not only self describing, but include anagrams and palindromes as well. :-)
;-)
Further, embedded Carrollian logic puzzles/references, puns, or other forms of wordplay would each double the score. (I'll think about this tonight - I haven't tackled a really clever word puzzle since I unravelled the new answer to "Why is a Raven like a writing desk?"
Of course now we're well beyond anything computers are likely to do in our lifetimes, so this will be a warmware competition to write palindromic, anagrammatic(?!), pun-filled, self-describing haiku riddles. Whoa... dain bramage. (Yeah, Spoonerisms should count, too!)
Or, this could just devolve into something like Finnegan's Wake, which would require artificial insanity rather than (or is that in addition to?) artificial intelligence - the former is probably much more difficult to produce...
Seriously, it would be really fun to see how many of these aspects one can cram into the haiku form, creating true meta-haiku.
"The future's good and the present is nothing to sneeze at." - Roblimo's last
glug, glug, burble, stir
the sound of coffee pouring
Maxwell House morning
"The future's good and the present is nothing to sneeze at." - Roblimo's last
This one clearly doesn't satisfy the desired criteria, but it lets me use a pun I've been dying to use all week:
Feds with autos storm
Sieze cow'rin boy in closet
It's OrwElian
And yes, cow'rin ("cowering") is legitimately two syllables on the authority of Rrrabbie Burrrns, who probably never wrote a haiku in his life, although apparently, there is a Scottish haikuist(?) of some note.
"The future's good and the present is nothing to sneeze at." - Roblimo's last
Yes, there is generally a turn at the end (more of a spinning outward), and yes, there is traditionally a word indicating a season (kigo), but not just the words fall or spring, there were whole catalogs of words with their traditional seasonal indication. Cats, for instance, indicate a haiku about Spring.
...), which eventually were codified into standard forms.
The conventions governing the content of Haiku come from the its origin as a starting point for linked poetry (renga). Linked poems were like a medieval Japanese drinking game. These would start with a 575, to be completed by the next poet with a 77 and a 575, and so forth. Like all games, it had to have rules, and they were elaborate. Each new link had to take the poem in a direction agreed upon by the contestants based on a predetermined sequence or algorithm (e.g. Winter/Winter/Nonseasonal/Moon/Autumn
The initial 575 verse of the Renga was called a Hokku. To be functional, it had to fit into one of the standard forms (e.g. refer to a season); to be good, it had to set up a twist the next player would have to build upon. Making a good starting place became an art form in itself, and people began to anthologize good Hokku -- thus the origin of the Haiku form.
It would be really cool to write a program that would "play" renga against a human co-author!
Japanese poetry liberally uses not only standard word lists, but liberally allusions to well known prior works in longer forms. An image, like dampened sleeves or straining to see through falling leaves, carries a well known meaning established in poems stretching back over a thousand years (in this case both images imply tears). This is like the difference between programming everything in one routine, and having a well staocked standard library. Thus, I suspect Japanese authors can squeeze a lot more information into a 575 than an English author can. Also, the 575 pattern sounds utterly different in Japanese than it does in English. In other words, an English Haiku is hardly a Haiku at all. Nonetheless, there have been some English poets who've had pretty good success with the form. My favorite is Richard Wright (best known for writing Native Son). Here is a sample:
With a twitching nose
A dog reads a telegram
On a wet tree trunk.
And another:
Burning autumn leaves,
I yearn to make the bonfire
Bigger and bigger.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
with a sledgehammer
computers compute
words are delicate
smart, germane haikus
is software up to the job?
oops, buffer overflow
It's 10 PM. Do you know if you're un-American?
We didn't forget about them. We are going to meet to determine what to do about them shortly, look for news on the page.
A perfectly dynamic haiku generator, suitable for every situation...
printf("This Haiku was made\n
In response to your query.\n
Have a nice season.);
Where's mah prize?
-
I don't suppose the on-the-fly error haiku generated by ...I forget the name of the Perl module... doesn't count for this does it? Too bad, that's some funny stuff -- especially the abstract which itself is written in 5-7-5 form. I'd post a link but forget where it is offhand -- try CPAN I guess...
DO NOT LEAVE IT IS NOT REAL
Everyone (incl me) seems to be posting favorite haikus (what is this, an excuse or something? :), but I'll post a *picture* of one of my favorites instead! hahaha
DO NOT LEAVE IT IS NOT REAL
I think the best description I ever heard of the effect of a haiku compared it to a spark plug. It might have been in D.T Suzuki, but I can't recall. The first two lines and the bottom line form the two terminals of the electrode. The experience or realization that comes of it is the spark that jumps between the gap. So the last line often seems at best tangentially related to the first two (certainly not a continuation of the idea). The whole field of haiku is very tightly bound with the Zen tradition; great for starting the ubiquitous flame wars about who's enlightened on alt.zen.
"Sweet creeping zombie Jesus!"
If I've got the distinction right, a haiku is a poem about nature, whereas a metrically similar poem about human nature is called a "senryu."
Yours WDK - WKiernan@concentric.net
haiku ::= sentence sentence sentence ::= noun-group verb-group ::= noun | adjective noun-group | ... ::= verb | adverb verb-group | ...
sentence
noun-group
verb-group
and start generating. Make sure that syllable count is right, and words are more or less associated with each other. This is of course easier said than done.
--
Industrial space for lease in Flatlandia.
From m-w.com:
Main Entry: haiku
Pronunciation: 'hI-(")kü
Function: noun
Inflected Form(s): plural haiku
Etymology: Japanese
Date: 1902
: an unrhymed verse form of Japanese origin having three lines containing usually 5, 7, and 5 syllables respectively; also : a poem in this form usually having a seasonal reference
damn you cgi
I wanted first post and you
only gave me third
From one who will emulate
Brin's clever dolphins
-c.
--
Casey
More scratches on the cave wall, thanks be to anonymity.
10 PRINT "This is a"
20 PRINT "Haiku program!"
30 GOTO 10
Remember, kids, it's only premarital if you plan on getting married.
RDF Haiku?
segmentation fault: core dumped
damn you, Borland C
"I'm not even supposed to BE here today!"
you *can* create a haiku generator. i assume that wouldn't be that difficult. Much like assembling a group of "stealth squirrels"
however, i haven't even seen that many living, breathing, human beings create good haiku. in non-english graduate student terms...just because it rhymes doesn't mean it's poetry. (if you are going to flame me with "hey asshole, haiku don't have to rhyme" then please smack yourself, and tell your head it's from flux.
Idunno, this is a neat little programming assignment. Create a program that generates haiku, but i'm not sure that it's anything more than that. Something on the order of a programming assignment for CS students who got an %88 on their "game of life" homework. There's no way (at least not any time soon) that a program is going to come up with any meaningful haiku any time soon.
It may be 5-7-5, but it's sure as hell not going to be poetry.
when i look into
the grasshopper's eyes, i see
the mountains behind
FluX
After 16 years, MTV has finally completed its deevolution into the shiny things network
"It is seldom that liberty of any kind is lost all at once." -David Hume
This guy really rocks
But his job will be replaced
By a small shell script
Stay up hacking each weekend. Sleep is for the week.
Lamentablemente, no
Por qué lo crees?
(I am forced to say
Lamentably it's not so
The last line's a bitch!)
Stay up hacking each weekend. Sleep is for the week.
Interesting... if "include season.h" is 5 syllables, does that mean that you don't pronounce the dot? I've always said it, "Include season DOT h", not "Include season h"...
Something to ponder...
Stay up hacking each weekend. Sleep is for the week.
But then AOL
Created the Septemb er
That never ended.
Will I retire or break 10K?
The start of senryu [5-7-5 poems, of which haiku is a subclass]
Was in Japanese, which is
As bad as Spanish.
Ever watched subtitled anime and noticed how darn _fast_ those people talk?
Will I retire or break 10K?
Word macro virus Distributes memes randomly Source code for the mind
"The axiom 'An honest man has nothing to fear from the police'
Why is it that the proponents of "one nation under God" are so eager to get rid of "liberty and justice for all"?
Hackish tradition
Write code to do nifty things
Beats doing real work
Haiku program needs
Lexical analysis
Black Magic coding
Look in Chapter Five
The AWK Programming Language
Simpler than Knuth
Brian Kernighan
Created Unix, AWK, C
Hacker Deity
Too many haiku
Turns brain to guacamole
Must get a real life
"The axiom 'An honest man has nothing to fear from the police'
Why is it that the proponents of "one nation under God" are so eager to get rid of "liberty and justice for all"?
Self-righteous jackass
Thinks he speaks for all Nippon
Mail the man a clue
Hate Americans?
Bigots and fools should unite
Join the Taliban
An armed populace
Defends against Tyrrany
Freedom's last safegaurd
"The axiom 'An honest man has nothing to fear from the police'
Why is it that the proponents of "one nation under God" are so eager to get rid of "liberty and justice for all"?
No good, cpu dead now
Always end sadly
Slashdot is populated by quite a few jackasses.
Computer poet
Lacking sense of esthetics
is oxymoron
John Searle made good point
AI may be Chinese Room
Made in Japan--NOT!
------
------
You are in a twisty little maze of open source licenses, all different.
There is a Perl module written by Damian Conway called Coy which performs error handling in haiku. It has an extensible grammer...
Life is like an egg better scrambled than fried. -- Ken Sawatari
The problem with coy is that it often does
not consider the line as a barrier between
parts of the haiku that mean something. That is,
each line in a good haiku should ideally be a
valid sentence, or failing that, each line in an
ok haiku should at least be a seperate clause.
For every problem, there is at least one solution that is simple, neat, and wrong.
-Yenya
--
-Yenya
--
While Linux is larger than Emacs, at least Linux has the excuse that it has to be. --Linus
Now for tiebreakers, they should have the additional requirement that your coding statements are in Haiku form.
Embeded Haiku,
Hidden within the sourcecode.
It should break the tie.
And now for a Meta-Haiku:
Multisyllabic,
Using five, seven, and five
A haiku is formed.
A wealthy eccentric who marches to the beat of a different drum. But you may call me "Noodle Noggin."
Quando Omni Flunkus Moritati
Syllables of English words
Algorithmically
It's even harder
To get correct grammar, from
Arbitrary words
A forgotten rule for classic Japanese Haiku, in addition to the usual 5-7-5 syllable rule, is that the Haiku must contain at least one reference to a season.
For example:
Under the blue sky
I take a dip in the pool
To wash off my sweat
Hopefully, my reference to summer is obvious enough ... I admit freely, I'm no Basho
I challenge any of the serious contenders for this Haiku contest to write their code taking into consideration this 'seasonal reference' rule.
I would be interested in seeing the Haiku generated by such a code ... especially since Cyberspace is rather devoid of seasons ... much like most of California (hmmm, coincidence?)
No way to be sure
He is quaint but cumbersome...
DOS batch file perhaps?
You could just use a random generator that matches the words, but that program doesn't have a clue about the content, what it's saying.
When you want to know what's some text about, you have to feed it all words of the dictionary and give extra information for each word. Creating sentences is even more difficult as there are linguistic rules, and they must sound normal to a native speaker (although haikus may be more simple).
The company I work for (DMP - http://www.dmpartners.be) is busy in this field.
One of our applications is able to create a summary of a text.
The sentences of the summary aren't created, but are those sentences that represent the content of the text most. Feed it a txt/doc file, say how many lines/words you want and you'll have your summary instantly. Sounds simple but it is impressive when you use it.
What's behind it is even more impressive. Every word and sentence is analysed (what is subject, verb, adjective, ...) and using a dictionary of weighted words we know what word is more important and what not.
There's a lot of manual work involved, feeding the databases. One of the databases consists of words with the relations to other words. So if a words has synonyms, homonyms, is stronger, is the contrary, ... all these relations are marked in it. Without this you can't start to analyse the content of a text. When a word has more than one meaning/usage you also have to look at the context of the sentence and figure out the correct meaning.
It's a very interesting technology. The strenght is when you combine applications. Throw a multilingual search engine in it. So you type your question, it gets analysed (what exactly do you want, not just a keyword search), looks into the files in multiple languages, returns you the hits, and translates and summarised the results you want to see. Nice.
Learn about pinball machines on www.flippers.be
The art of haiku
Rests not in strict meter, but
In the final line.
...the above being a perfect example of a VERY bad haiku.
Making an observation in a 575 triplet is simple. What makes a haiku stand out is the twist given to the final line. Consider it an Eastern version of the hoary joke format:
Three people are in a situation. The first one does something interesting. The second one does essentially the same thing. The third one says or does something surprising enough to qualify as funny.
The haiku works the same way: setup, setup, punchline. Not necessarily in the comic sense -- some good haiku are funny, but others are sharp, witty, insightful, probing, and so forth.
But no really excellent haiku is just taking input information and spitting out a formatted version of same. What makes a quality haiku is the same quality of thought that makes a good joke, the sideways-thinking free-association that no algorithm can even approach.
--
"Me too"s and much spam
Dominate mighty Usenet
It must be Autumn...
dylan_-
--
Igor Presnyakov stole my hat
It's not as damaging to the Turing test as one would think. Turing unknowingly rules out the Eliza Effect when he specified that the test should be done as a comparison, not just asking someone "do you think you're talking to a human or a computer", which people would answer "human" very easily.
It might also have something to do with the predictability of people. Eliza only reacts appropriately when you play her game. Ask about something not related to your psychological problems, and it collapses.
Example:
Poem rhythm is down pat,
But it lacks a soul.
(not to mention that true haiku requires a seasonal reference, but I doubt that's a condition of this contest...)
int haiku(char x)
{ x = x + 16;
if(1) return x; }
Not very useful, but... Oh, you mean they wanted a compter program that generates haiku! Darn.
Dave
Finally, a post
There can be no contesting...
Haikus on-topic!
Five Seven Five grins
His knuckles crack, his eyes gleam
Code to be written
The poet, eager
Posting two haiku at once
Forgets to split them
There once was a hacker from Haifa
Who wrote generator of haiku.
But an error he made,
And the program instead
Generates bad limericks. Gosh, how come?
As we know, humans have a remarkable ability to determine meaning and pattern where there is mere randmoness and co-incidence. Hence the shapes in clouds, and the pictures in ink blots.
The Haiku, being a very minimalist form, allows the brain of the reader to fill in so many gaps in the sense of the language that there is room to create entire meaning where none is intended.
Thus, as with Elisa, the cleverness of haiku generators lies less in the programming, and more in the linguistic observation regarding the nature of the text produced.
Not, of course, to say that writing haiku generators isn't fun and worthwhile. But's let's not call them intelligent, because firstly they aren't, and secondly we should marvel more at humans' ability to synthesise meaning and pattern and less at computers' ability to imitate it.
-----
#!/usr/bin/rexx
/****** Haiku.rexx ************************************************* * ******************/
/*w = word(list,random(1,words(list)))*/
/*tem.7 = "#Never Always# a1, but a1,+H2 knows #no all# a1 n2s.+#Angry Gladdened#, #he she# v1s."*/
/*
*
* $VER: Haiku 2.0 (6.5.95) -- Generates pseudo-random Haiku poems
*
*************************************************
dummy = InitVocab()
dummy = time('l')
rseed = right(dummy,length(dummy)-lastpos('.',dummy))
dummy = random(,,rseed)
say '0A'x || GenHaiku()
exit 0
GenHaiku:
t = random(1,num_templates)
parse var tem.t line.1 '+' line.2 '+' line.3
out. = ''
do i = 1 to 3
do while length(line.i)>0
parse var line.i cmd 3 qual 4 line.i
c = left(cmd,1)
ucmd = translate(cmd)
if v.ucmd "" then
do
w = word(v.ucmd,random(1,words(v.ucmd)))
if datatype(c,'u') then
w = translate(left(w,1)) || substr(w,2)
c = translate(c)
if c = 'V' & qual = '@' then
w = add_ing(w)
else if c = 'N' & qual = 's' then
w = pluralize(w)
else
line.i = qual || line.i
end
else if c = '#' then
do
parse value cmd || qual || line.i with '#' list '#' line.i
say list
wordslist = words(list)
say wordslist
rand_word = random(1,wordslist)
say rand_word
w = word(list,rand_word)
say w
end
else
parse value cmd || qual || line.i with w 2 line.i
out.i = out.i || w
end
end
return translate(out.1 || '0a'x || out.2 || '0a'x || out.3 || '0a'x, ' ', '_')
index: procedure
haystk = arg(1)
needle = arg(2)
do idx = 1 to length(haystk)
if substr(haystk,idx,1) = needle then do
return idx
end
end
return 0
add_ing: procedure
exc. = 0
exc.whisper = 1
exc.wander = 1
exc.flutter = 1
exc.wither = 1
exc.wonder = 1
exv = translate(arg(1))
parse value arg(1) with 100-3 l3+1 l2+1 l1
if index("mbgprndlt",l1) > 0 & index("aeiou",l2) > 0 & index("aeiou",l3) = 0 then
do
if exc.exv 0 then
w = arg(1) || l1
else
w = arg(1)
end
else if l1 = 'e' then
w = left(arg(1),length(arg(1))-1)
else
w = arg(1)
return w || 'ing'
pluralize: procedure expose v.
exc. = 0
exc.rose = 1
exc.breeze = 1
exc.branch = 1
exc.beach = 1
exc.glance = 1
exc.thrush = 1
exc.child = 1
exc.fox = 1
exc.moss = 1
exc.sunrise = 2
exc.lotus = 2
exc.gecko = 10
exc.cry = 11
w = arg(1)
uw = translate(w)
do while exc.uw > 0 & exc.uw list = value('v.n'exc.uw)
w = word(list,random(1,words(list)))
uw = translate(w)
end
if datatype(left(arg(1),1),'u') then
w = translate(left(w,1))substr(w,2)
select
when exc.uw = 0 then w = w || 's'
when exc.uw = 10 then w = w || 'es'
when exc.uw = 11 then w = left(w,2) || 'es'
otherwise
inform("Invalid pluralize exception" exc.uw)
exit
end
return w
InitVocab:
v. = ""
v.a1 = "quick wild small hot white green blue pink thin old light dark"
v.a1 = v.a1 "sad deep lost free far slow sharp blunt hard soft damp dry"
v.a1 = v.a1 "bare tight loose low cold clean proud swift gnarled flat"
v.a1 = v.a1 "strong weak young dull ill"
v.a2 = "open lofty empty eager even weary leaden fallen dismal serene"
v.a2 = v.a2 "languid potent silver awkward shallow pliant simple wrinkled"
v.a2 = v.a2 "falling waiting sighing smiling dreaming sleeping dying"
v.a2 = v.a2 "almond jasmine mournful leaping supple"
v.n1 = "oak tree grove stream brook hill branch rose leaf breeze pool"
v.n1 = v.n1 "root thrush song moon cry glance flame child fox lamb shell"
v.n1 = v.n1 "moss cave cliff rock beach shore wave sea hand path bark fern"
v.n2 = "shadow forest clearing hunter sparrow mountain cavern shelter"
v.n2 = v.n2 "seagull lantern sunrise gecko welcome egret doorway water"
v.n2 = v.n2 "prison temple valley spirit soldier blossom lotus maple"
v.v1 = "walk write sing play look fail stray climb grow speak flow live"
v.v1 = v.v1 "soar crawl creep stand wake sink swim turn sit jump stink"
v.v1 = v.v1 "dive strive shine glow fade move crave spin hide writhe"
v.v2 = "wander desire return whisper decline accept withdraw contend"
v.v2 = v.v2 "rebel retire despair arise wither wonder bubble flutter grumble"
v.v2 = v.v2 "enchant descend ascend command"
v.p1 = "in near past through from"
v.p2 = "under over behind beyond above below around"
v.r1 = "where when while as"
v.l1 = "the this my your his her the the the"
v.h2 = "Gichin Koshi Raiko the_man a_maid Tanto the_queen Moki R.J. Gorby"
v.h2 = v.h2 "Sanka the_monk Glad_Child Yoko"
tem. = ""
tem.1 = "A1 n1, a2 n1.+L1 a1, a2 n2 v1s.+A1 n1, a1 n2."
tem.2 = "P2 the a1 n1,+R1 the a2 n2 v1s,+I v1; the n1 v1s."
tem.3 = "The a1 n1 v1@;+It is the a2 n2.+V2@, I v1."
tem.4 = "The a2 n1 v1s+R1 a2 n2s v2.+Does the a1 n1 v1?"
tem.5 = "Not a1, not a2,+H2 comes to the n2.+L1 a1 n2 v1s."
tem.6 = "A1, a2, a2,+H2 v1s. H2 v2s,+V2@, v1@."
do i = 1 while tem.i ""
end
num_templates = i-1
return 0
** EOF
*/
It will generate haikus along the line of:
Swift lamb, shallow rock.
This hard, waiting prison hides.
Low moss, damp mountain.
Enjoy!
--
Unselfish actions pay back better
You step in the stream,
but the water has moved on.
This page is not here.
-- Cass Whittington
First snow, then silence.
This thousand dollar screen dies
so beautifully.
-- Simon Firth
The ten thousand things
How long do any persist?
Netscape, too, has gone.
-- Jason Willoughby
I know this is all in fun so I'm posting these three that I found at some online contest (posted without permission, sorry).
The idea, however, that what you are all making are actually haiku is just silly. Yes, there is generally a turn at the end (more of a spinning outward), and yes, there is traditionally a word indicating a season (kigo), but not just the words fall or spring, there were whole catalogs of words with their traditional seasonal indication. Cats, for instance, indicate a haiku about Spring.
Also, remember the whole 5-7-5 thing comes from Japanese, a language very different from our own. You would be better off trying to write three lines that you could say smoothly in one breath (in other words, not 7 one syllable words). There is so much more involved, though, like alliteration and literary allusions.
I highly recommend you all go read some *real* haiku by the masters: Basho, Issan, Buson, and Shiki, they will explain what haiku is all about far better than I can.