The haiku is a Japanese poetry form based on the number of syllables in each of three lines. The first and third lines have five syllables each. The second line has seven.
As important as the syllable arrangement is the idea arrangement. The first line sets an idea in place. The next two present a second idea which compares or contrasts to the first. As an alternative, the first two lines can compare or contrast to the third.
The assignment . . .
Write two haiku, and include a translation after each, skipping a line between
the poem and the explanation. For example, this poem and the translating
paragraph following it:
Flying herons scream.
Afternoon Brazos echoes
With dinosaur rage.
The first image is of a pair of birds I watched flying ahead of my canoe a couple of summers ago. They would land at the water’s edge downstream of me, and take off honking like an old Ford pickup with a sore throat as I paddled down towhere they were. Maybe they were angry with me for not leaving them alone. The second image compares the heron’s honkings to the dinosaurs’ calls. Both are therapods; both track the rivers’ mud; the older footprints are fossil. Do herons remember dinosaurs? Are dinosaurs angry to be extinct?
Rewrite the poem if you need to to make it right! I have rewritten this one at least four times.
The haiku is a Japanese poetry form based on the number of syllables in each of three lines. The first and third lines have five syllables each. The second line has seven.
