Reflections on Mandolin Haiku

[fatt-dad]

What I really like about the mandolin Haiku thread is the conspicous absence of narrative. That said, there are items of prose that I really want to comment on.

I just can't believe that dmarie knows a story of a fiddle found in a ditch. I'm working on a construction project right now and the construction supervisor (fine mandolin player) found a fiddle in a ditch - who would have thought this summer I heard about two such stories (this one in Virginia). He set the sound post, strung it up and played it. That said, the neck twisted and while it still plays is nothing to be too proud of. He says he'll give it to the fatt-dad home for orphen stringed instruments.

That's all I have to say. I'll continue to try my hand at haiku, but if the mods don't mind, every once and awhile I/we can use this thread for related comment.

fatt not-really-a-poet dad

[Jim MacDaniel]

I still enjoy Haiku thread a great deal. I especially love its breadth of topics, and I realize after reading Fatt-Dad's post at the top of this thread, that this is due in no small part to its lack of narrative. #

Even though I am now far less prolific than in the past, I still find myself going back to that thread on a regular basis to read the musings, witticisms, observations, and stories that other "poets of the perfect fifth" have posted there.

[B. T. Walker]

Mandolin haiku has been my favorite thread. More than a quarter of my total posts are to this thread. I have so little to offer to offer the cafe community because I'm not a seasoned, professional mandolinist. So many others say it so much better, but on this thread I've felt free to express myself.

Thank you jimmacd (until recently mad dawg) for starting the thread.

Don't worry fatt-dad -- you're still mando haiku king. Post another soon.

[Dena Haselwander]

Mandolin haiku combines two of my personal calming therapies: music and poetry. In the case of the "ditched" violin, writing the haiku calmed me down sufficiently so that the obligatory outraged call to the parents was much less inflammatory than it might have been. The boy is still in orchestra, but now playing a beat up junker violin instead of the nice one. I truly enjoy reading all the haikus, glimpsing how others see their lives through poetry.


Dena

[fatt-dad]

I still remain blown away that here in Virginia another fiddle was found in a ditch - now a banjo, that I'd understand - ha.

Have any of you all ever done a google of "haiku" and looked at the haiku resources? It's interesting.

As an aside, were it not for the mandolin cafe, I'd never known about haiku. Soon thereafter though, my daughter learned about it in class, which is when I learned the "rules". I really didn't even know what I was reading when I first saw the musings of this group.

f-d

[Jim MacDaniel]

I never thought to google "haiku" before, but here are a few intersting hits I received just now:

"Haiku for people" (an online Haiku community)

HaikuNews.org's web site

"The Haiku Circus" (In today's edition, "Family Circus" meets Haiku

A random Haiku-generator (hosted on Indiana University's computer science web site)

And before today, I've never heard of the "Haiku" computer OS...

[fatt-dad]

Some of the links posted by Jim I too stumbled across - not that first one though! I like reading about the "sprit" of the haiku and had no idea that reference (even oblique) to the season was an integril (sp) part of the process. So, what defines season? We're now in the football season, which somewhat overlaps the beginning of the feeding season, not to be confused by season's greatings - ha.

f-d

[deadsilver]

If I may shed some light on the subject...

In the modern sense, haikus do not need to focus on nature, have three lines, or even seventeen syllables.

In the original Japanese, haikus are built with a combination of syllabic hiragana to make up seventeen syllables in three lines or less; most poets adhered to the strict five-seven-five pattern that is still popular today. They also contained a kigo (a word that indicated a season of the year) as well as a kireji (the cutting word, or crux of the haiku).

In modern times, haikus have branched outward, notably in the field of senryu: a form similar to the haiku but which focused on dark, humorous, human irony and did not always contain a kigo. In the western world, many poets mistakenly believe that their poems must contain a pattern of five-seven-five; however, because of the structure of the English language, that number of syllables tends to make the haikus "bulky" or even "unpolished." Kireji are the most commonly dropped piece because that sort of word does not naturally exist in our language to my knowledge, yet kireji are oft synthesized by conjunctions and punctuation.

For example:

Bare feet like leather
on frozen cement. Today
is gray, but too bright.

You see there is both a kigo (frozen) and kireji (gray, but) however the five-seven-five syllables have made the poem feel heavy, and not as cleanly illuminating as it could have been.

Again, an example:

Looking at her,
low-cut blouse, perfect lips...
my shirt is stained.

In the senryu above does not contain a kigo, but it does contain a synthetic kireji (lips...). You can feel the embarrassment of the narrator as he realizes that he has been staring at a beautiful woman while his own appearance is disheveled.

Last one, I promise:

Above the boat,
bellies
of wild geese.

This is for the most part perfect. Translated from Japanese master Kikaku (1661-1707), this is clean, specific, and with the softest touch, he is able to paint the ENTIRE image of the narrators vision.

So, when we write "haikus" here, I encourage everyone to break from the syllabic structure that does not directly apply to the english language. Good luck!

[Ted Eschliman]

Speak volumes--few words.
Brevity, the soul of wit.
Love Haiku's mute sense.

[Mike Bromley]

The one that gets me howling (off topic): Google "Leprosy Haiku".

I think that some of our own mandokus are brilliant beyond compare. Quite a bunch.