Carpe Diem Writing and Enjoying Haiku #3 classical haiku

!! Open for your submissions next Sunday July 23rd at 7.00 PM (CET) !!

Dear Haijin, visitors and travelers,

It's almost weekend and that means ... time for a new episode of our "weekend-meditation" feature. This weekend I have a nice episode for you of "Carpe Diem Writing and Enjoying Haiku", inspired on the book by Jane Reichhold (1937-2016).
In the last episode of "Writing and Enjoying Haiku" you had to create haiku without rules, this time, I love to challenge you to create haiku following the rules, the most basic rules of haiku. You may choose your own theme, but you have to follow the following rules:

1. A kigo seasonword)
2. A kireji (cutting-word or punctuation)
3. 5-7-5 syllables (onji)
4. The theme is nature
5. A spiritual, Zen-Buddhistic layer / meaning
6. First and Third line are interchangeable
7. In your haiku you may not use "I", because in haiku the poet isn't visible

All rules ... you (we) have to follow, but as Basho once said "forget the rules". Well for this episode of Writing and Enjoying Haiku you (we) cannot forget the rules.

As you all (maybe) know I am not a haiku poet that follows the rules, I am more like Santoka Taneda and try to create my haiku in the "free-style" way. So this challenge will not be easy for me, but of course I had to give it a try and created this haiku following the rules:

a fragile cobweb
dressed in crystalline dewdrops
treasure at sunrise

© Chèvrefeuille

Pff ... that wasn't easy. In my opinion this is a nice haiku, but it looks somewhat artificial, but after re-reading I had to change my opinion. It has become a real nice haiku. I think all the "rules" are in it, but about the Zen-Buddhistic layer I am not sure. What do you think?

This "weekend-meditation" is open for your submissions next Sunday July 23rd at 7:00 PM (CET) and will remain open until July 28th at noon (CET). I will try to publish our next episode, dunes, also around 7:00 PM (CET) next Sunday. Have a great weekend!

Carpe Diem Sparkling Stars #22, Basho's "where the hototogisu is singing".

Dear Haijin, visitors and travelers,

A new episode of Sparkling Stars is ahead of us and this week I have chosen to share a haiku by Basho, as a way of preparation for our upcoming month. The haiku which I will share here comes from his world wide known haibun Oku no Hosomichi (The Narrow Road to the Deep North).

here is the context of this beauty, this sparkling star:

From here, I went to see the Death Stone. The Deputy sent me there on horseback, and the man who led the horse asked me for a tanzaku (a strip of thin cardboard, on which a verse is to be written). I was moved with admiration at his request, and composed the following verse ...

no wo yoko ni uma hikimuke yo hototogisu

riding over the summer moor, -
"ah! lead the horse that way!"
where the hototogisu is singing

© Basho (Tr. R.H. Blyth)

The pleasant thing about this is the way in which Basho shows indifference to where he is going, an to everything in fact but the cry of the bird. This is the artist and the poet, far above time and place, enduring all things for that moment when the song of the bird breaks out again.

(By the way the hototogisu is looking very similar to the cuckoo).
(For more information on the Death Stone)

Credits: Death Stone

Isn't it a beauty? In this one I see the master hand of Basho .... he catches the essence of the scene in three lines with perfectly chosen words. Basho was in his time a well known poet and he was invited to a lot of houses of the rich and poor, he had never complains. In this scene described above we also see how a haiku poet gives his poem to others. he/she will never do that without asking. And that's the strength of haiku.

The goal of the Sparkling Stars feature is to try to compose another haiku in the same spirit as the one given following the classical rules, as you can find in the CD-Lecture above or in our Haiku Writing Techniques e-book, chapter 10)

I wasn't inspired enough to compose an all new haiku, but maybe I will come up with something later than I will share it with you.

This CD Sparkling Stars episode is open for your submissions at noon (CET) and will remain open until April 25th at noon (CET). Have fun!

Carpe Diem Ask Jane #10, 5-7-5

Dear Haijin, visitors and travelers,

It has been a while ago that we had an episode of our "Ask Jane" feature, but I had the idea that it was worth asking Jane about the 5-7-5 discussion we have had in our last GW-post. So I have asked Jane about the 5-7-5 syllables count in haiku. And here is her answer.

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Dear Jane,

As you maybe have seen we have a discussion at Carpe Diem Haiku Kai about the syllables count in haiku (and tanka). Would you please tell us something more about this "rule" for haiku (and tanka). How came this syllables count into haiku and tanka, is it that strict to follow it?

As you know I am not a big fan of the counting of syllables, because I think that the 5-7-5 and the 5-7-5-7-7 onji, as used in the classical Japanese poems can't be used in Western haiku and tanka.

I am looking forward to your answer.

Namaste,

Kristjaan

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Dear Kristjaan.

I think the 5 - 7 - 5 rule becomes a problem when one adopts this as a rule. When the haiku, or tanka comes to mind, we are used to checking to see if the line is too long and if it is, finding shorter, or less, words. This is a good use of the rule in my opinion. However when one begins to add words to make a line have five or seven syllables, the poem often becomes what has been called "padded" - words or even ideas are added just to make the line have a certain number of syllables. This practice causes the poems to feel artificial or to contain too much information.

We need to keep in mind that our syllables, in Dutch or English, are longer than the Japanese sound units by about 1/3. When we use 17 syllables in our poems it is almost impossible to get all that information into 17 sound units of Japanese. If we wish for our haiku to be more like the Japanese, we need to use fewer syllables in our language. When we add syllables, to make a poem have 17 syllables, it is even worse and harder to translate into another language.

I think it is best if one tries this for one's self on your own haiku that seem less than perfect to you. Try taking words out of your poem, to say what you are thinking more simply, to be more direct with common words on one subject. Remember that if you are following the 5 - 7 - 5 rule YOU have made this rule and it is a good thing to give yourself permission to break it. Try writing haiku with as few words as possible and still keep your original thought. You will know when it feels right.

I hope this helps.

Jane

Jane Reichhold

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As I stated in the last GW-post "feel free to use the 5-7-5 rule, but try some times to break it".

Do you have a question for Jane? Than please feel free to email your question to our Ask Jane email-address:

carpediemhaikukaiaskjane@gmail.com

Have a great week!

Carpe Diem Ghost Writer #42, 5-7-5 not easy

Dear Haijin, visitors and travelers,

As I was preparing yesterday's post I ran through older posts and I encountered a question by Birgitta of Crazy Art - Photo and Poetry. She asked that question a while ago and I had promised to write a post about it. Until today it had slipt my attention, but today I will try to fulfill my promise. Birgitta her question was about the 5-7-5 syllables rule of haiku. This will not be an easy post, because (as you all know), I am not a fan of the 5-7-5 syllables.

In ancient Japan the common rule was to write haiku in one line (mostly vertical) which was cut in three parts. Every "part" followed the idea of 5-7-5 "onji" or "sound-units". Japanese is a wonderful language which is based on sound as I have explained in our Haiku Writing Techniques chapter 2 "onomatopoeia". a Haiku Writing Technique which is especially for languages based on sounds.

As haiku became more known in the western world we have sought for the right way to translate the Japanese haiku in to our western languages, but the most western languages aren't based on sounds. So western scholars choose to follow the 5-7-5 onji rule by translating it into 5-7-5 syllables, however that made it almost impossible for several languages (including e.g. Dutch). In that time as we westerners started to translate first and later wrote our own haiku the most haiku following the 5-7-5 syllables became artificial, and were called "counted verses".

Every language has its own rules for syllables. In English the rules for syllables are different than e.g. in Dutch or Swedish ... so it's not easy to use the 5-7-5 syllables rule. Several scholars, e.g. Jane Reichhold, introduced the alternative way of composing haiku by bringing up the idea of "a haiku is a poem with three lines following the sequence short-long-short. Others started to bring another way of counting syllables e.g. 3-5-3 syllables, which is more easy to compose.

As you all know I am not a fan of the strict syllables count mostly because of the idea that it is to structured for me and gives to less freedom to compose my haiku ... and becoming artificial. There are several haiku poets of our times who started with that 5-7-5 idea, but during their growth as a haiku poet they more and more got rid of the 5-7-5 rule.
To start with haiku it's ok to use that 5-7-5 rule, but try to loose it after a while, more or less syllables will not harm your haiku ... and it gives you more freedom to compose haiku from your heart. In my opinion using the 5-7-5 rule is really artificial and more with your mind, your brain, and I think poetry has nothing to do with artificiality or your brain. Maybe this is a pure western thought, but I think we, westerners, have re-formed haiku to our western way of thinking, living and so on.

I think we have to let go the 5-7-5 rule and have to try writing haiku as westerners. It's not a "sin" if you don't use the 5-7-5 rule, it's more a blessing to become free of that rule .... it makes haiku (in my opinion) even better and stronger.
Of course that choice is yours. If you love to write your haiku in the 5-7-5 sequence .... than feel free to do so, but it is no obligation. Maybe writing haiku in the 5-7-5 way is a new challenge, to me it is for sure a challenge and not only because of my ideas about, but also because of the fact that I am not familiar enough with the syllables-rules in English.

This was our GW-post for this week and I have a challenge for you all .... Try to write a haiku with the above mentioned 3-5-3 syllables option, a haiku with the 5-7-5 syllables option and a third haiku in the "free-style" as we saw e.g. in the haiku by Santoka Taneda.

Here are my three haiku:

sunflowers
stretch out to the summer sky -
a dog barks

© Chèvrefeuille

As I "count" the syllables of the second line following the Dutch rules, than that line has 7 syllables, but in English the syllables-count is 5 ...

Now I will try to write a haiku following the classical count of 5-7-5 syllables, an oldie:

finally dreams become true
just one peaceful spring night -
blossoms of cherry bloom

© Chèvrefeuille

And finally I will try to write a haiku in the "free-style":

at sunrise
poppies still redder
sacrifice for God

© Chèvrefeuille

Well ... I hope this GW-post has given you all an idea of the 5-7-5 rule and I hope to read wonderful haiku written by you all in response on this GW-post.

This episode is open for your submissions tonight at 7.00 PM (CET) and will remain open until April 10th at noon (CET). I will try to publish our new episode, the second CD Special by Kala Ramesh, later on.

Carpe Diem "Sparkling Stars" #12, Tranströmer's "Inner Voice"

Dear Haijin, visitors and travelers,

It's time for a new episode of CD's Sparkling Stars feature in which I share haiku written by classical or non-classical haiku poets for your inspiration. This episode I love to introduce to you all our featured haiku-poet of November, Tomas Tranströmer (1931-). (You can find our new prompt-list in the above menu).

Tomas Tranströmer (born Stockholm, Sweden,15 April 1931) is a Swedish writer, poet and translator, whose poetry has been translated into over 60 languages. Tranströmer is acclaimed as one of the most important European and Scandinavian writers since World War II. Critics have praised Tranströmer’s poems for their accessibility, even in translation; his poems capture the long Swedish winters, the rhythm of the seasons and the palpable, atmospheric beauty of nature. He was awarded the 2011 Nobel Prize in Literature.

I have to tell you that I had never heard of him until last year. I read an article about him in the magazine of the Dutch Haiku Circle (Dutch Haiku Association). That article was about Swedish and Scandinavian haiku poets and in that article Tranström was mentioned. Not so long ago Björn Rudberg brought Tranströmer to my attention. So ... well it's faith I think, I had to do something with Tranström. I decided to make him our featured haiku poet for November.

Tomas Tranströmer (1931-)

Here are a few haiku (haiku-like, American haiku) written/composed by him:

up along the slopes
under the sun – the goats
were grazing on fire.

on the balcony
standing in a cage of sunbeams –
like a rainbow

something has happened.
the moon lit up the room.
God knew about it.

hear the sighing rain.
I whisper a secret, to reach
all the way in there.

a scene on the platform.
what a strange calm –
the inner voice

© Tomas Tranströmer

Ineer Voice

I adore his way of composing haiku or haiku-like poems. In his work you can find the strong religious feelings of him towards nature and God. I think that he had to be the Noble Prize Winner of Literature in 2011 ... his work is really awesome.

For this episode of CD's Sparkling Stars I love to challenge you to write a classical haiku based on "Inner Voice". So you have to follow the classical rules:

• 5-7-5 sylables
• a seasonword (kigo)
• a cutting word (kireji), mostly interpunction in Western haiku
• a moment as short as the sound of a pebble tthrown into water
• a deeper (spiritual/religious) meaning

I know it will not be an easy task, but ... you have a whole week to try. I (of course) have given it a try too. Here is my classical haiku inspired on "Inner Voice".

in deep silence
searching for the Inner Voice --
sound of temple bells

© Chèvrefeuille

I didn´t succeed in the given task myself ... it wasn´t easy to compose this haiku on `Inner Voice`, but it was a real joy to make it.

This episode of Sparkling Stars is open for your submissions at noon (CET) and will remain open until next Saturday November 8th at noon (CET). For now ... have fun!

Carpe Diem's "Only the first line ... " #5 "Under the Willow"

Dear Haijin, visitors and travelers,

Just a treat for your inspiration. A new episode of Carpe Diem's "only the first line". In this special feature the goal is to write a new haiku which starts with a given fîrst line.

For this episode of CD's "only the first line" I have chosen the next 'first line'. To make this a real challenge I have one 'rule' which you have to use.
Which one? Well ... the haiku has to follow the syllables-count 5-7-5, the classic rule.
The first line you have to use is:

"under the willow"

Have fun, be inspired and share your classical (counted) haiku starting with the above mentioned line with us all.

Here is my attempt:

under the willow
hiding for the midday-heat
newly wed couple

(c) Chèvrefeuille

Under the Willow

I hope you all did enjoy this 'little treat'. You can submit your haiku starting with the given first line and with the classic syllables-count until April 20th 11.59 AM (CET).

Namaste