Thursday, July 25, 2013

Carpe Diem's Little Ones #1



Dear Haijin, visitors and travelers,

I recieved a question of Maggie Grace and she asked me if it was possible to make a new feature on Carpe Diem about one liners and other shorter verses then haiku. So I love to introduce a new feature ... (drum-roll) I give you ... CARPE DIEM LITTLE ONES ... As the name says it's all about little ones ... shorter forms of haiku. E.g Pi-ku, One-Line haiku (Monoku) or the Modern way of haiku.

What's a Pi-ku?

Pi-ku is a haiku form based on the mathematical number Pi, it's value is 3,14 this value is seen in the three lines: 1st = 3 syllables; 2nd = 1 syllable and 3rd = 4 syllables. I will give an example:

the sun rises
the heat
already tangible


Several days ago I published a Carpe Diem Freestyle episode in which I shared another Pi-ku. Bjorn of Rudberg's Writings stated in a comment on that episode "maybe it's possible to use more digits of the Pi number".
First I thought ... that isn't possible, but I think it's worth a try. So I sought on the Internet for all the digits of Pi and I came with the next (short) value: 3,14159 26535 89793 23846 ... and the digits go on and on, everlasting ...

Let us try to make a Pi-ku with the above digits in red (3,14159) the lines of the Pi-ku and the syllables-count would become the following:

1st line 3 syllables; 2nd line 1 syllable; 3rd line 4 syllables; 4th line 1 syllable; 5th line 5 syllables and the 6th line would be 9 syllables. To me this sounds great and will be for sure a challenge. So let me try to make my Pi-ku longer with those new lines and their syllables-count:

the sun rises
the heat
already tangible
mist
spirals above the stream
another day starts in mysterious ways


I like this way of making the Pi-ku a longer poem, maybe you, my dear friends, can make an even longer Pi-ku ... just have to try it.




Modern haiku?


Modern haiku are not so different from the haiku, but the syllables count isn't important in that modern form and the lay-out of a verse looks sometimes different, more playfull. For example this one by (c) Bill Pauly :

divorce -
        she
            nueters her dog


Or e.g. this one by (c) Emily Romano :

cowboyyellonghornery

Another example of a modern haiku:

gonggoinggone   in

(c) Peter Yovu

Not really my style, but it is very funny to play with haiku and the form. For the One-Line haiku you can read the Carpe Diem Lecture .

Of course there will be other forms of haiku, maybe you know another one, well ... share it with us all here on Carpe Diem. There are so much other ways to write haiku. As you all know I am a big fan of Basho's Kanshicho-style in which the syllables count isn't anymore a rule. That style is more in the line of the Western haiku form.

This new feature is bi-weekly online and this is our first episode. This episode will be online 'til August 8th 11.59 AM (CET) and I will post our new episode of 'Little Ones' later on that day around 8.00 PM (CET).
Well ... have fun with this new feature and I am looking forward to all of your wonderful posts.

Namaste




5 comments:

  1. thank you Maggie Grace and Kristjaan for bringing in something new and fun. :)

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  2. An interesting and fun new challenge. I'm not sure I got the right Pi however ;)

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  3. Oh thank you so much, Kristjaan! It's funny because most of my life people called me Little One because I'm only 4'10" (stretching it now that age has made me a bit smaller). Also love the playfulness of adding more Pi numbers. Of course that would come from Bjorn :) I love what you wrote. Not so easy to have a coherent flowing thought especially with the 3-1-4 which I did play with once.

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  4. As I hit "send" I realized I blew the second line...
    but "flood" doesn't seem to fit...sigh.
    Will keep thinking on it.
    And do better next time !

    Peace
    Siggi

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  5. Pi-Ku, Haynaku and reverse Haynaku are among my favorites. This will be additional fun. Thank you, Kris and Maggie Grace!!

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