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Haiku

Inspiration

by | February 6, 2019 | | 1 Comment

By Ashley Lister

A colleague got in touch with me the other day. He was sitting in front of a blank sheet, waiting for inspiration, and he wanted my advice: “I’m blocked,” he explained. “What should I do?”

My response was immediate: “Write a haiku.”

When it comes to physical exercise, we’re all sufficiently savvy to know that it’s sensible to warm up before running or pumping iron. If you start to run without having stretched your body into an appropriate state of limberness, then you court the danger of serious physical injury. If you start lifting weights without having stretched, then you could easily strain a muscle or tear something important.

And yet, when it comes to writing, a form of psychological exercise than can be as draining as a marathon and as challenging as any weightlifting competition, the idea of warming up with a brief exercise is invariably dismissed.

I know I’ve mentioned haiku on here before, but I do think the simplicity of the form is impressive. More importantly, I think the discipline that comes from writing a haiku, forcing oneself to focus on a clarity of image and a rigidity of syllabic expression, helps each of us to enter that special zone of focus that is needed for writing.

It’s a form of exercise that I try to use before each writing session. The concept is relatively simple. I need to write a single haiku before I can begin. This means I need to compose a three line poem where the first line contains five syllables, the second line contains seven syllables, and the final line contains five syllables.

Obviously there are variations on the haiku form, and there’s the distinction between a haiku and senryu that I tend not to worry about, but I stick with the traditional form because it best suits my needs.

This was a whimsical one I wrote the other morning:

I’m worried because
One of my balls is larger
Than the other two

It’s nothing special. But the syllable counting and making this quip in a specifically concise manner, was enough to get my mind into my personal zone of creativity.

My colleague got back to me. He’d written a haiku and then managed to get a few more pages down on his current WIP.

Writing Exercise

by | May 6, 2013 | | 11 Comments

by Ashley Lister

Back in November we discussed haiku here – the traditional Japanese poetic form. Haiku, as you may remember, is a form that is typified in Western writing as three lines of poetry with a distinctive 5-7-5 syllable pattern. Well, now it’s time to look at the tanka – five lines of poetry with a syllable pattern of 5-7-5-7-7.

To illustrate:

You undress for me
Exposing hidden contours
And then the fun starts
We explore our nudity
Until our climaxes come

For many writers the middle line is the essential balancing part of the tanka. Sometimes called the pivot line, this middle line can end the sentiment of the first three lines of the poem and it can begin a separate sentiment for the final three lines.

We’ve fucked for an age
Our bodies fluid with sweat
Orgasm evades
Yet seems to linger so close
Tantalisingly nearer

Of course there are ways to interpret the tanka for writers who don’t care to be bound by the rigidity of counting syllables. There are also ways to incorporate the tanka into renga poetry – collaborative writing in a similar form. But this version, as disciplined as the traditional haiku yet with a little more scope for narrative and lyricism, is well worth attempting.

I look forward to seeing your tanka in the comments box below.

Writing Exercise

by | November 6, 2012 | | 8 Comments

By Ashley Lister

 Two naked bodies

Intertwined twixt midnight sheets

Slick silvered shadows

I can’t believe we’ve gone almost a year on this blog without discussing haiku as a writing exercise. The haiku is one of the most accessible forms of syllable based poetry. When used as a warm up device before writing, it’s a form of poetry that can help a writer focus on the essence of the words in her or his vocabulary.

As most people know, the traditional haiku is a three line poem based on a strict syllable count. Obviously there are some variations.

There’s the pop haiku, characterised by Jack Kerouac’s interpretation of the form.

There are senryu, identical to haiku in form, but with a content that is wry, ironic or whimsical.But today we’re looking at the traditional haiku with its rigid format:

1st line = 5 syllables

2nd line = 7 syllables

3rd line = 5 syllables

It’s worth noting here the definition of a syllable. The definition below is taken verbatim from the trusty dictionary sitting on my desk.

syllable ►noun
a unit of pronunciation having one vowel sound, with or without surrounding consonants, forming the whole or a part of a word; for example, there are two syllables in water and three in inferno.
Pearsall, J., Hanks, P., (2005), Oxford Dictionary of English, 2nd Edition, Revised, Oxford, Oxford University Press.

However, even with such an authoritative definition, there will obviously be anomalies in the words we select. We hit words like sure, fire and wheel and can’t
decide whether the word includes one or two syllables. Is it ‘shoor’ or ‘shoe-er’? Is it ‘fire’ or ‘fie-arr’? Is it ‘wheel’ or ‘wee-ell’? My usual response to such observations is: How do you pronounce the word? It’s your poem. Own the word.

And that’s all there is to this form. Obviously haiku can be studied in greater depth. There are some forms that demand the author should mention a season or kigo. There are some forms that require a break at the end of the first line and insist on the juxtaposition of two images in the whole poem. But, for the purposes of this warm-up exercise, it’s enough to craft seventeen syllables of serious sensuality into a single haiku.

After the climax:

Glossy flesh lacquered with sweat

Heartbeats race-racing

As always, I look forward to seeing your poems in the comments box below.

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