Hai(na)ku
Wednesday, May 20, 2009
I reviewed my haiku pointers last night and realized I've been doing my poems wrong. I started dabbling with this beautiful Japanese poetry just last week, and I know I have a long way to go till I get it down pat. Nowhere in any site does it say that it is going to be easy, anyway. Writing extraordinarily out of the ordinary, in three lines of 17 syllables or less, is definitely not a breeze - not for me, that is.
In particular, I realized that I was writing in three fragments. Haiku (and senryu) is generally written in two parts: a fragment on the first or last line, and a phrase/sentence split on the other two lines. As a guide, a good structure for a beginner like me is:
- setting - the fragment (first or last line)
- subject/action - the phrase/sentence (on two lines)
So I did some tweaking on my poems, and I do hope it is better this time, at least technically. Here is an example:
Before
hint of dawn
half awake, half asleep
jeepneys chug and sputter
After
crack of dawn
jeepneys chug and sputter
incessantly
Okay, so "special" may not yet be written all over this haiku, but you know what they say! Practice makes perfect! :)
Labels: haiku
It's been a while
Thursday, May 14, 2009
four o'clock
papers stacked, but ~
my first haiku
(May 13, 2009, 4:00 pm)
Labels: haiku
