haiku/senryu workshop

 

haiku / senryu practical crack at

 

I personally don’t see haiku/ senryu so much as an end in themselves but more as a disciplined means to more general poetic ends  

so I’d like to explore some of those means here through specific examples of haiku or senryu I would like to write

 

it’s been my sad observation that often those most dedicated to forms in particular may not make the best use of them or produce the best examples!

 

where does being a stickler for form get us?

 

still, the 17 syllable is useful as a rough guide to length

 

and the three lines with two turns ---

to me that is what is essential about the form, regardless of content

and whether the poem concerns nature or human society

 

…

 

but to some practical workings …

 

I wanted to write a haiku to capture the relief of change that came a couple of days ago after the unbearable heat we’d been experiencing in this latest heart wave (in south eastern Australia)

 

after the great heat

sky drips, harder then

the brain begins again

 

a few problems here

first is ‘the great heat’ is too obvious … one shouldn’t mention seasons or months in haiku but rather show the reader to them through concrete imagery

 

I don’t like the fact that there’s a rhyme there (however inadvertent)

 

also

‘sky drips’ doesn’t really  cut it

 

… so… hmmmm …. what I’ve got here is really a plan for a haiku (in haiku form) rather than a piece I can personally regard as a haiku

 

so what can I do ?

 

I wonder --  how can I best suggest the heat?

and how can I best suggest the rain and the relief?

 

cicadas tell the heat

and after the rain getting going, in the breaks, the whipbirds chime in

 

let’s see

 

cicadas deafen the day

whip birds of the afterfalls

 

but ‘deafen the day’ is a bit too metaphorical for a haiku

 

I would kind of like to get the occasional tree-to-tree flight of the cicadas into the heat picture

 

also I think deafen is too obvious

 

…

so

where does this leave me?

 

 

cicadas, louder than anyone’s ever flown

 

after and between the falls

the whipbirds

 

nup

maybe ‘tell’ goes well with the cicadas

as in

the cicadas are telling how hot the day is

 

cicadas tell it

 

cicadas tell it, still and in flight  

 

it would be good not to use a ‘then’

but rather imply the temporal progression

but I’m not sure I can manage that

 

cicadas tell the day still

after and between falls

whipbirds

 

 

maybe?

or maybe

 

cicadas still the day’s heat

after falls, whipbirds

later the frogs

 

now I’ve got some day to night progression into the picture

 

but not quite happy yet

 

better last line might be --

 

fine mist and then the falls

 

or maybe it’s the middle line

 

cicadas in the still day’s heat

whipbirds after between falls

 

hmmm

MAYbe

 

cicadas in the still day’s heat    7

whipbirds unseen between falls   7

fine mist then the frogs  5    = 19

 

feels a bit too long

 

and I’m not sure if I’ve really got the suggestion of night falling in there properly yet

 

cicadas tell the still day

whipbirds between falls

louder now, the frogs

 

not really sure if I’m getting there!

 

better give it a rest

and look at some other prospects

 

… sometimes you just have to leave it for a while in order to be able to come back and appreciate what yv built … and work out how to finish it off … or if it’s even possible

 

 

 

 

 

.

 

so let’s try another one – a senryu

 

around 11 am on a weekday last week, I saw someone riding a mobility scooter down the middle of Mailtand Rod in Mayfield… I thought – there’s a senryu !

 

death wish, Mayfield

mobility scooter

following the centre line

down Maitland Road

 

that’s all the information I want but it’s not a senryu

 

maybe if I make the first line like a news headline and then change genres?

 

MAYFIELD MOBILITY SCOOTER DEATH WISH

following the centre line

down Maitland Road

 

it’s a lot syllables but it feels right to me

I’m happy with that for now

 

.

 

back to haiku – a few on the observation of things parallel --

 

 

a leaf turns

and another

they fall

 

 

it’s what I think of as a slightly smart-arse haiku – where what’s surprising is the lack of surprise … that said, I think it works

 

you could add something like

 

the wind picks up

before

they fall

 

but I think extra causation would spoil the simplicity of the thing

 

.

 

a snake in the day

ant too, travelling unseen

each deep in the grass

 

.

 

every insect on its mission

bearing some other body

away

 

I kind of like the compactness there but I also think that there could be more

… maybe more sinister ?

 

every insect, on its mission

bearing some other body

down to a darker place

 

.

 

and back to senryu again

 

 

imagine a planet without us

how lonely

they must be

 

.

 

here’s one that’s ambiguously haiku or senryu

and remembering an event back in the day

 

brown car at 100ks

two hunstmen running on the windscreen

window not up fast enough

 

 

brown car at 100ks

two hunstmen running across the windscreen

faster than the driver could wind

 

 

bot quite right

but true story

 

 

.

 

 

get off the train

train goes on, luggage and all

that was life

 

a few reasons I don’t really think we can call that a senryu …

basically the problem is ‘that was life’ protests the breadth of scope too loudly

… it’s something the reader needs to arrive at under their own steam

 

.

 

 

same problem with this one, I think

 

as many of us in the air right now

as there were before the first tree was felled

when we melted from the ice

 

 

it’s interesting to think about the relationship between these forms and the classical epigram … I think there’s a lot of scope for getting between the two!

 

.

 

more haiku attempts --

 

a breeze to the treetops

wings required

still sweltering down here   / where landed

 

a breeze to the treetops

wings required

still sweltering where landed

 

second take is better

 

.

 

shy wallaby stunts

the head swivel, watching

under over fences

 

.

 

grey high

and when the sky’s come down

we’ll call this dance the rain

 

possibly too metaphorical to count as haiku?

 

.

 

 

.

 

it’s good to try to remember the basic constraints –

no metaphor, no simile, no season named as such, no abstraction, adjectives kept to the bare minimum

 

three lines do not a haiku make!

nor seventeen syllables either!

 

… haiku writing is a very useful discipline for all poetry writing because it clears a lot of distractions out of the way … and brings us to the pure endeavour … to say something new / to surprise a reader with just what one can make them see / hear / feel / taste / touch / smell /or otherwise sense

 

I’ve just been thinking , too, it’s interesting how, in a way, haiku/senryu are structurally a little like classical syllogism in philosophy (i.e. thesis – antithesis – synthesis) … except of course the structure is not of its nature, logical … or. rather, though logic is involved, it’s not about discovering what logic can discover … haiku and senryu are firmly in the empirical camp… and yet they throw a net of understanding over what is immediately available to the senses

 

 

.

 

 

now where did we get to with that first haiku effort at the top of this post?

 

cicadas tell the still day

whipbirds between falls

louder now, the frogs

 

hmmm

 

how about

 

cicadas tell the day still

 

?

like there’s a kind of magic they have to make stillness, the cicadas … I know that’s not terribly haiku-like … but I like it

 

I think that’s a good first and last line then

so

 

cicadas tell the day still

?

louder now, the frogs

 

 

can I improve on the middle ?

can I get both the passage of time generally and the fact of nightfall

(so a shift from what we see to what we hear into the poem … like in Basho’s famous old pond effort)

 

cicadas tell the day still    8

darker, whipbirds between the falls  8

louder now, the frogs  5

 

 

too long !

 

cicadas tell the day still   

the rain and then the whipbirds

louder now, the frogs  

 

or

 

cicadas tell the day still   

rain and then the whipbirds

louder yet, the frogs  

 

 

 

 

it’s not bad … maybe that’s as good as I’ll get with this?

 

I’ll have to come back and look at it in a week!

…

And the point is not that this effort is better than the haiku that came easily. It’s probably not… but maybe …  maybe I learnt more from the process in this case and from making the effort to spell out all of my thinking to you?

…

but maybe also the lesson is to give up when it gets too hard

because haiku – being things of the moment – of the here and now – do not like to be laboured!

 

.

 

and now

I’m thinking I should write a book about haiku making, littered haibun-style with examples – and call it

 

the haiku at the end of the road 

 

What do you think? Anyone want to join me for that? Perhaps more of a conversation than a journey!