Elina - Week 10: Haiku
I remember writing my first haiku in third grade, sitting outside on the blacktop looking for some particular part of scenery to admire in my poem. The cliche words I used to describe the frosty wind blowing on my nose and the trees swaying in the background did not paint a beautiful image at all. In hopes of creating a vivid image of a flower patch, something that I felt actually represented the beauty of nature, I used illustrative–or at least what third grade me thought was illustrative–words that captured the image in my mind.
My shallow words could never beat the masters of the haiku. Simple everyday words that seemed abnormal to use in the circumstance evoked the exact feelings that the author intended. The simplicity and complexity in a successful haiku never failed to amaze me. From the accurately descriptive words to a dramatically simple concept, the poems I read online were filled with life.
The power of having the same words available, but being able to create a poem with more depth is the power of a poet. The strict guidelines of a haiku were often broken to fit the exact vision of the poet. The layers of meaning hid beneath one another, unless inspected by a reader with thorough detail.
In addition to the haiku, Shakespearean sonnets are also a powerful work of art that may have strict patterns and syllable counts, but one that holds much cultural significance. The power of not only being able to express your thoughts but also being able to show the different cultural meanings is held by poets who wish to keep the past alive and live in the present.
Hi Elina,
ReplyDeleteSimilar to you, I also remember having a lot of experiences writing haikus and other poetry styles in elementary school. I remember the classic “5-7-5” nature of haiku poems, in which the syllables follow a very strictly defined pattern. However, a lot of the rest of the poem was left to your own creativity and imagination, allowing you to explore various possibilities for your poem. At the time, I didn’t have a very good appreciation for poetry, and haiku in particular, since I found it to be redundant and boring, because of the aforementioned pattern of syllables. Even more, I probably didn’t like poetry at all at that age, and had little appreciation for the various creative aspects of myself that had been invoked by poetry. Furthermore, the only time I ever got interested in poetry was at my old school in 10th grade, where my English teacher made the entire class compose a portfolio of poetry that involved many different types. Often, we modelled various major poems by famous poets in our own words but using their styles. I found this really interesting, because it allowed me to follow a given format while also incorporating my own creativity.
-Ritwik
Hi Elina! I love your style of writing! I don’t know how to explain it but it just sounds very elegant and sophisticated, which I think is created by your choice of adjectives and details! I hope to be able to write like you one day! I liked how you started your blog with a personal story. The details made me feel almost as if I was sitting outside on the blacktop with you, trying to think of words for the haiku that I am writing while embracing nature! I agree with your point that the simplicity and complexity that exists in the haiku at the same time is what makes it so compelling. It’s also unique that in haikus, the author can break strict guidelines to fit the exact version of the poet! Shakespearean sonnets are also cool because they are beautiful to read and hold so much cultural significance like you stated! Your haiku “The Flower” was lovely to read!
ReplyDeleteHi Elina! I love how you begin with a small anecdote on your third grade self’s attempts at a haiku. For what it’s worth, I think the haiku is quite descriptive—for a third grader, that is. Tying into your topic about the constructs of poetry, I feel like literature is meant to break boundaries instead of following them, despite the strict and unalterable nature of some poems like haikus and sonnets, as you mentioned.
ReplyDeleteThen again, I believe such binding constructs to be regulatory in separating what’s art and what is not. Take the duct taped banana, for example. I’m sure there’s somebody who interprets it as art, though a vast majority likely do not. That’s probably because a taped banana likely does not fit our mind’s image of a work of art. As such, what’s art to one, may not be art to another. In a way, the more “organized”—for the lack of a better word—forms of poetry are the more tame, traditional forms of literature while the more modern forms of poetry and freestyle verses are the more daring or risqué forms of literature.
Hi Elina! I don’t have a lot of experience writing poetry, and when I do I similarly always struggle with finding the right words that might magically give words to my feelings and mental imagery. However, I love reading it because of its ability to capture the essence of life in so relatively few words. I agree with you in that we all have the same words available to us–the most beautiful haikus are the ones that show the fullest extent of those words, crafted into something new and wonderful that resonate vividly with the reader (without the reader having to search words in a dictionary). It reminds me of a line in The Inheritance Games book series by Jennifer Lynn Barnes (which I was recently rereading) in which one of the characters, Grayson, says that because there is a strict limit of only seventeen syllables, the words chosen have “to be perfect”–“it has to mean something.” The amount of structure makes haikus even more impressive because every one I read is somehow original, representing a different facet of life. Even from reading your old poem, I could definitely picture a field of flower patches–perhaps even big enough to run through. I love how you emphasize how art of any kind, whether it be haikus or Shakespearean sonnets, works to freeze our memories of the past while also keeping us in the present, instead of just one or the other, in order to preserve our culture and humanity. This is an art form I’d definitely like to learn more about to be able to evoke the feelings of my own readers. Thank you for sharing!
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