© Diane Mayr, all rights reserved.
January 31, 2012
January 29, 2012
January 27, 2012
Poetry Friday--"6 A.M. Thoughts"
I'm aging rapidly and one of problems with aging is having to get up in the middle of the night to use the bathroom. Sometimes I can almost make it through the night, but there are those times when I'm up at 5:30 or 6:00 and getting back to sleep for the final hour just isn't happening! So, I can really relate to this poem by Dick Davis:
As soon as you wake they come blundering inHey, Jim Hill! is the host for this week's Poetry Friday Round-Up. (Hey, Jim Hill!--don't you just love that name?)
Like puppies or importunate children;
What was a landscape emerging from mist
Becomes at once a disordered garden.
And the mess they trail with them! Embarrassments,
Anger, lust, fear--in fact the whole pig-pen;
And who'll clean it up? No hope for sleep now--
Just heave yourself out, make the tea, and give in.
Photo by tony newell.
January 24, 2012
January 22, 2012
January 20, 2012
Poetry Friday--Dickinson Inspiration Continued
Last week, along with a rant, I posted several haiku that were inspired by Emily Dickinson's poems. I had such a good time with those, I decided to look for more haiku hiding within her words.
DICKINSON
At half-past three a single bird
Unto a silent sky
Propounded but a single term
Of cautious melody.
HAIKU
a single trill
breaches my dream
...summer dawn
DICKINSON
An awful tempest mashed the air,
The clouds were gaunt and few;
A black, as of a spectre’s cloak,
Hid heaven and earth from view.
HAIKU
his evasive answer...
massing rain clouds
deepen the shadows
DICKINSON
I think the hemlock likes to stand
Upon a marge of snow;
It suits his own austerity,
And satisfies an awe
HAIKU
hemlock green and white
with a touch of black crow
--first snow
DICKINSON
The bee is not afraid of me,
I know the butterfly;
The pretty people in the woods
Receive me cordially.
HAIKU
wild roses
the butterfly shares
with a bee, and me
Photo and haiku © Diane Mayr, all rights reserved.
This week, Elaine will host the Poetry Friday Round-Up at Wild Rose Reader.
January 17, 2012
January 15, 2012
January 13, 2012
Yet Another Haiku Miss
I have a Google Alert set up for the term "haiku," and as a result I get many interesting or odd links in my inbox. Some have to do with the Maui town of Haiku in Hawaii--everything from obituaries to announcements of Unified Field Theory seminars. Others have to do with the Haiku operating system for computers. Some lucky days I get links for haiku poetry! Over the past two weeks I found several mentions of a new book by Emily Dickinson aficionado and poet, Everett Decker, called haiku Emily! An article about Decker's book mentions that it is an introduction to 125 of Dickinson's poems accompanied by "haiku-style interpretations of the poems based on his own interest in haiku and Japanese philosophy and the similarities he sees between haiku and what he calls the 'hymnal lyric style' of Dickinson's work."
Now, before I go any further, let me say that I have not seen the book, so, I shouldn't really be making a judgment on it on the basis of one or two articles, but, I do have some strong opinions about the way haiku is being promoted to the general public as a way to make cute and clever commentary* without regard for its long and revered history as a poetic form in Japan and elsewhere in the world--it's just not right!
The writer of the haiku Emily! article tells us that Decker, in the preface to his book, says, "I may have had to make her less reverent to make her more relevant..." The article's only sample of a Decker interpretive "haiku" is the following, written about the poem known as "267 Did we disobey Him?":
okay
there was the whole Eden thing -
get over it
Emily probably wouldn't have minded the irreverence, and I don't mind it either, but PLEASE, don't call the vehicle for it haiku! Rant officially over!
haiku Emily! did get me thinking about using Dickinson as a starting point for writing haiku. Her poetry is saturated with images of nature--both natural and human. So, here are a few Dickinson-inspired haiku, and the stanzas from which they came:
DICKINSONThe Poetry Friday Round-Up this week is being held at A Teaching Life.
A Drop fell on the Apple Tree--
Another--on the roof--
A Half a Dozen kissed the Eaves--
And made the Gables laugh--
HAIKU
a drop of rain--
an eruption of giggles
under the eaves
DICKINSON
I heard a Fly buzz--when I died--
The Stillness in the Room
Was like the Stillness in the Air--
Between the Heaves of Storm--
HAIKU
summer wake
the buzzing of a fly
between sobs
DICKINSON
The Brain--is wider than the Sky--
For--put them side by side--
The one the other will contain
With ease--and You--beside--
HAIKU
cloudless sky
the blue goes on forever--
my thoughts of you
Haiku © Diane Mayr, all rights reserved.
*Examples of what I'm talking about when I say "cute and clever commentary" are the haiku computer error messages that circulate periodically via email, SPAM-ku, or any of the various haiku contests held online--click here, here, or here for examples.
January 10, 2012
January 8, 2012
Happy Haiga Day!
Still celebrating moving into the year of the Dragon!
© Diane Mayr, all rights reserved. Photo courtesy Library of Congress.
© Diane Mayr, all rights reserved. Photo courtesy Library of Congress.
January 6, 2012
Poetry Friday--OEDILF
Got a few hours to kill? If so, then head over to OEDILF: The Omnificent English Dictionary In Limerick Form. The goal of the OEDLIF "is to write at least one limerick for each meaning of each and every word in the English language." Since the source of the words is the massive Oxford English Dictionary, the limerictionary isn't projected to be completed until 2039! What an undertaking! Although the project has contributors from all over the world, there aren't any from New Hampshire, but, there are at least two from nearby Massachusetts.
Here's a sample definition from the OEDILF:
arrythmiaIf you'd like to get involved, click here.
by mephistopheles
An arrhythmia's ever so neat,
Being quite the auricular treat.
It's an improvisation--
A cool syncopation--
So exciting, your heart skips a beat!
I'm only challenging myself with no intentions of submitting. I picked a word from the OEDILF word list and gave my limerick muscles a workout.
chartaThe first Poetry Friday Round-Up of 2012 is being hosted by Teaching Authors, stop by.
A charta, also known as a patch,
is paper to which drugs are attached.
Then attached to you
And kept out of view
Your ailment is simply dispatched.
© Diane Mayr, all rights reserved.
Photo of James Murray, first editor of the OED, courtesy Amazon.com.
January 3, 2012
Haiku Sticky #130
© Diane Mayr, all rights reserved. A slightly different version first appeared on Lunch Break's "The Twelve Days of Christmas 2011-12" celebration. The haiku was my first blog comment of the new year; the word "first" is a word symbol for New Year's.
