Today's poet

[Stevie]

Thanks Old Whippet. The last two especially have been causing me difficulty for ages, trying to capture the essence of being on top of Pen Cerrig Calch in a howling gale with the cloud suddenly clearing after 2 hours of rain wind and clag. Almost impossible in 17 syllables, so I used two Haiku. Cheating really.

[Old Whippet]

Thanks Old Whippet. The last two especially have been causing me difficulty for ages, trying to capture the essence of being on top of Pen Cerrig Calch in a howling gale with the cloud suddenly clearing after 2 hours of rain wind and clag. Almost impossible in 17 syllables, so I used two Haiku. Cheating really.

You know, on 1st reading I hadn't even noticed that you'd use Haiku to structure each verse. Seems even better now! Is the last bit cheating?? I get a different image from each - the sense of the clag being torn open, and then the sense of being battered on a windy summit. And don't those Black Mountain names lend themselves to dramatic poetry!

[southernsoftie]

Thanks Old Whippet. The last two especially have been causing me difficulty for ages, trying to capture the essence of being on top of Pen Cerrig Calch in a howling gale with the cloud suddenly clearing after 2 hours of rain wind and clag. Almost impossible in 17 syllables, so I used two Haiku. Cheating really.

After a bit of in depth research before my first post (i.e. reminding myself what a haiku was from Wikipedia), I found the 17-syllable thing a bit of a misnomer.

In Japanese, it is 17 'moras' or 'on', which doesn't exactly equate to our syllable.

Therefore it is acceptable for variations on the 17 syllable theme, apparently 10-14 being the accepted in literary English, and less emphasis on the structure. Though I suppose sticking rigidly to the structured 17 syllables forces a bit more lateral literary thinking!

In contrast to English verse which is typically characterized by meter, Japanese verse counts sound units (moras), known as "on". The word on is often translated as "syllable", but there are subtle differences between an "on" and an English-language "syllable". Traditional haiku consist of 17 on, in three metrical phrases of 5, 7, and 5 on respectively.

The word onji (音字; "sound symbol") is sometimes used in referring to Japanese sound units in English although this word is archaic and no longer current in Japanese. In Japanese, the on corresponds very closely to the kana character count (closely enough that moji (or "character symbol") is also sometimes used as the count unit).

One on is counted for a short syllable, an additional one for an elongated vowel, diphthong, or doubled consonant, and one for an "n" at the end of a syllable. Thus, the word "haibun", though counted as two syllables in English, is counted as four on in Japanese (ha-i-bu-n).

Most writers of literary haiku in English use about ten to fourteen syllables, with no formal pattern.

[freckle]

Demolition Ball

I woke with a start
What if something were to happen to you
No one would think to tell me
A curious lack of communication
Would puzzle at first
Then the huge concrete conker
Would strike in waves
My face smashed
Into smithereens
A hollow residue
I, pathetic and cowering in the corner
Hands cupping biting shards
The remains of myself
Unable to conceal
contraband wounds

[freckle]

Wild Strawberries
Helen Dunmore

What I get, I bring home to you:
a dark handful, sweet-edged,
dissolving in one mouthful.

I bother to bring them for you
though they’re so quickly over,
pulpless, sliding to juice

a grainy rub on the tongue
and the taste’s gone. If you remember
we were in the woods at wild strawberry-time

and I was making a basket of dock-leaves
to hold what you’d picked,
but the cold leaves unplaited themselves

and slid apart, and again unplaited themselves
until I gave up and ate wild strawberries
out of your hands for sweetness.

I licked at your palm:
the little salt-edge there,
the tang of money you’d handled.

As we stayed in the woods, hidden,
we heard the sound system below us
calling the winners at Chepstow,
faint as the breeze turned.

The sun came out on us, the shade blotches
went hazel: we heard names
bubble like stock-doves over the woods

as jockeys in stained silks gentled
those sweat-dark, shuddering horses
down to the walk.

------------------------------------

[Stevie]

Freckle I love Demolition and Wild Strawberries, really original. Presumably Demolition is by Helen Dunmore as well?

Southern Softie, it's good to be freed from the shackles of 17 syllables and the 5-7-5 construction! I think the ability to use less syllables is just as good as being able to use more. E.g. I wanted to use "heavy sky" in connection with the weight of the wind, but it doesn't fit.

[Stevie]

Going on from "Demolition" I have been waiting for an opportunity to post this, hope nobody else has posted it in the pages I missed.

Funeral Blues

Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone,
Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone,
Silence the pianos and with muffled drum
Bring out the coffin, let the mourners come.

Let aeroplanes circle moaning overhead
Scribbling on the sky the message He is Dead.
Put crepe bows round the white necks of the public doves,
Let the traffic policemen wear black cotton gloves.

He was my North, my South, my East and West,
My working week and my Sunday rest,
My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song;
I thought that love would last forever: I was wrong.

The stars are not wanted now; put out every one,
Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun,
Pour away the ocean and sweep up the woods;
For nothing now can ever come to any good.

W.H.Auden

[southernsoftie]

This is really interesting southern softie...i have to confess i never count the syllables as I don't like to feel confined by the process which is why mine are probably not proper haiku's but I think each to their own!

Well that's just the point: the syllables don't matter, so they are proper.

Having said that, a lot of the ones on here are lacking the seasonal reference and sometimes have more than one caesura, so a connoisseur might quibble.

Literal strictures gone,
Freed minds.
No more doubt over structure.

[southernsoftie]

Freckle I love Demolition and Wild Strawberries, really original. Presumably Demolition is by Helen Dunmore as well?

Southern Softie, it's good to be freed from the shackles of 17 syllables and the 5-7-5 construction! I think the ability to use less syllables is just as good as being able to use more. E.g. I wanted to use "heavy sky" in connection with the weight of the wind, but it doesn't fit.

Why don't you try another version now the shackles are off?

[sheep]

it's good to be freed from the shackles of 17 syllables and the 5-7-5 construction! I think the ability to use less syllables is just as good as being able to use more. E.g. I wanted to use "heavy sky" in connection with the weight of the wind, but it doesn't fit.

since feeling is first
who pays any attention
to the syntax of things
will never wholly kiss you