A good one, Melissa….Haiku and cold fingers works; tanka can be warm; gogyohka can be either — that’s the reader in me 🙂
But essentially art and poetry (if published) should be done and appreciated for its own sake and left to time and humanity to evaluate — no?
Thanks, Devika. 🙂 I don’t think I ever thought before about whether haiku/tanka/gogyoghka could be cold/warm. But I tried this haiku with a lot of other first lines and this was the only one that seemed to work at all. 🙂
I do try, very much, to write haiku for its own sake (well, for mine, at least 🙂 ), but it’s always interesting to me to reflect on which of my friends and acquaintances will like haiku — some are immediately drawn to it and some couldn’t care less. It doesn’t matter to me, really — usually if they are my friends they have other redeeming characteristics — but it’s fun to try to guess which kind of person they will be. 🙂
What do I think of this haiku? (Of course, I took it personally–how else does not a reader regard one?)
I like it, Melissa!
This haiku for me describes or presents the constant state of mind or consciousness of a haiku-ist striving to write ku that work–always with “cold fingers”, always wondering what a reader thinks it is. Is it haiku or not? What kind of haiku is it? As if there’s ever a sufficient answer. Yet, even if a haiku isn’t a hiaku, is it possible for the haiku-ist to freeze on the ku tracks now that she/he is past the clearing into the forest? The forest–so much haiku awaits there…
Wow, Alegria … you have much more profound thoughts on this subject than I do. 🙂 (Most people do, I find.) I was just kind of … cold … and wondering if some of my friends liked to read haiku or not. 🙂
That’s great, Mel – especially as when I read it, I took the ‘you’ in the poem to be a lover, rather than a collective group of friends. Another great ku
Red Dragonfly 
A good one, Melissa….Haiku and cold fingers works; tanka can be warm; gogyohka can be either — that’s the reader in me 🙂
But essentially art and poetry (if published) should be done and appreciated for its own sake and left to time and humanity to evaluate — no?
wishes,
devika
Thanks, Devika. 🙂 I don’t think I ever thought before about whether haiku/tanka/gogyoghka could be cold/warm. But I tried this haiku with a lot of other first lines and this was the only one that seemed to work at all. 🙂
I do try, very much, to write haiku for its own sake (well, for mine, at least 🙂 ), but it’s always interesting to me to reflect on which of my friends and acquaintances will like haiku — some are immediately drawn to it and some couldn’t care less. It doesn’t matter to me, really — usually if they are my friends they have other redeeming characteristics — but it’s fun to try to guess which kind of person they will be. 🙂
What do I think of this haiku? (Of course, I took it personally–how else does not a reader regard one?)
I like it, Melissa!
This haiku for me describes or presents the constant state of mind or consciousness of a haiku-ist striving to write ku that work–always with “cold fingers”, always wondering what a reader thinks it is. Is it haiku or not? What kind of haiku is it? As if there’s ever a sufficient answer. Yet, even if a haiku isn’t a hiaku, is it possible for the haiku-ist to freeze on the ku tracks now that she/he is past the clearing into the forest? The forest–so much haiku awaits there…
Wow, Alegria … you have much more profound thoughts on this subject than I do. 🙂 (Most people do, I find.) I was just kind of … cold … and wondering if some of my friends liked to read haiku or not. 🙂
That’s great, Mel – especially as when I read it, I took the ‘you’ in the poem to be a lover, rather than a collective group of friends. Another great ku
Thanks, Ash. And I am more than willing to let any interpretations my readers find in my ku be there. 🙂