winter morning meditation -
the mind crawls along
carpet patterns
|
Sitting on my Chinese silk carpet in winter,
keeps the bottom warm but .......................
alternative haiku versionsmeditating in winter -
the mind crawls along
carpet patterns
morning meditation -
the meditating mind crawls
along carpet patterns
After toying a bit with my photoshop, I came up with another version.... :o)
..... LOOK HERE ! .....::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
... My Asian Haiku Travelogue ... ... Meditation (dhyana) and haiku :::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
Carpet, Rug .. juutan dantsuu
KIGO FOR ALL WINTER How many details in a haiku?(June 2009)In Japanese, I learned to pack in as much as possible into the 5 7 5 pattern. It should paint a clear picture for the reader to enable him/her to be there with me and enjoy the situation with me. So I do not want to produce a riddle which gets the logical mind of the reader trying to figure out the basics and thus loose me in my moment of the image.
In the above haiku, winter morning meditation ... truely a bit long
BUT
meditation ... this word alone would get the reader into a general mood, philosophizing about meditation in general.
morning meditation ... now the reader can be with me, still half asleep, hungry before breakfast, but at least listening the the birdsong in the morning.
winter morning ... now the reader can be with me sitting in a cold atmosphere, being mostly miserably shivering with bare feet ... have you ever been to a Japanese temple on a cold winter morning, sitting with bare feet ?
Basho tells us about an old pond and a frog, all very clear and simple.
Or about a crow on a branch in autumn, nothing spectacular, but very clear.
morning meditation ...
the mind crawls along
carpet patterns
In English language haiku, things are different ... from minimalist to one line to five lines, the form is not a guideline any more ...
without kigo, so we do not know wheather to feel hot or cold within the given situation ...
and many riddles and ambiguities are presented to jumpstart the logic and take us away from a clear picture ...
So I am back to my problem,
how many details should we pack into an English language haiku so that the reader is able to share our situation at the first reading?
and maybe add a short footnote to take care of cultural differences that are indeed particular to our area?
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Read a discussion of this problem by
Alan SummersHi Gabi!
>> winter morning meditation ...
>> the mind crawls along
>> carpet patterns
>>
>> When I wrote this, it had not occured to me to check for a better
>> kigo, only later did I find that CARPET was a winter kigo.
I think it's okay to have two kigo because this is an English-language haiku, and many of us would not think of carpet as a purely winter image and indicator of a season.
>> How many details should we put in a haiku?
Put as many as you can and then start eliminating them and only stop when it either doesn't make sense or it's a 'so what haiku'.
>> Haiku is not for you only, but to share with others. So your haiku
>> must be understandable at first reading ... that is what my Japanese
>> teacher told me many times.
There's the nub of it, what your teacher said stands not only for haiku but for poetry as a whole. It's a good template to start with.
>> In the above haiku, winter morning meditation ... truely a bit long
>> morning meditation ...
>> the mind crawls along
>> carpet patterns
For me this loses the power of your original haiku. If the poem was put into Japanese it might work with carpet as a winter kigo, but in English, this isn't the ooomph of your original poem.
>> In English language haiku, things are different ... from minimalist
>> to one line to five lines, the form is not a guideline any more ...
>> without kigo, so we do not know whether to feel hot or cold within
>> the given situation ...
Good points, which is why I feel the word 'winter' needs to stay. In the west 'winter' has so many connotations, from Wenceslas and Viking songs, to the Green Man, Santa, Christmas presents, even Coca Cola (as they invented the current Santa) to Victorian times and Charles Dickens to cold brutal times of war and starvation.
Without the word 'winter' I just feel a lot of readers might feel it's just someone doing meditation and being distracted by a bit of carpet pattern.
>> So I am back to my problem,
>> how many details should we pack into an English language haiku
>> so that the reader is able to share our situation
>> at the first reading?
I think you cracked it with the version you posted first of all.
>> and maybe add a short footnote to take care of cultural differences
>> that are indeed particular to our area?
I think a footnote would be overkill, but it might be interesting for some readers, especially if you brought out a book.
This could be an intriguing haiku to use for one of the problems of using
kigo. It sounds like a good chapter for that book Gabi! ;-)
Alan
http://www.withwords.org.ukThank you so much, Alan!
But NO, no book in the near future!
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Some more friends shared their views.
"Details that inform, rather than imply and evoke, should generally be excluded or excised."
B.
"but the whole point of choosing cues is to choose cues that both inform and invoke, like space and negative space
frogs in a pond denote and connote and suggest
and they are transformed in their absence into sounds
all suggestive, all implying levels of evocation that move out like the rings in the pond when you skip a smooth stone across it
details both palpable and evocative, both definitive and metaphorical
storms below, the milky way and galaxies above and beyond"
I.
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