Dear Haijin, visitors and travelers,
I had some spare time so here is another episode of my gift to you. In this special Luster feature I take you back to several special features we had here at CDHK. This time I have chosen to bring you a "reprise" of "Perpetuum Mobile" (or perpetual movement), that special feature about "movement in haiku". This special feature was the "trigger" to create Undou (movement) as a Haiku Writing Technique in our second CD-HWT series.
A while ago (somewhere in July 2015) I introduced CD Perpetuum Mobile to you. A special feature about movement in our beloved haiku. Movement? What is movement? How do I catch movement in my haiku? To catch movement in your haiku you can try movement as in "driving a car" or "the swirling of autumn leaves", but movement can also be "the change of seasons" or "the erosion of pebbles through water or sand". All examples of movement. To catch movement in a haiku is not easy, because sometimes it can look artificial and that, my dear Haijin, is something you and I don't want to see/read in our haiku.
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| Logo of Carpe Diem's Perpetuum Mobile" |
Haiku is the poetry of nature and nature is always in motion. Seasons come and go, the moon changes every 28 days and so on, the only thing which is steady and without clear motion is our sun, that big star of our Milky Way around which the planets are rotating.
Nature is always moving and so it's like a perpetuum mobile. As I look at haiku on it self than haiku is always changing too. As long as haiku exists the rules of writing them have changed like the waves, they have come and go and come again. So our beloved haiku is a perpetuum mobile in it's pure form I think.
seasons come and go
the everlasting motion of nature -
perpetuum mobile
© Chèvrefeuille
A haiku must be fluid, it has to flow, but how can we bring that fluid, that flow into haiku? I think the only way to do that is being one with the scene, the moment, we have to describe in our haiku, but ... I can almost hear you think "haiku is an impression" as I love to call it.
Maybe you can remember our first series of Haiku Writing Techniques or our Impressionism month in which I stated that haiku is an impression, a surprise, but if we look at haiku that way and we have to bring movement into our haiku than we cannot be non-artificial, but still ... This sounds like a
koan, that Zen question that enlightens you as you find the unexpected answer, the unexpected deeper meaning and beauty of your haiku.
Most haiku can be seen/read as such a koan, because you describe a moment as short as the sound of a pebble thrown into water that touched you and gave you a kind of insight ... or maybe a revelation.
dew drops shimmer
on colorful leaves
rainbows sparkle
© Chèvrefeuille
Do you see/read the movement? The light of the sun, the shimmering dew drops in which rainbows sparkle, and those colorful leaves making the sensational movement even better.
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| "dancing" autumn leaves |
Or what do you think of this one, from my archives:
waterfall of colors
leaves whirl through the street -
departing summer
© Chèvrefeuille (2012)
In this haiku the movement, the motion is very clear present "leaves whirl through the street" ... all movement. Haiku becomes very lively through using movement ... so try it sometimes ... or just now.
Haiku is the poetry of the moment ... it is the beauty of that moment and that moment, as you all know, is as short as the sound of a pebble thrown into water. Just an eye-blink, a heart beat ... And if you would bring that short moment into haiku there is no movement at all. Haiku is a static response on that short moment. You catch the moment and that is it.
As we bring "movement" into our haiku, than it's no longer a static scene, but than it's a dynamic scene. The scene is no longer a short moment (like the pebble), but it becomes a longer, bigger, broader scene.
Because "movement" is not longer an eye-blink or a heartbeat.
That's why this idea of "movement" in haiku intrigues me. Why bring that dynamic into haiku? I think ... dynamics make the haiku more lively, more exciting ... catching movement in haiku is in my opinion awesome. Dynamics caught in three lines ... wow.
As I am writing this reprise post about "perpetuum mobile" (perpetual movement) that famous haiku "frog pond" by Basho comes in mind. As Basho created that haiku he did something else than everyone before him. Everyone before him used frogs in their poetry because of their croaking and not because of their movement.
old pond
frog jumps in
water sound
© Basho (Tr. Chèvrefeuille)
In that famous haiku by Basho lays the birth of "undou" (movement), that HWT I created. "
Undou" (movement) however is more than only the movement of a frog. It's the movement of nature, of our world, movement that is everlasting like a "perpetuum mobile" and that, my dear Haijin, visitors and travelers, is why I created "undou" (movement) as a new haiku writing technique.
apple blossom falls
scattered by the late spring breeze
apple blossom falls
© Chèvrefeuille
This is "undou", this is movement.
The goal of this feature is trying to catch the perpetual motion of the seasons, of nature, the "undou" of nature. I challenge you to catch movement in your haiku.
This episode is
NOW OPEN for your submissions and will remain open until next Saturday June 10th at noon (CET). No prompt, no theme ... just the challenge to creat haiku (only haiku) in which you use this "undou", this idea of "perpetual movement". Have fun! (This "gift" episode is built from two other posts I have once written here at CDHK).
