speaking
and being heard
fire
speaking
July 20 (He says nothing)
July 9: 1-3: One-liners
1.
waiting for someone to speak first the moon deflates
2.
ankle deep the conversation turns to drowning
3.
the sting of raspberry brambles ask me again
June 24: 3-7: Worms
falling in love
robins grab worms
and pull
my hat sits askew
what this garden needs
is some worms
words coming out
in a whisper
worms underground
rain over
I step on a worm
and cry
I speak sternly:
robin — let go
of that worm
*
Yes, worms. It’s been raining a lot here, okay?
June 11: A story in eleven haiku and one photograph
Through the screenless window comes
a bird.
I watch it disport itself.
The house fills with wings.
The hearts of birds beat
more rapidly than our own.
I inquire of Google
what to do.
The response is dissatisfying.
The Russian story of
the Firebird.
A keen, glittering eye.
Many versions
of roast chicken.
I choose the most savory.
Dancing, I lift up my skirts
for the bird to pass
under.
The oven is still hot.
I stand beside it,
flapping my arms.
I don’t dream anymore
I can fly.
I have scraped my mind of such stuff.
I trap the bird in the closet.
When you get home,
it will amaze you.
I am reciting famous poetry
silently.
I am petting the cats.
The cats are hot, they breathe
rapidly. Wait, I say,
you will be rewarded.
*
I was feeling a little claustrophobic yesterday. Haiku seemed too small. Even the most wonderful of them — just a blink! I had a novel-lover’s need for extended narrative.
But I do love the haiku form and the challenge of containing an entire experience, a full impression, in just a few syllables. Several things I’ve been thinking about lately began to come together in my mind, things I’m hoping to write more about in the next few days — gendai haiku, renga. Unconventional ways of writing haiku, and ways of linking them together to create a larger picture than a single haiku allows.
I wondered what would happen if you piled a bunch of nontraditional haiku on top of each other to form a narrative. I wanted each haiku to be able to make sense separately on its own, and also to form a part of a coherent story. This photograph I’ve been thinking about for a few days entered the mix; a bird began to fly around in my head.
Writing this was a lot of fun. I’ve begun a couple other similar narratives, and I want to try more. This kind of structure seems to work the way my mind works — I’m really only capable of brief bursts of attention, but I also hunger for depth of character, for details of setting, for continuity of action.
(A bird really did get into our house through a screenless window a few years ago; but the rest of this is fantasy. In case you were worried about its fate at the paws of the cats.)
June 10: 2-3: The Technique of Double Entendre
(See this post for an explanation of what’s going on here.)
Jane:
“Anyone who has read translations of Japanese poetry has seen how much poets delighted in saying one thing and meaning something else. … In some cases the pun was to cover up a sexual reference by seeming to speaking of something commonplace. There are whole lists of words with double meanings: spring rain = sexual emissions and jade mountain = the Mound of Venus, just to give you an sampling. But we have them in English also…
eyes in secret places
deep in the purple middle
of an iris”
– Jane Reichhold, Haiku Techniques
*
Me:
cattails bob
he swims the pond
with strong strokes
early morning tide
salt waters
mingling
June 7: 3-6 (Scottish Play sequence)
child memorizing
Shakespeare
bird calls repeat
in the living room
Macbeth vacillates
microwave beeps
neighborhood lawnmowers
our favorite lines
in unison
if the assassination
could trammel up the —
cats yawn
*
The teenager is taking on the persona of a Scottish king this summer. The house is full of bloody and inimitable words.
June 2: 1-3: The Technique of Sense-switching
(See this post for an explanation of what’s going on here.)
Jane:
“This is another old-time favorite of the Japanese haiku masters, but one they have used very little and with a great deal of discretion. It is simply to speak of the sensory aspect of a thing and then change to another sensory organ. Usually it involves hearing something one sees or vice versa or to switch between seeing and tasting.
“home-grown lettucethe taste of well-water
green”
– Jane Reichhold, Haiku Techniques
*
me:
planes dance together
silently
sonic boom
the baby’s
soft cheek
strawberry jam
pounding
at the door
your bruised face
*
Yeah, okay, Jane, there’s a reason the “Japanese haiku masters” used this technique “very little and with a great deal of discretion.” It’s impossible, that’s why. Trying to write these made me feel like I understood what it must be like to write poetry in a foreign language. (Hmm…I should try that sometime…) I didn’t really understand what I was doing or why. But I did it. Let it never be said about me that I shirked my homework. Now can I do something else, please?
Red Dragonfly 