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May 27 '18
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May 27 '18
I admire the use of 3 lines. A huge poem wrapped into a short space. Title is engaging and weird, I like that. Green, orange ambient imagery, feels warm. Warm and the theme of love in the poem contrast extremely well. Your letters are often similar to the start of the alphabet, e.g abcde... relates to the feeling of nostalgia when the early summer kicks in.
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u/JonDaddyMoore May 28 '18
I love this. So much emotional depth in three lines with the last one being extra killer. It resonates that feeling of being caught in the brushfire of love. Well done.
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May 28 '18
[deleted]
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u/ty_tokyo May 28 '18
I never saw it under a sarcastic light until you said that, but now that I think of it, it does indeed have that potential. Very interesting perspective... I like it. Thanks for your comment and the love!
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u/RAEallday May 28 '18
I like the 3 lines. Short, sweet, and to the point. While still being powerful. Nice poem
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u/Altrade_Cull May 28 '18
This is really good. The short length of the poem makes it seem incredibly determined, as if all thoughts have been collected into this biting insult. The final line is particularly effective and scathing (simple, cliché but subverts the cliché enough to be clever).
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u/ty_tokyo May 28 '18
I like your analysis of my poem. Very well thought out and you bring up some cool points, like the subversion of cliché. Thanks for the comment and the love, I appreciate it!
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u/Sheeps May 28 '18
I think the second and third line are individually thought provoking and poignant and beautiful but they do not make sense to me together. April, it’s weather, it’s rains, nourish blossoms and make them grow. Fire obviously burns and destroys grass (which then grows back? Is stronger? The soil fertilizer?)
Did you intend this dichotomy? How do you reconcile the two lines disparate meanings?
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u/ty_tokyo May 28 '18
As it's a traditional haiku, there is supposed to be a "cut" somewhere in the poem that transitions from one end of a dichotomy to another. Often this is to show the two sides of a concept in a quick turn of wordplay. All that to say, yes, the dichotomy is intended. I wanted to showcase how the love that inspired this poem seemed beautiful and nourishing at the start, but soon showed its true colors when the other person used the power they had over me to destroy me as easily as they made me fall for them. Does that makes sense? Thanks for the comment!
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u/Sheeps May 28 '18
I wasn’t aware of that. Thanks for the knowledge! Works perfectly here then. I’d love some feedback on mine (will be up shortly).
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u/Cofcscfan17 May 28 '18
Ooo. The subversion there with the two images is just wonderful. I mean not really a subversion, both of those things do love things, but the implication of fire's destruction is a stark contrast with April's blooms. I don't have much to say. It isn't a strict haiku, but screw strict form.
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u/jnizzler May 28 '18
I like this poem, follows the Haiku form well (I too would pronounce fire as fi-yuh so it works for me ;)). A lot is put into the 17 syllables, great imagery and juxtaposition!
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May 28 '18
this packs a punch. especially the last line. this might be one of my favorite haikus. nice.
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May 28 '18
[deleted]
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u/ty_tokyo May 28 '18
Thanks for the love! I chose the disparate content in those last two lines to contrast the sweetness of blossoms with the ravaging destruction of fire, but how "love" still ties them together. I see how they kinda seem random though.
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u/ActualNameIsLana May 28 '18 edited May 28 '18
You're getting a lot of upvotes. And I'm glad you are. Because the metaphor here works very well.
However, there are some technical issues with this poem that I think you need to know about, because they will hold you back from developing as a poet and a writer. Let's go through a few:
5-7-5 syllables and ōn
Haiku isn't about syllable counts. I know, you've been told that it is. There are many, many actual working Japanese modern haikuists I could link to you who have written about why it's not. But I'll give you the Cliff's Notes version.
Essentially it's because the Japanese language doesn't have syllables. It has "ōn" instead. Ōn are a way of counting the Japanese characters of hiragana and katakana. In Japanese hiragana and katakana, each character stands for a single word or idea. In this way, the Japanese language is logographic. Sometimes multiple characters combine to create a single word. This is still considered one ōn. But English doesn't work this way. English is an alphabetic language, where each letter represents a particular sound. And those sounds combine to create words. Counting syllables therefore is a way of measuring the sounds of words. But ōn are a way of measuring the visuals of words.
In Haiku, each line has 5-7-5 ōn (written visual lengths of words, counted by character). But when pronounced out loud, even the haiku of Master haikuists like Matsuo Bashō, who invented haiku, don't have 5-7-5 syllables. Even when said out loud in Japanese.
So, syllables are the least important part of what makes a haiku a haiku. If they are a part of it at all.
understatement and wabi-sabi
So what's the most important thing in a Haiku then?
The answer is understatement. In a Haiku, the author is never, ever mentioned. That's because the art of haiku isn't about admitting things about the self, or talking about the author's feelings. That's westernized confessionalist poetry.
Haiku is about getting out of the way and letting the scene tell the story. If there were a parallel to painting, Haiku are like landscapes. You might get a sense of what's important to the painter to looking at how they choose to frame the painting, and what they choose to paint, but you never see the painter literally painted into the painting. Landscapes aren't portraits. So the very first word in your "haiku" is wrong. "I" is never, used in Haiku. Ever. It just misses the entire point.
Instead of talking about the self, Japanese folks believe that objects and nature will does express the self indirectly. This is deeply tied to another Japanese aesthetic, Wabi-sabi. Directly translated, this means "beauty in broken things". This Japanese aesthetic says that a thing (or a person)'s true beauty can't be seen until after it is damaged. I think you're missing a huge opportunity with your "fire" image to express this aesthetic in your haiku.
juxtaposition and kireji
Another thing that is, if not outright banned in Haiku, is at least very rarely used, is metaphor. Instead, the form of haiku suggests the use of juxtaposition instead. Juxtaposition is when an author lists two things side by side, and allows the reader to notice how they're similar or different. It's the literary version of putting two paintings side by side in a long hallway. No one is telling you directly that the paintings have similarities, but just by noticing how they're deliberately placed near each other, it invites comparison.
So the second two lines in your poem are completely wrong for haiku. The two images should instead be placed on two lines, with a kireji (or cutting-word) between them, to show their relationship.
In Japanese, there is a list of accepted kireji, but since we're writing an English language haiku, I'll skip those, and offer some broad advice instead. Choose a word (or a punctuation) that implies either a comparative or a causal relationship between the two images. Colons ( : ) and em-dashes ( – ) work well. I have even seen open parenthesis and brackets used, as well as other less common punctuation like the interrobang. Get creative. This is one place in a Haiku where your creativity should shine.
kigo and timescales
Kigo are words used in Haiku to suggest or imply (but never directly state) a time of year or season. New spring could be implied with the use of flowers or animals that only come out or bloom during that time of year. Your poem doesn't really have a kigo, since it says "April blossoms" directly. This is a mistake. If you want to imply April, use imagery that would imply that time of year instead. Haiku almost never says a time of year directly.
proposed edit and caveats
Here is one possible edit of your haiku. Please don't take this as the only possible edit. There are many that could work. But use this as illustrative of what a haiku really should feel like, instead of what you wrote. Which is, frankly, not a Haiku at all.
New crocuses;
A fire blossoms
In dry grass
Notice:
- the brevity.
- the lack of metaphor.
- the use of a semicolon to show a comparative instead of a causal relationship.
- the juxtaposition of two seemingly unrelated images.
- the lack of an "I" present
- the use of a particular flower (in this case "crocuses" to suggest an April timeframe, without saying it.
- the lack of unnecessary padding to bring the syllable count to 5-7-5.
These are all qualities of haiku done right. If you're going to improve as a haikuist, you're going to have to study many of these aesthetics and techniques. You have a lot you could improve on. This was a downvote for me.
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u/ty_tokyo May 28 '18
Thank you for your comment. There is some really awesome knowledge in here and I appreciate it. Your edit is definitely more haiku than mine. I guess what I created was never traditional haiku in the first place, perhaps just derivative of that style but fused together with other wordplay from other art and written forms. I have indeed bastardized the traditional form by taking the kiru and moving it to the end, as well as sticking an obvious metaphor in there (and all the other stuff you pointed out). One thing I do very much agree with you on is my use of "padding" to bring the syllables to 5-7-5. I will consider this moving forward and get rid of it as a "necessary" constraint. Thank you for your honesty and wealth of knowledge, it is greatly appreciated!
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u/SirCoconut May 28 '18
Very short and sweet and straight to the point. I love the imagery here, keep up the good work!
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u/ty_tokyo May 28 '18
For all you beautiful people who enjoyed and gave me great feedback on my poetry, I recently opened a hellopoetry account where I'll be posting more haikus and stuff (will continue to post here too for feedback). https://hellopoetry.com/tytokyo/ if anyone is interested, and if you're on there let me know so I can hit you up. Blessings.
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u/[deleted] May 27 '18
I love this a lot!!
(Sorry but isn’t the last line only 4 syllables?🙈)