notes to myself keimyaku journal spring ku ku ka chu summer's song leaving winter sail haiga connections Kate's bio |
| late winter 2007 |
| (c) 2000 ~ 2006 Kate Creighton Send me comments |
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| briefly... Haiku is as simple as dirt yet as mysterious as the night sky. It's brevity resembles the fleeting existence of everything. The idea is to capture nature and human nature interacting and to express that vision in one breath. It is the spirit of haiku that is important. Yes, 5 syllables, then 7, then 5 syllables again is the expected haiku format that we all learned in school. But the original 5-7-5 applied to the Japanese language, and to sound units, or onji, not what we call syllables. The Japanese masters, ancient and current, strive for 5-7-5; it's like a ritual. Many westerners still use the 5-7-5 format. When it works, it creates a classic haiku. When it doesn't work it turns into a crowded, redundant short poem. Keeping a haiku under 17 syllables seems to work best. Anything more than 17 and the poem becomes something other than haiku. Capture the moment, put it in words as briefly and accurately as possible, and then let it go. Basho said "master technique, then forget it". |
| close to haiku... a moment too breathtaking to let slip away without words |
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