Watching the birth & evolution of a new form is fascinating. And, unlike flarf, which is a process, hay(na)ku is a form. But what kind of form is it? Poem or stanza? Again, I think the answer lies in looking at the quatrain, which is more stanza than finished work. That, ultimately, is what I think this first generation of hay(na)ku writers have created–not a poem, but a stanza, simple, supple, elegant, capable of considerable variations. That’s quite an accomplishment.
-Ron Silliman

…a way of revealing…a “thinking” form–emotional as well as intellectual thinking. By allowing a lot of space on the page it keeps things tight and loose. Hay(na)ku creates or pushes certain syntactical structures, potentially disruptive through its arbitrariness. Forms aren’t games, or just games–they are ways of paying attention.
-Jill Jones

…an elegantly minimalist form (a bit like the tip of an Oulipian “snowball”)
-Michael Leong

The diasporic nature of the hay(na)ku attracted me from the very beginning because it allowed me to express myself in English without being a native speaker…I feel the hay(na)ku is a form that grants a common space for poetic practice in different languages; a way of writing in English without completely obliterating one’s “mother tongue.” Instead of the conquest and influx that has defined English in relation to other “less powerful” languages, the hay(na)ku is open and flexible, an invitation to share different ways of thought and writing.
-Ernesto Priego