It’s Poetry Friday, today hosted by the amazing Laura Purdie Salas. Let’s see what she has in store for us this week. I hope everyone is well as we get through each new week which fly by. My thoughts are with all the teachers and students trying to get back to their important work.
Just for fun and interest I entered the 2020 Peggy Willis Lyles Haiku Contest, not that I thought I would ever win or place and did not. The winners were recently announced here, chosen from over 2,000 haiku entries. It was the eight annual contest run by The Heron’s Nest, an on-line haiku quarterly journal that welcomes submissions. In the above link, the editors shared the winning haiku and honorable mentions and described in detail why they are chosen. It’s well worth reading if you have an interest in haiku and it made me think about this popular form.
Though I write them on occasional I still know too little about haiku as an art form. I did know that classically, haiku is a three line poem originating in Japan with a 5-7-5 syllabic count, though some haiku poets veer from this. The number of syllables varies. I found the syllabic limitations useful and fun when I set out several years ago to create snapshots of historical figures, such as John Q. Addams, the first president to ever be photographed:
JOHN Q. ADDAMS An early morning skinny-dipper! A darn shame shutter bugs missed that. © Janice Scully
We could use someone interesting and innovative today, like you, JQ!
Classically, within the 17 syllable format, the haiku was often divided into two parts, that contrast in tone. An example given was this, written by Issa:
Look at the warbler- he's wiping his muddy feet all over the plum blossoms.
I think the shift in tone here is between the lovely image conjured by the warbler contrasting with his muddy feet on the plum blossoms.
Beside contrast in tone within the poem, the other classic haiku characteristic is the “kigo”, or seasonal word, which gives the reader a sense of, or course, the season. In the above haiku I see plum blossoms, a warbler, and mud . . . I guess spring.
According to Lowenstein, optimistic SPRING is often implied by “cherry blossoms and certain birds.
The bright exhausting SUMMER is implied by “flower and tree words.”
AUTUMN is “melancholy” and expressed images such as a “full moon, wind and dying leaves.”
Words like “snow” might signify a cold and difficult WINTER.
On The Heron’s Nest’s website submission page they post a list of qualities these contemporary editors look for when evaluating haiku. These do seem to take their cue from classic haiku.
- Present moment magnified (immediacy of emotion)
- Interpenetrating the source of inspiration (no space between observer and observed)
- Simple, uncomplicated images
- Common language
- Finding the extraordinary in “ordinary” things
- Implication through objective presentation, not explanation: appeal to intuition, not intellect
- Human presence is fine if presented as an archetypical, harmonious part of nature (human nature should blend in with the rest of nature rather than dominate the forefront)
- Humor is fine, if in keeping with “karumi” (lightness) – nothing overly clever, cynical, comic, or raucous
- Musical sensitivity to language (effective use of rhythm and lyricism)
- Feeling of a particular place within the cycle of seasons
So much to think about in writing such a brief poem. Haiku can feel to me to be inscrutable, though fascinating and worth the effort. Here are a few from the Japanese masters:
On a withered branch a crow has settled. Nightfall in autumn. Bashō (1644-94) Wandering through a stream in summer, carrying my sandals. How delightful! Buson (1715-83) Is that crow tilling the field or just walking around there? Issa (1762-1826) After I'm dead, tell people I was a persimmon eater who also loved haiku. Shiki (1867-1902)
I hope you liked these. Have a great day and take time off from our troubled world, perhaps, and write a few haiku. Maybe it will provide a small respite.