haiku-usa

A blog devoted mainly to haiku and senryu and to thoughts about, and inspired by, haiku and senryu.

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Location: New York, New York

Haiku is to poetry as espresso is to coffee.

Thursday, May 19, 2005

May morning

May morning
a solitary goose
flies south

7 Comments:

Blogger Anonymous Poet said...

Lonely. Hopefully it will catch up to the pack.

7:29 PM  
Blogger Anonymous Poet said...

Also, I put up a short comment in response to your post. Thanks again for your comments. They are appreciated -- especially coming from someone who creates things that I enjoy!

7:30 PM  
Blogger floots said...

My heart goes where the wild goose goes - every time.

12:43 AM  
Blogger Anonymous Poet said...

Bill, I find it interesting that you started writing haiku relatively recently. (Although, as an academic, I imagine that you must have done a bit of writing before that). Based on some inspiration from a previous post by floots, I have put up a post on "Why I Write." I wonder if it might strike you at all.

9:31 PM  
Blogger Bill said...

ap: Thanks for calling your post to my attention. I'll certainly check it out. I was just struck by the sight, and I wrote the haiku, just as you see it, without even trying to decide what in the image spoke to me. I've thought about it since, but I don't claim my interpretation carries greater weight than that of any other reader. Attempts when I was younger to write poetry of any sort were aborted by the premature intrusion of my inner critic. I couldn't get to the second line without agonizing over the infinity of flaws I found in the first.
floots: As I think of it, this goose looked more determined than anything else.

3:54 PM  
Blogger Tara Tainton said...

Love the poems! They're like little treats as I surf the blogs through the major exchanges.

But remind me from my school days...what are the rules for drawing up a Haiku?? Thanks so much..

Tara

11:20 PM  
Blogger Bill said...

Tara: Thanks for your visit and your comment. The Haiku Society of America's approved definition of haiku: "A haiku is a short poem that uses imagistic language to convey the essence of an experience of nature or the season intuitively linked to the human condition." A recent article in the HSA's journal "Frogpond" includes this broader definition: "A haiku is a short poem that typically uses imagistic language to convey insight, connection, and/or wonder." By "short" both definitions point to a generally accepted maximum of 17 syllables, commonly distributed over three lines. Further, most haiku observe within the three-line format a two-part structure, in which the juxtaposition of the two parts is supposed to produce a spark of "insight, connection, and/or wonder." The point of division most often occurs at the end of the first or second line; in "May morning," for instance, the first line establishes the seasonal reference, while the next two lines develop the image of the goose in flight. If the haiku works, there's a kind of spark where the two parts meet. I've developed some of the formal points at greater length in earlier posts, identified as "Toward Definitions: First-10th Approximation." And I recommend you follow the link provided here to Aha!Poetry, where you'll find many of these matters developed systematically and at greater length. Hope you'll be dropping in again.

11:50 AM  

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