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David Cobb raises an interesting challenge to writers of haibun to consider exactly what they are doing in their writing, and why. I have elected to continue to print most of the following haibun in justified lines, except where it is clear that line breaks are intended.

Practically, if a piece destined for A5 is sent in A4, line endings (as opposed to line breaks), in long passages of text, will come where they come according to the size and type of font used. Only a passage composed of short sections of text is likely to be presented exactly as sent. It should be clear however, when the text is expected to roll on and when a line break has been consciously inserted. The short piece by Arwyn Evans, for example, has creative line breaks which needed to be retained, and John Parsons’ haibun has a verse-like lay-out. But does “haiku prose” have ambitions to be “verse”? The question of line breaks is crucial to the writing of verse, indeed, as poets like John Ashbery and Mimi Khalvati have pointed out, it is its defining characteristic. Vers libre, without meter or rhyme, is still verse.  The function of the line break is its power, and the means by which form affects content. The line break can highlight the sense, emphasise the syntax, or can be used for compression, image isolation, and contrast, as well as for rhythmical purposes, assonance or other aspects of the way sound can support sense.

All this awareness of what a line break can achieve is to be encouraged and affects what the haibun will look like. It happens, in the world of poetry, that some less competent writers may create line breaks without any real sensitivity to the use of enjambments, emphasis, contrast etc. simply to make a  piece of writing look more like poetry. Like David, I would enjoy seeing writers of haibun becoming increasingly sensitive to the placing and weighting of the words they use, creative use of line breaks very much included, but agree with him that we must first learn our craft and add that we should not simply be tempted into artificial chopping up of text just to “distinguish” it.