English: Haiku of Basho (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Like most people this past week and into this one, I’ve had little time to just relax. Projects on timelines scream for attention. Challenges come in all sizes and shapes, demanding that we step forth and conquer. Along the way are the physical, emotional, and ethical detours each of us face on a daily basis.
I’ve finished my daily challenge with the following poetry. I hope you enjoy them all. I have here two challenge prompts and three poems to answer them.
Poetic Asides Prompt—Take a true event (whether in your life/another’s and fictionalize it. Try to push the envelope to a point where truth and fiction blur.
Decisions
Nothingness, nowhere-ness
Reach out for the psyche,
Gripping one mind’s purpose,
Snuffing out personal
Meaning for tomorrow;
For now only darkness
Rules thought or lack of it,
Leaving only desire,
Release from a black hole
Threatening more horrors.
Light, sound, emerge to claim
Attention to the now,
Offering potential
Oblivion for good
In train’s form on the track.
Speeding forward, one dive
To take a last breath here
And leave darkness behind.
Who would know, who would care
That time could cease for now?
Speed, longing, ever known
For faith in one’s angels
Until that night, despite
Plans of last decision
Foiled by strong unseen hands,
And heavenly powers
Remove harm and present
A life reviewed, found good
Enough to pursue all
That time can permit–now.
# # # #
Poetic Bloomings gave participants the week’s In-Form Poetry Challenge. This week we will look into the Haiku (and on a larger scale – the Renga). I’m familiar with Haiku, but Renga was new to me and I found it works very well.
HAIKU -
- In Japanese the haiku is composed of 17 sound units divided into three parts – one with 5 syllables, one with 7 syllables and another with 5 syllables. Since sound units are much shorter than English syllables, it has been found that following the Japanese example results in a much longer poem. The Japanese write their haiku in one line. The Japanese, because of their longer history of reading haiku, understand that there are two parts to the poem.
- In English, however, each part is given a line in order to clearly divide the parts of the haiku. This allows the reader time to form an image in the mind before the eyes go back to the left margin for more words. The line breaks also act as a type of punctuation. In English these are called the phrase and fragment. One line is the fragment and the other two lines combine grammatically to become the phrase. Without this combining the two lines together the haiku will sound “choppy” as the tone of voice drops at the end of each line.
- To create a renga, one poet writes the first stanza, which is three lines long with a total of seventeen syllables. The next poet adds the second stanza, a couplet with seven syllables per line. The third stanza repeats the structure of the first and the fourth repeats the second, alternating in this pattern until the poem’s end.
Haiku
Hurry, scurry, go
Life tells time of its passage
Time ends with life’s breath
Renga
In story book tales
Villains fight heroes for fun,
Creating legends.
In life heroes and villains
Can change roles to fool the eye,
Leaving confusion
To cloud judgments and purpose
Within those watching
Acts performed by a hero
Turned villain; both one person.
Each living person
Carries hero and villain.
Circumstance decides
Which role we portray each day
When walking on our life’s path.
Related articles
- Haiku Winter (paradelle.wordpress.com)
- Thursday Haiku Madness! (thecheekydiva.com)
- Enjoy some haikus. / Isn’t evaluation / Serious enough? (emeryevaluation.com)
- How Haiku Made Me a Better Non-Fiction Writer (runwritedig.com)
- Haiku introductions are… (sonnetblog.wordpress.com)
- Winning Writers Announces that Myron L. Stokes Has Won the Ninth Annual Margaret Reid Poetry Contest for Traditional Verse (prweb.com)
