[Robert Pecotte]

Lee,

Here’s another batch: it’s hard to find good critique on Haiku, so please chop 'em & cook 'em up.

I know that traditional Haiku poets and Tanka poets tend not to venture into the others domain, but I gave it a shot and have found Tanka quite a bit more than I thought it was.

Anyway, thank you very much for the time and energy you have spent on these little-big poems!

Fr. RP

PS: Hopefully I can get those other two ku up to speed before you flee this place!

first light
on the cabin porch
mayflies

late night—
spring’s first fly
bounces off the wall

summer evening
another quick chirp
from the microwave

yellow moon
along the icy prairie…
coming home

frost covers
an untilled field…
for sale

evening fades—
a rusty tractor
covered by weeds

blustery day—
an eagle crouches
on the white boulder

Orion rising
the sound of snow
beneath my feet

a few flowers
among the weeds
a rusted trowel

[L.M. Price]

sudden wind gust
prairie dust rises
to meet the rain

I like this one, Donna. I'm not sure it 'interacts imaginatively', but I really feel clueless about what is and isn't, what does and doesn't. But I like this little picture.

[Lee Gurga]

Originally posted by Peter Coghill:
Hi Lee,
first a question. For me sonics is more half of poetry. Haikus obviously belong to image first school, but is here any place in Japanese or English for the effects of part rhyme, alliteration etc to emphaise the images or is that against the purist philosophy?

Here are some I've attempted under the heading Bunlgeboori Creek. There an attempt to pull the reader into the ambience

Hi Peter, To begin with your question, haiku of course makes use of all the sound resouces of the language. I have not been emphasizing this because we have been discussing more basic issues. But here, for example are some poems in which sound is an important part of the message, that literally beg to be read out loud. The first, by Peter Yovu, is one of my top ten haiku of all time:

mosquito she too
insisting insisting she
is is is is is

(Please notice also that it is absolutely invisibly 17 syllables. It achieves this invisibility, in my view, by using the kind of short sounds that Japanese haiku use.)
here is a lighter one by Mary Alice Herbert, in which the vowels literally take flight:

All Hallow's Eve
swallows
loop the moon

here is one by Gary Hotham in which the weak vowels intensify the sense of loneliness:

dark darker
too many stars
too far

and finally one by Dru Phillipou in which the sounds are the subject of the poem:

Wet sedges
egrets unseen
the fleetest schwas


A look at your poems . . .

Coachwood
in the north wind - arrows
fresh shot, quivering

as my comments on other poems may have suggested, haiku with this sort of conceit don't do a lot for me

Panther pads
in the forest - vines
twist to the sky

not sure these images are close enough for me to connect, though that might be my failing

A skim of water
one foot of bank -
two hundred of sandstone

not sure i get this one

fallen logs
after dusk - fireflies
with quiet noels

interesting!

For this reader one hit in four, which is way higher than my own average, I can assure you.

Lee

[Lee Gurga]

Originally posted by Lei Price:
(Stephen, thanks for your continuing help - I've tried again, as you see.)
And Lee, thanks very much in advance. I'm entirely new to haiku also.
I have a question about punctuation. Is it generally left off? Put in? Your choice?

Hi Lei . . . it's Lee!

Punctuation. Punctuation can be used to break, equate, throw forward, stop. Traditional japanese haiku don't have punctuation, but have kireji or cutting words that perform that function. (And make up a part of the sound count of the haiku. So if you insist that 17 syllables is the correct form for haiku, which is of course your right, then you should count each of these marks as one syllable.) So please punctuate away if you please. The important thing is that everything in the poem should contribute to the poem. There should be no "default" punctuation in a haiku, like a period at the end to tell the reader "this is the end of the poem." I use punctuation maybe half the time,but only to a purpose. In fact, I have only once ever used a period in a haiku. Here it is--you can decide for yourself whether you think it belongs:

his side of it.
her side of it.
winter silence

(Please note that there is not a period at the end of the poem.)

Enough on punctuation for now?

And now to your poems . . . which I am going to look at with an "editorial eye." I have a haiku buddy i get together with every month so we can critique each others poems. I am going to comment on these as if they were Randy's and I was sitting across the table from him.

Behind the house
apple branches break
bears grow fatter

OK, I have several questions about this one. First, why behind the house as opposed to in front of it or next to it? I am good with the branches breaking, depending on what else is going on in the poem. I am not sure why you have "bears grow fatter" to finish the poems. Is the point that they are eating the apples? Or is there some other reason< the season, perhaps? As a reader, I am not sure. If it is the season, then it seems redundant since the apples have already told us what the season is. If it is because they are eating the apples, i wonder what the point is. After all, bears can climb trees, can't they? Now if the bears are breaking the branches, that is something else, but i don't really get that out of the poem.

cold sails
billow in the wind
a moonlit lake

nice.

Brown eyes follow me
tail wagging, mouth apant -
I prefer the cat.

I prefer the second haiku. By the way, I love "apant". At first i thought it was a typo! (Duh!)

Lee

[Lee Gurga]

Originally posted by Seree Zohar:
Hi to both Lee and Stephen


“The Jewish Bride” hosts
immaculate despite centuries
dead flies at her hem

* * *
Lee - not sure of correct procedure when it comes to haiku, but "The Jewish Bride" is the title of a famous Rembrant, thus the quotes. As all three haiku were Holland-focused, I wondered about using the title as indicating the aspect of specific time; then using her continuously pristine state, comparing to the centuries that fall about her, as passing time.

Stephen - in order to better understand the idea of open-ended,(Lee also referred to Martin in this respect - hello Martin! nice to have you as a boat-mate!) - can you DO something with any of the 3 pieces I posted to show open as opposed to closed ??? thanks.

Quotes are fine. My question indicates the level of my own ignorance. Seeing where you were from, I thought maybe it was a TV show!

Lee

[Lee Gurga]

Originally posted by Christy Reno:
Welcome, Lee. I'm not seeing any feedback on my haiku. I could have missed it on the page, but if you haven't given any feedback yet, I'd love to hear what you think.


Thank you for the feedback, Henrietta. Is the bolded poem a revision you are suggesting to me? I'm afraid I don't understand the meaning of the new poem.

These were my haiku. They're all I can come up with right now.

black tree, white skies.
filmed. framed.
look up! birds soar.

OR


black tree, white skies.
filmed. framed.
look up! birds fly away.

Christy, sorry, but i missed your poem! I like this version best (except i would lose the period):

black tree white skies
filmed framed packed
to fly away.


I like the three participles in the second line and like the ambiguity of the third line.

Lee

[Lee Gurga]

Feel free to do whatever you like with my poems!

Lee

[Lee Gurga]

Originally posted by Henrietta kelly:
facing the blacktop?

Lee can you explain for me what a black top is
I'm pulling my hair out here trying to see what i'm missing


edit--- dah! is it the road?

Yes, it is a paved country road, as opposed to an unpaved one.

Lee

[Henrietta kelly]

donna I like the first one and the one lee liked. Here that one is in my lingo


a willy willy
surprise surprise fairy dust
in eye then in eye


odds are not just dust but a tree trunk might whack you on the nose as well; that right cally?


Robert

I like the mayflies as well maybe begin


first light mayflies

Lee a thought!

What about caps for names and places as in May-flies?

[Lee Gurga]

Originally posted by Maryann Corbett:
Thanks, Lee. If I figure out what I'm supposed to be doing, maybe I can do more! In order, these were my three drafts:


The bridge, ice-slick,
the canyon howling below--
how to go on?

in which I was mostly trying to get the feel of 2-3-2. Roy and Stephen noted that it was wordy.


The icy bridge,
the fog deepening--
How to go on?

Comments at this point helped me see that "How to go on?" contains too much interpretation, so now I'm trying to make it all images.

Icy walking bridge.
Below, the highway screams.
Even air is frozen.

Stuart (thanks for commenting, Stuart) notes that this is static, as all the versions are. What I learn at this point is that the observation I'm trying to build on may not contain a sufficient "leap" for a real haiku. I'm still looking for a true two-image idea.

Thanks again for helping us out here.

Maryann, thanks for sharing all the versions. I think this is a great example of the process of haiku self editing. When I do that, which of course i do with every poem, by the time i get to the last version i often find i begin leaving things out. For the first line, I line "the icy bridge" or "ice-slick bridge." (Doesn't "ice-slick" take your feet right out from under you?) For the rest, i like the first version. Though i don't generally like rhetorical questions in haiku, it think it works here as something very natural. Here it is an actual dilemma (with enlarging overtones) rather than a fanciful one of the poet's invention.

Lee

P.S. Sorry folks, but i am running out of gas--had a long day at work. I promise to have more tomorrow and the next day and . . . in fact, i am off work for the rest of my visit, so i should be able to give you more, maybe more than you want!