Hello, and welcome to my brand new blog! This is the first day of my thing-a-day project, where I will make one thing every day for a year.
Today in English we learned about the haiku form of poetry. To quote my teacher, haiku seek to capture a keenly felt moment of time, and to relate nature to human nature. The typical formula of 5/7/5 syllables is not required – instead the poet should seek to make their point using as few words as possible.
We made haiku books. These are my two favorites of my haiku today.
“The birds ask Questions
of each other and remain
unanswered”
“Everything is inside
this wet flower
this tree, this sun”
Hope to see you back for more things-a-day!
March 18, 2008 at 2:32 am
Hey now, I thought this was a “thing a day”
Im pretty sure that implies only one…
March 18, 2008 at 2:38 am
At least one, not limited to one.
Would you like me to add that to the rules?
March 18, 2008 at 3:26 am
I really like these haikus.
I like the bird one because it adds a judgment to what birds say, supposing that everything is a question. Kind of an odd way to communicate, but not impossible, is it?
I like the flower one because it leaves itself open to interpretation on many different levels, all of which seem to imply something profound about the nature of things.
March 18, 2008 at 4:40 am
I love the flower one because of its enjambment. The lack of final punctuation seems especially meaningful due to the poem’s inclusiveness.
March 18, 2008 at 8:42 am
I like the drawings. They really make me happy. It’s like taking a walk at sunset in July when it smells like golden.
March 18, 2008 at 8:47 am
Posing as Victor, this blog sucks. those haikus are both lame and ambiguous. do I need to spell correctly? no.
March 18, 2008 at 1:34 pm
Tell Victor he sucks and is lame and ambiguous. Ambiguity is what makes poetry interesting.
March 18, 2008 at 2:55 pm
What the hell, Casey? Even if your teacher, being stupid, told you that haiku need not be in 5/7/5, which is wrong, you still ought to have done so. If he told you Sonnets did not need to be in iambic pentameter, would you say “Awesome, now I can half ass this because I am just that kind of girl!” or would you do it properly regardless, knowing in your heart of hearts that you’re right?
I’m disappointed in you, Casey.
March 18, 2008 at 2:59 pm
That being said, these are beautiful and perfect and I love you.
March 18, 2008 at 8:19 pm
“In English, haiku are written in three lines to equate to the three parts of a haiku in Japanese that traditionally consist of five, seven, and then five on (the Japanese count sounds, not syllables; for example, the word “haiku” itself counts as three sounds in Japanese (ha-i-ku), but two syllables in English (hai-ku), and writing seventeen syllables in English produces a poem that is actually quite a bit longer, with more content, than a haiku in Japanese).”
Thank you, wikipedia, for proving that Jonny is dumb.
March 18, 2008 at 8:31 pm
Casey, you are silly. That proves nothing. That the Japanese have a fundamentally different conception of what a syllable is does not make a haiku NOT belong in 5/7/5 form when written in English.
Because Japanese is a different kind of language than English does not mean it is okay for English haiku to be free-form. You could MAYBE make a case for writing English haiku using 5/7/5 with some kind of approximation of an English version of Japanese “on” (which are the sound/letter/syllable units upon which their language is based), but you CANNOT defend just making it free-form.
You know, in the deepest depths of your soul, that a haiku need be written in 5/7/5. These poems, Casey, though beautiful, are NOT haiku.
I blame your terrible teacher for poisoning your mind and killing part of your soul. Please tell him I said this.
March 18, 2008 at 8:52 pm
I have to agree with Jonny on this. Just because we don’t understand the Japanese concept of syllables does not mean that we should just say “fuck it all”. Haiku is about imposing strict rules on the language you use.
March 18, 2008 at 10:08 pm
I disagree with these Jonny and Bobby fellows. I think that not understanding something is a perfectly valid reason to say “fuck it”!
Thats why I hate gays. Oh, and ethnics. And women! (But I totally wasnt going to let you win Apples to Apples)
March 18, 2008 at 8:26 pm
what the hell you already have like 13 comments, 14 counting this one!!