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harmattan haze arranging flowers on the windowsill looks promising, but I am afraid "harmattan" eludes me. fishingboats navigate by icebergs find whale and song getting clearer! weird yesterday a toad backpacking sun jump through my swing gate. promising, but the first line is interpreting the experience for the reader. please trust the reader. one winter I have a cup of tea with a tiger and an owl. haiku usually present a single moment of time. Why "one winter." why not this winter? why not today? seahorses lost in midwinter shrubs. interestingly surrealist puddles in schoolyards oil on blacktop washing a blood moon the images are much clearer here. please beware leaving out articles artifically. bees and sunlight travel on a wheelbarrow air-travel is out ok until we get to the third line, then just a (static) interpretive statement rather than a second image. Here is a haiku by Robert Gilliland on the same subject that actually travels: transplanting the sage a wheelbarrow full of bees from backyard to front please notice how the inclusion of the particular in the first line gives the poem a greater immediacy as well as an interesting fragrance (or: a wheelbarrow with ice remembers spring, blackbirds and bees / blackbirds and wings / bees and sunlight / water and bees) no birds in a weedksy harrowic winds plow it for clouds weedksy? forgetting me sunlight embrace another grave a little hermetic, but it reminds me of "Long Black Veil", one of my favorite songs. Hope this helps! Lee |
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* the chain kicks once, twice, and with wobbling handlebars spring is underway nicely done! meadow in flower the dog returns with frisbee happy face first cats in love people in love, and of course yours truly, in love Ha! Great! this would be my first guess for the translation, since "cats in love' is a standard japanese kigo. bumble bees screwing bored, she sticks out a long tongue and sips some marigold don't think this is as good as the others--seems a little forced. summer vacation the wrigglers in the jam jar have grown wings and drowned yuk! L'été, c'est moi! the monarch sails past nodding sunflowers, is gone plink! a pause, then plink! plink! in the darkened kitchen summer sealed in jars reminds me of many, many summer days. here we have lots of jars huddled in the darkness in the basement. Here is a haiku from our basement last summer! dog days of summer one by one the snail consumes the wine labels golden orb weaver goldenrod, golden summer sun in September nice feeling to this one autumn oak apple the king of infinite space long since departed love this one. too bad your haiga was not in MH! frost on the windows Bob, who is not a lawywer, lives next to the dentist not seeing the significance of the fact that he is not a lawyer . . . winter afternoon -- in the garage, the poisoned mouse runs in circles flushed cheeks, a straining tear behind her the window fills with silent snow and you have dazzled me into silence! Well done! I can see who is going to teach the master class next time! Lee |
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* Hello all. Lee, thanks so much for your kind comments. I'm delighted that you liked some of my pieces--it means a lot coming from you. And yes, you're absolutely right about the translation. neko no koi / hito no koi, mata / ore no koi* Cats in love. For people new to haiku: it's one of the great historical season words. A personal favourite: nete okite / oo-akubi shite / neko no koi sleeping, getting up yawning a big big yawn cats in love That's Issa, my friends. If you've never read his stuff, you don't know what you're missing! Here's a poet who doesn't so much inspire love as devotion. Check out David Lanoue's amazing "haikuguy" web site, where you'll find 9000 of Issa's poems translated and carefully annotated. You could spend days there: Haiku of Kobayashi Issa at haikuguy.com (The site is set up for searching, not browsing, so you'll have to use your imagination and try plugging in various search terms--you could start with "cats," for example--but I think you'll find that the results will repay the extra little bit of effort.) Anyway, enough stumping for my man Issa! Chiago, thank you for your detailed reading and your kind words. It's always a pleasure to get thoughtful feedback on one's poems. Your comments pick up on many of the things I was hoping to achieve in my haiku, and it's a great encouragement to see not only that they are working for a sensitive reader, but also to see how. I really appreciate your taking the time. Cally, yes indeed, the king of infinite space! And if you've ever seen a gall wasp, you know just how tiny they actually are. Anyway, I was afraid it might be a bit obscure, but I'm glad to see that people are clicking with it. And while we're still bounded in our nutshell . . . here's a classic poem--a real chestnut, as it were--that you might enjoy: yoru hisokani / mushi wa gekka no / kuri o ugatsu in the moonlight a worm . . . silently drills through a chestnut Matuso Basho. Not my translation--it's from yet another wonderful site that I hope to put up on the Haiku Resources page: In the moonlight a worm . . . Great site for teachers looking for classroom material! Seree, I'm glad you like the haiga stuff. It's a grand tradition, and it's really neat to see how people are picking up on it now outside of Japan. * And a last note, to everyone who's wondered. "Bob, who is not a lawyer, / lives next to the dentist" is part of a clue from a logic puzzle . . . you know, the sort of thing that starts, "Alan, Bob, Catherine, David and Eileen are neighbours, living at 2, 4, 6, 8 and 10 Mulberry Lane . . . " So, really there's no connection at all between "frost on the windows" and lawyers and dentists and whatnot. Just a kind of personal association for me: as the weather gets colder, and there's less to do outside, I like to curl up with a puzzle sometimes. Completely obscure, I confess! But it's been fun watching folks scratch their heads. Steve C. p.s. Joan, the emperor's seal is the size of a dinner plate. Two cents from the ol' girlie in Kalgoorlie. Two cents. Do I hear three? p.p.s. Lots of other interesting poems and questions pending here. Hope to be back later to take part in the discussion. Oh yes, and a footnote: * For anyone who's wondering, "koi" means "love" here, not "carp." But the words are indeed homonyms. Love in Japanese is an oversized goldfish! |
Lee, Steve Collington is a pretty masterful rhyming metrist, minding me of our Aussie, Henry Quince. He doesn't make mistakes. He is also a real authority on Japanese verse; and yes, he could certainly teach a master class here. Steve, four of these really flew my kite over Kabul: Summer, it's me. Plink. Meadow, and Chain. But when a gig is going as well as this, the old host always asks: Steve and Lee, will you reprise this next October? Then I can just hunt birds and not worry about the Sphere?
Three Seasons for L.G. and S.C. Feeney the fragrant— his black coat browned by pond scum, reeking of birdblood. My rubber kneeboots shedding mud in the closet, cocklebur heaven! My thirsty Bronco— collecting pheasant feathers late in December. But forty pheasants cleaned and bagged in the freezer? Good until Easter. appreciatively, yr Lariat [This message has been edited by Tim Murphy (edited October 19, 2008).] |
Cally... wow.. and thanks.. I like it when you shine your sunbeams on me.
Stuart - thanks very much! I like your ku with the dropped letters. Actually, Cally, the brush and paint thought occurred to me much later, after the ku was written. Before I wrote it, I only felt a cold bed (finally had to get up for another blanket), and a huge feeling of reaching out into the world.* Since you're interested in my haiku breakthrough, I have to thank Wu Tsao, who I first read several years ago. I'm sure reading her poems taught me a lot about Zen or Taoism. Then in the past few years, I've read a lot of the imagist poems of Amy Lowell and H.D. I think in this marvelous haiku class, there were three big aha moments: Steve C's crits at open mic; Lee's essays; and Carmen Sterga's essay and haiku examples. Do you have any more ku, Cally and Stuart? * possibly for another blanket, lol. [This message has been edited by Mary Meriam (edited October 19, 2008).] |
Interesting haiku/poem, Tim!
S4 reads: But forty pheasants cleaned and bagged in the freezer? Good until Easter. "But" means "Only" here, but I had to think about it. The question mark helped. Grammatical nit: shouldn't that be "But forty pheasant..."? Duncan |
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Lee |
stephen
did I say $00.2? I meant AU $20.00 cash one nice orange plastic note plus you crit every poem I ever write *grins* ----- that aside on rereading your work I think you need to change meadow in flower-- is too easy to meadow mid season it not only tells you it is in full bloom but sets the time of year; can almost feel the heat, love the yellow happy face-- it must be yellow, the sun is out meadow mid season the dog returns with frisbee happy face first ~~ Joan [This message has been edited by Henrietta kelly (edited October 19, 2008).] |
solstice morning
star on a black horse |
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Is this better? thunderheads bloom prairie dust rises to meet the rain or distant thunder prairie dust rises to meet the rain And two more from the same observation/occasion switchgrass bows to the breeze seeds scatter overdue rain pounds thistledown into cracked dirt Thanks again! Donna |
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