I am going to be a copycat for some time and try write a reflecting haiku in English for each of these masterly compositions below but without the traditional trappings and the mandatory seasonal reference. My samples will be quite contradictory to the lilting idea of a haiku.Possibly the best known Japanese haiku is Bashō's "old pond" haiku.
Roughly translated:
"old pond
a frog jumps
the sound of water "
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My sample:
murky snow
million footprints
searching paths
**
Another example by Matsuo Bashō:
"the wind of Mt. Fuji
I've brought on my fan!
a gift from Edo"
**
My sample:
the cry for freedom
scattered morsels
whither justice?
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And yet another Bashō classic:"the first cold shower
even the monkey seems to want
a little coat of straw"
**
My sample:
the last chance
a woman's voice
silence is death
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Now, perhaps my compositions are really not haikus. But hopefully some of my readers will write a few for me to show me how to practise this beautiful craft.
18 comments:
Hey---u created it like it's simple for u as I read ur sample--- I'm not really into Haiku yah? Yet, when i read it---the meanings are somewhat too deep if only the readers should try to read between the lines.
Take care!
Those were marvellous attempts. I neva tried but let's see...
Winds wail high and low
It rains like no tomorrow
Nature puts such a show!
he he
Kush
Yeah she's in love with me
Now she is, Now she is'nt
Adolescent Romance!!!!
I thought your touch would
transform me but it made
me realize who I am.
I loved the moment I read this ..yours are just too good keep sharing normally it is of three lines 17syllables,5 in the 1st and last lines 7 in the middle but this is fun too ;)...here is mine ..
crows they fly in the sky
like pieces of black charred paper
drifting from a fire
Voila! Ritu and Rhett, what lovely ones you've written! Both are pretty classic in terms of the sentiment expressed -- nature's vagaries and a woman's vagaries! Cool.
This is fun. I'll put up more haiku (or low-ku, ha ha!) in my next post...
Mys
welcome to my blog, I'm so delighted you're here!
You are 100 per cent right that the meaning of haiku is supposed to be deeper than what one reads. Basho's examples are far more introspective than just a frog or rain or wind from Mt. Fuji... Everu haiku depics not just a sentiment or a season, but a certain crystallised idea to encompass a larger picture. You are so right!
Write you own, at least one, here for me, Please! And come back again.
wrote one comment before but it didnt show :(so once again .
crows fly in the sky
like pieces of charred paper
drifting from a fire
loved your Haikus ..there is one I liked
I thought your touch would
tranform me but
it made me realise
who I am
Tikuli:
crows like "pieces of charred paper drifting from a fire"? Wow, what an imagery! And gosh, it just makes me think of this sky where so many crows are floating around darkening the ambience. How solemn and threatening it seems. Almost an omen. Or something looming ahead... Like Hitchcock's famous "The Birds"!! Nice one :-)
I liked the first and the third haikus which you wrote.
A try..
The spring came,
Colors so bright.
A mortal's end.
the whole western fascination with haiku is appalling... the best haiku writers in Japan were never prolific... and now a thousand haiku's are written everywhere...
but heck...
Hot and humid weather
makes you sweat and me sweat
And a picture melts
TMTL
in its simplicity, your haiku is beautiful. "A mortal's end" is precisely what deepens our reflection on this poem. Thanks!
Dear Tanuj
Westerners are obsessed with haikus, tankas, senryus, rengas.... the list is long. Anything exotic or 'oriental' probably fascinates them no end... Yeah, appalling. On the other hand, why not? what would they do sit write only sonnets and villanelle... let them learn the sanskrit anushtup, the japanese haiku, the persian ruba'i or the originally malay pantoum. Go learn!
Personall, am glad I managed to stay away from the 'appalling' obsession this long. Never entered a haiku writing contest or project or blah blah... although have been reading haikus since I was a child, never felt the need to replicate them but then either I don;t care now or am just being playful :-)
Besides anyway, I'm never following the haiku rules!
Am so glad you wrote this. In the first two line I decipher a picture of beautiful eroticism, don't whether you intended it or not. The last line is breathtaking. Maybe I can write a separate para about it. Lovely concept, poet-man!
Hey--let me try:
red petals fallen
and the wind whistle.
It landed in my garden.
Well....? hehehe! Just trying! Take care---
Dear Mys (what a lovely name... mys-tery, mys-tique!)
fabulous! Something about the red petals is so luscious -- as if they are youthful pretty women -- and the wind whistling like a man catcalling!!! My imagination of course but therein lies the power of a poet like you to conjure up images in readers' minds. And the last line, to continue this tantalizing tale, one petal landed in your garden. You too, my friend are mesmerized in your innocent poetic voyeurism. I learned so much from all the haikus above...
I like playing with words, sometimes, most times am shy to call it anything..... but cannot resist joining the fun you all seem to be having. Nabina, you guess this and I'll treat you to a dosa :-)
trickling words
gnawing at worlds
morning birdsong
for all or just me
Anu, this riddle will get me I think... but let's try: coffee!!??
(if I win, I want a mysore masala dosa!!)
Nabina,
I was delighted to receive your request for haiku. I think a started working with the form out of a wry desire to use it as a filter with which to distill my own sardonic angst into little pools of pure, shimmering bile! Albeit drinkable bile ...
Rather than fall into the appalling Western tendency to caricature the form (see above; and I agree) I wanted to capture moments, people and ideas which were ordinary, yet sublime -- and sometimes really rather jarring -- and which had nothing to do with leaves or ducks or lily ponds. The 5-7-5 pattern required me to work in a controlled fashion which prohibited my charateristic verbosity, to which you are right now being subjected!
That said, here are a few untitled selections from recent months:
"Seated down the train:
Proud sister, your poise and grace
Somehow make me smile."
That ode was to an unidentified woman on a Philadelphia elevated train, whom I gazed upon bleary-eyed the morning after a particularly nasty row with my best friend. April 14, 2008. Happily we've moved on... But also from that day:
"E-mail is evil.
For it never quite conveys,
What you meant to say."
Unrelated from the next day, after I had my income taxes done:
"Well, that was painless!
Sometimes it's worth it to pay
Someone else to think."
Haiku about income taxes! How very bourgeois --not a lotus flower in sight!
Then there was this, written privately to a family member in July:
"All the little lies
Told so we can smooth the way ...
Deals with the Devil."
Such is life.
-- R.
Wow Roger, this is soooo good. I won't comment at all now because I am flabbergasted!
One thing, I don't want to point at the so called "Western" obsession too much. Obsessions are not restricted to westerners alone, it's common for every country, community and people. And personally, I too am implicated in all obsessions, and happily! I believe, after all, the arts especially, wherever they originate from, are always for give and take. So here's to your haikus!
It seems that my comment sparked a tiny debate... but hey it is good!
I think I will post my haiku on my blog too... wat say Nabina?
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