Sunday, 12 July 2009

Haikus

Summer
A sizzling hot sun
lazy days lounging around
not going to school.

Family
Annoying sister
lovely hugs with my mum
Dad helping me bake.

War
Frightening unknown
devastation and sorrow
regret, war is it worth it?

School
Working hard all day
looking forward to play time
day dreaming through maths.

Our planet
How big is our world?
huge to us, tiny in space
we must care for it.

Growing up
Growing out of clothes
secondary school is next
a scary prospect.

Fear
The silence of night
guns and knives frighten me
having a nightmare.
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2 comments:

Jonathan said...

Sparkle, hi there. Good to read your stuff again.

What a great set of haiku! Again, the simplicity and clarity of your expression are what make these work. First the basics: you’ve understood the rules of the genre and followed them (only slip-ups: ‘Lovely hugs with my mum’ is only seven syllables if you make lovely ‘lo-ver-ly’ as opposed to ‘love-ly’, which is perhaps allowable, but ‘guns and knives frighten me’ is six syllables any way you say it).

My favourite is ‘Summer’, which is the perfect response to the subject, and really makes me nostalgic. You even get the shift in mood that englishguru talked about: on the one hand, the last line, ‘not going to school’ is just an analogue of ‘lazy days lounging around’ (i.e. it’s just a different way of stating the same thing), but on the other hand it is a development of the theme: you’re explaining the reason why the lounging around is happening, and why it’s so precious.

Similarly, ‘Our Planet’ is lovely, especially that brilliant second line, ‘Huge to us, tiny in space’. That’s what the best haiku are: saying simple things in few words, but using them to open up great complicated subjects. Again, the third line is a step onwards from the first two, extracting a moral from them.

My next favourite is ‘Growing Up’, which takes a sideways look at the subject right from the start. ‘Growing out of clothes’ looks backwards, not forwards, then you switch forward to ‘secondary school’, before changing the mood again: ‘a scary prospect’. You don’t need to say any more – it’s all there.

‘Family’ is fun, but doesn’t quite use its opportunity to develop it could. A simple suggestion: use the last line as the third, so the ‘annoying sister’ – which after all is very funny – becomes the mood change. Here’s what I’ve come up with. (NB I’ve also swapped the first and second lines around to deal with the syllable problem in the ‘hugs with mum' line.)

Lovely hugs with mum
Dad helps me bake a fruit cake
Annoying sister.

(I’d have made it a chocolate cake if I had the syllables!)

Of the last three, ‘School’ and ‘War’ are fine, but don’t really go beyond the obvious. ‘Fear’ is a bit muddled up. The first line is good – it’s vague, but it describes a very specific emotion. The second line is just a general statement, moving from the evocative to the obvious. The third line – while it does involve a change of mood – doesn’t really benefit from the repetition of ‘night’ in nightmare. ‘The silence of night’ seemed scarier than a nightmare ever could, or guns and knives for that matter.

There we go. Great stuff. Well done. Bring on the next task!

15 July 2009 at 16:59
carlsberger said...

Hey Sparkle,

Yet again you have exceeded expectations with your originality and flair, however there are still some tiny glitches that stops this work from becoming that 'something special'.

Let's start with the positives. It would seem to me that you work very well under certain boundaries, I say this becuase 4 out of 7 of your Haikus are spot on in both rythm and content.

One of the main difficulties many writers face when writing Haikus is the fact that they have just 17 syllables to create an image within, so every word needs to be purposeful and precise. You nail this factor completley with your confident usage of polysyllabic words in more than one instance. I love the fact that even though a story isn't present your writing still creates one in my head.

Now onto the not so good side of things, the 'areas for improvement'. Some of your Haikus (as mentioned before) are perfect in all aspects, however 3 aren't. Your 'Fear', 'War' and 'Family' Haikus either fall short or overstep the parameters set by a syllable or two.

With your Family Haiku, you manipulate the word 'Lovely' into a way it naturally isn't said, and in some circumstances this can work just not here.

Again the same problem arises in your War Haiku. The first line is arguable, do we say fright-en-ing or fright-ning? Again in line three it seems as if you have mixed up the desired ammount of syllabes in your head for you have made this a 7 syllable line, not a five. As Jonathan highlighted before in your Fear Haiku you've simply missed a syllable on your
2nd line.

However don't let this get you down! The best writers are the ones who find it hardest to write Haikus, for these are the people who have imaginations so wild, they find it harder to reign them in.

Keep up the good work Sparkle!

Carlsberger.

16 July 2009 at 20:19

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