[tacita]

Last week, in the “What’s making you happy right now?” thread, and at the height of Inaugural Gleedom, member billyshake told us--in a 5-7-9-7-5 haiku, of all things--why he was happy:

Happiness Haiku

Barack Obama
Living free in Hyderabad
Cheap Indian pain killers for me
Vishnu, Ganesh, and I.M.
"White Mischief" vodka

Easily outdone, though not easily embarrassed, I shamelessly followed with a happy haiku too, in the 5-7-5 syllable structure (you remember this from gradeschool, right?). Still gleeful about Bush's Whoosh (out of town), Barack's left-handedness, and the signing of those first few Executive Orders undoing prior policies, I wrote:

the helicopter

blades slice cold, breath held,
we wait, waving, stars and stripes
left hand, blue ink, change

After that, desperate to avoid a loathesome task on my desk, is it any wonder I found the moment ripe to google around about Indian haiku? Factoid 1: India hosted the 2008 World Haiku Festival in Bangalore. Factoid 2: Tagore visited Japan and wrote in a travelogue about haiku with an appreciation of its simplicity. Needing no more prompting than that, and with another unappealing task awaiting my attention today, I decided to write...haiku. India-themed haiku.

There are lots of "rules" -- and no rules at all. There's usually a "season word" -- a descriptive word or animal or plant reference that sets the season. There are many different formats. I feebly followed a traditional 5-7-5 pattern. Haiku often capture a "moment." (I'm sure a poet will be along to school us on haiku.)

Those below lack the elegant other characteristics of "real" haiku (I'm a lawyer, not a poet, after all), but they were fun and took me back to "moments" I experienced in India in 2007. The first is about the great Khachenjunga (tr: "five treasures of snow"). As you can see from the photo, taken at dawn from Pelling, the mountain is so magnificent as to make even the Great Everest (aka Sagarmatha) pay homage ("mastiffage"?):

Five treasures of snow
Dawn chasing blue-gray shadows;
Sagarmatha bows.

And, who could write about India without mentioning rain?

Thunderless cloudbursts
Dupattas flutter away,
Toes squeaking sandals

So here you have it, the birth of The Great IndiaMike Haiku Thread. I hope some IMers will put fingers to keyboard and share some of their own India "moments".

*Edit: Not sure where to start? Think of India, and then get some creative ideas here.

[PeakXV]

honey scented pugs
gods & monsters reconcile
winter wet not cold

[tacita]

yay, peak! first to post!

no small-type needed! poet pride!




*edit: and now that i know that pugs are tiger-paw prints, i like it even more!

[machadinha]

Nice one, Peak At a fan's special request then , a haiku in Dutch that I must have written as a teenager/young adolescent,

Middernacht ben ik
nog niet aan slapen toe; dan,
plotseling: Haiku!

("Midnight and I can't catch my sleep yet/Then all of a sudden: Haiku!" Note the "toe" here rhymes with "haiku," as in English "to.")

[tacita]

lovely, mach!

i love the universality of haiku--a syllable is a syllable is a syllable...

thanks for sharing this one.

[machadinha]

Originally Posted by tacita

i love the universality of haiku--a syllable is a syllable is a syllable...

Yes; you were asking about the technicalities above btw, and I ain't no expert on it, but I think there are some details to it that are actually not so easy to catch in non-Japanese, or even in that language. Maybe someone else will be in to explain. Like you said, I think what each part should address, and how they should be grammatically structured, & how all parts should relate to one another, is quite strictly defined.

Anyway like you said, how strictly to observe those rules seems to be pretty much up to the writer (and there seem to be a number of approaches to it, some governing rather lengthier poetic forms too), and it's a fun pastime anyway (Like you, what I went by when I used to toy around with it sometimes was a simple structure of 5-7-5 syllables indeed.) So folks: bring it on!

[tacita]

one source i read said that one should follow "the rules" but also that, under no circumstances, should what the writer wishes to convey be sacrificed because it doesn't fit "the rules." sounds like zen koan!

[machadinha]

Exactly, that's what it pretty much boils down to I think. Ah, those Japanese!

[theyyamdancer]

Madurai

Marigolds, incense,
Pilgrims, puja, elephants,
Here it all makes sense.

Kolkata dreaming
Jostling crowd, potholes,
Fragrance of jasmine garlands
Trams bells books adda.

[theyyamdancer]

Thangu
Butter tea, snow storm
Landslide far drive ice droplets
Blossoms red prayer flags

[tacita]

what lovely sensory experiences you conjure, theyyamdancer! i can taste the tea, hear the flutter of the prayer flages, see the colors, smell the jasmine and -- ouch! -- feel the potholes! thank you for contributing these.

we have no dancing yam smilie, but here's the closest approximation:

i came across an interesting piece about haiku yesterday. some purists (haiku snobs?) eshew any type of "technique", arguing that haiku "moments" will just present themselves, zen-like, in our consciousness, with all the right words. the author essentially said: nonsense. she then proceeded to outline -- gasp! -- various techniques. i'll post the link if i can find it again.

i don't know why, after all these years, i've developed a new affection for haiku (thanks, billyshake!), but everyday india is so rich haiku "moments", so why not?

[theyyamdancer]

Thanks, Tacita! Now I too have caught the Haiku bug...

India mike life
Dreams, nightmares, fantasies, make
New journeys for old

[machadinha]

Originally Posted by tacita

i came across an interesting piece about haiku yesterday. some purists (haiku snobs?) eshew any type of "technique", arguing that haiku "moments" will just present themselves, zen-like, in our consciousness, with all the right words. the author essentially said: nonsense. she then proceeded to outline -- gasp! -- various techniques.

Well, if I may, I think poetry cannot be the one without the other. So it will "present" itself yes -- however any learned "technique" will help encompass that. The one doesn't supersede the other. (And then technique minus inspiration won't produce poetry -- the poet if anyone will, or ought to, be aware of this; and the attentive reader or listener will likely notice. Or that is my conviction.)

Simple, really, no?

(On another note, I gave up poetry when I felt it was precisely becoming a trick yes.)

[tacita]

Originally Posted by theyyamdancer

Thanks, Tacita! Now I too have caught the Haiku bug...

yes, it feels newly intriguing!

this isn't the link i was looking for, but is an online indian literary journal, "muse india", with an issue on indian haiku.

have a...syllabic day, yam!

[Sama]

Originally Posted by tacita

i came across an interesting piece about haiku yesterday. some purists (haiku snobs?) eshew any type of "technique", arguing that haiku "moments" will just present themselves, zen-like, in our consciousness, with all the right words.

since rules are meant to be consistently broken in my opinion, I will post this "haiku" that I woke up with in my head (literally, word for word) the morning I left for India in December 2007. they certainly presented themselves in my dream state and if you look closely (and sideways...)the length of the lines contribute to the rise and fall of the lines that symbolize a wave (or the flow that you need to deal with India.)
hey, I just dreamt this up, call it lucid dreaming:

Crows
cows
painted elephants
starving pups that won’t live the week

Begging children
laughing children
in just pressed clothes
run to touch you
giggling girls and
one pen boys

Mango eaters
stone cutters
coconut choppers
bucket sellers
tout screamers

Traffic
chaos
walk
run
jump out of the way
of the family on the scooter
baby on the gas tank

Beggars with one eye
beggars with no legs
women dressed in gold
and rainbow saris
gliding in the streets
unbroken
straight
cool

Dust
dirt
sweat
mixed with jasmine flowers
scenting my hair

Music of the people
for the people
cars honk all day
every day
every night
laughing
crying
spitting
fighting
chanting
om kali ma
om muruga
temple music wakes me
temple music to sleep by

Healing
yoga
ayurveda
pure yoga
from the heart
this is the heart
of yoga

Birth
life
death
on the streets
go with the flow
or you go crazy
I’ve seen the
dead men walking

My india
ma india
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