A Post a Day in May #3: Haikus for spring

I have pledged to write a new post for this blog every day in May.

Playing with form is not only fun but great discipline for me as a writer. What depth of feeling and breadth of story can I tell when constricted by the standards of a specific form? For example: review a book in 300 words, a documentary in 500 words, or a blog post in about 400. It’s always a challenge, with results that vary from good to abject failure. But there is always enjoyment and appreciation in the trying. It’s a bit like scales for a piano player, I think: Out of the discipline of practice comes confidence in performance. 

Today, I offer some of that practice in the form of haiku. In its strictest most authentic version, “a traditional Japanese haiku is a three-line poem with seventeen syllables, written in a 5/7/5 syllable count. Often focusing on images from nature, haiku emphasizes simplicity, intensity, and directness of expression…” [Source: https://www.poets.org/poetsorg/text/haiku-poetic-form]

A classic example is by Matsuo Basho, who wrote this oft-cited haiku:

An old pond!

A frog jumps in—

the sound of water.

I make no pretension of having his mastery, but I do enjoy the challenge of the 5/7/5 pattern:

Spring One

5 Brown. Blue. Green. Warm. White.

7 Hidden under cover greens

5 Wait for sun’s return. 

Spring Two

5 Birds fly. Cats roam. Free.

7 Swoop. Leap. Freedom lost by one.

5 Our short sight to blame. 

Spring Three

5 The lake sleeps in ice. 

7 Season’s change brings openings

5 Shifts within the depths. 

It’s rather like doodling with words, I think — and way more fun than Sudoku, if you’re looking for brain calisthenics! 

Thanks for reading. 

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