On a Few New Haiku (and Senryu)

Summer means weeding. (Ugh.) And mosquitoes. (Triple ugh.) I tried to use haiku to capture this "ugh-ness":

gardening—

mosquitoes in the coolness

or heatstroke at noon

~~~

(I thought of changing this next one, but realized I liked the play on morning / mourning.)

How unfortunate!

Mosquitoes also like

morning gardens.

Recently, I stayed up past 2 am (whoops) to read a new book. I didn't finish, but burning eyes and droopy eyelids finally convinced me it was time to stop (for a few hours, anyway). That incident inspired the following two senryu:

Reading—

time suspends itself

in ambush

~~~

A new book—

such a late hour, but

only the cat snores. (And it's such a funny snore, too!)



As I was reading, one of those teeny green grasshoppery things spent some time hopping between my blanket, wall, and lamp cover. (...One quick Google search later—the creature is a leafhopper, from the family Cicadellidae.   The one I saw looks most similar to the subfamilies(?) Iassine, Empoasca, or Balclutha.) The little fellow became the mental trigger—though clearly not the subject—of the next poem: 

Drawn to the flame and

blind to the open window—

Tragically unsaved.


I wrote this next one in honor of a friend of mine. By God's grace, she turned away from substance abuse to serve Christ, and one of the turning points happened when God sent a downpour on her birthday. Ever since, she's prayed for rain on that day and looks forward to it more than any other gift. She's gotten it each year. :) I made several attempts to convey her story in haiku form, and I like this the best—in part because of the multiple meanings of "clean" (literal, idiomatic, and spiritual).

Another year clean—

she praises the Lord
for her birthday rain.

On Winter—with Haiku

        Although snow teased us as early as October this year, just yesterday the air felt so comfortably warm that I shed my jacket in the afternoon! Unfortunately, winter reasserted itself last night with a cold front that dropped the temperature below 0 degrees Celsius, and then mocked us further by adding a freezing drizzle and a strengthened breeze.  (Despite this, I still just saw a student walk outside wearing a t-shirt, shorts, and flip flops. Incomprehensible!)

       Despite the recalcitrant weather, much can be—and has been—said in favor of winter and the cold: 

• "It helps one appreciate the other seasons more." 
• "If it didn't get cold, we wouldn't know the joys of hot drinks and piles of blankets."
• "The earth needs to rest up for spring."
• "We have fewer dangerous or annoying critters and bugs around."
• "Winter reminds us of our mortality."
• "Winter helps us practice our faith in eventual renewal and new life."
• "Snow is beautiful."
• "Snow forts!  Winter sports!"
• "Christmas traditions!  Generous spirits!"

       
        Etc., etc.  But in such an wretchedly chilly season, I find poetry of winter interests me more than prosaic praises of the same.  Haiku, in particular, seem an eminently suitable form since their content is often seasonal to begin with.  On that note, I hope you enjoy my poetic efforts and commentary below:

plaintive eyes—

frozen water bowl

stuck to the porch

        Most readers will sympathize with the frustrating problem of an immobile, frozen bowl, but I like when the meaning of a haiku such as this is a little ambiguous and when more than one interpretation may be accurate.  This could imply, for instance, that an animal wants water, that a person wants another to un-stick the bowl, or that someone wants the heavens to warm up the world.

 

stargazing

at the Milky Way—

what is Man…?

        Stargazing isn't strictly a winter occupation, but with such long nights and often clear skies, it does seem suitable.   

 

reaching for

Orion’s belt—

it wouldn’t fit anyway

        A haiku prompt regarding celestial bodies made me contemplate several ideas related to reaching for the stars when, in one of those odd leaps the brain sometimes makes, Aesop's sour grapes fable came to mind, resulting in the previous haiku.

“celebrating"

Christmas for three months running—

stuffed ad nauseam

        Literally and figuratively!

avoiding the stores:

shameless consumerism

and scarce word of Christ

        Suitable for Christmas and Easter both, ne?

glass nativity—

God's plan to save 

our souls

        I like the implied comparison of this poem, as well as its extended metaphor: Glass may be transparent, but one can't see what's inside it unless one looks past the exterior.  Where are you looking this Christmas season?




         If you have any prosaic or poetic words of your own about winter, feel free to add them in the comments below!

On Using Limited Space Efficiently (Part 2: Go Paperless)

The modern world has produced a plethora of gadgets to make our lives easier—and one of the greatest is the computer in all its incarnations.  With a cell phone, a laptop, and perhaps an external hard drive, one can do all manner of things that otherwise require paper, which takes up a fair amount of space in one’s home.  Thus, if you want to regain some elbow room, go paperless.

Ideally, we’d all take tech classes as needed so we can use email, buy e-books, manage finances electronically, and store documents and notes-to-self on a gadget or in free “cloud” storage services.  Most sites take great pain to keep information secure, and this will save you a great deal of shelf and cabinet space.

In reality, buying e-books of every physical book a person owns can be economically prohibitive, and not everyone’s eyes feel comfortable reading from a screen—though the basic Kindle or Kindle Paperwhite were created to fix this problem.  Furthermore, while a single Kindle or Nook can store hundreds of books, one can’t scan or flip through a reference work very efficiently.  Also, not all utilities and companies offer online billing, and people can forget passwords or accidentally delete important information.  (In counter-argument, we can also loose or launder paper documents, so it doesn’t seem like that much more of a risk to me.)

Musicians also don’t yet have a good way to store and play off of electronic sheet music, so they’d still need to keep their music books. (Though wouldn’t it be cool if a pianist could set a large iPad before him and tap the screen to turn pages forward and back—or better yet, a program that could hear what you played and turn pages for the musician!?  A single device could store thousands of sheet music PDFs!)

The solution, as always, is to compromise.  Whenever you wish to make a new purchases of fiction, get the e-book version.  When you have the money, buy e-book versions of your physical fiction books, and then sell the physical copies.  However, keep your reference books and perhaps certain pieces of classic literature with lots of footnotes, which often have poor navigation in digital formats.  Similarly, read newspapers and magazines online if possible, or recycle old papers and mags after reading them (or after you realize you won’t get around to reading them).  If you tear out and save stories you particularly liked, they’ll take up far less space in a folder than the entire periodical will.

Definitely get on your bank’s and other place’s billing websites and set up direct deposit and automatic payments.  This, as an added bonus, ensures you’ll never get a late fee!

Example

When I got my Kindle, I acquired free editions of many classic works so I could ditch redundant volumes from our shelves.  (We gained one shelf back—but since the books were double shelved, it doesn’t seem like it.)  I’ve not bought a physical fiction book since then except for other people.  However, I’ve found that poetry is often poorly formatted on the Kindle, and footnotes aren’t always linked well to the text.  (For example, The Canterbury Tales was nearly unreadable, but I didn’t own it in hard copy before, and it was free, so it was no loss to me; I could have returned the book if it had been a problem.).  I’ve kept my physical dictionaries, my Bibles, and mom’s notated copy of Shakespeare’s plays since I like the notes and my ability to flip through them quickly.  I recycle what mail and most other papers we don't need.  Unfortunately, I’m a great note-taker and a poor note take-carer, so I have piles of notes I need to go through and possibly input in the computer.  At least they’re neat piles so far... I whittle them down about once a year when a fit of organization comes upon me.

          Anyway, you get the picture.  Good luck!

On Humor in Literature

          I appreciate a well-written book or a well-crafted poem, but what really raises one in my estimation is cleverness and humor.  This preference hadn't struck me as very significant before because those elements are often woven so naturally into the story.  Yet, when I mentally list my favorite stories and poems, the ones on the list inevitably make me laugh more than others I may acknowledge as better-written.  Poetry especially benefits from wit and humor, it tending by nature toward drier reading; even beauty is all the more real and beautiful with the injection of a good chuckle.
           As I suspect is the case with most people, not all humor strikes me as funny.  For instance, I've never much cared for low-brow humor, the kind that mocks others' pain or makes light of bodily functions or faith.  I do enjoy puns and other word plays, but only certain types and in small doses.  Rather, my favorite type of humor is the delightfully unexpected twist, the dry sarcasm, the witty comeback, or the matter-of-fact treatment of the absurd that allows for that "sudden perception of incongruity" (as C.S. Lewis describes the "Joke Proper").  
           I feel this calls for examples, but rather than dredge up a list of my favorite humorous works (which could grow very long, indeed, if I let it), I have decided to offer a sampling of my own poems of a similar type.  I hope you will enjoy them.


Vicarious Emotion

What a horrible day!

Aliens have invaded!

Millions have died!

And worst of all,

I’ve run out of chocolate!

Pass the popcorn, will you?

Boredom

Once on an evening most dull,

in the midst of a mess of his toys,

he threw such a fuss

that his wife listed chores,

and promptly his boredom was cured.

Hysteria

Oh, how she cries, how she wails!

How she shakes and grows pale!

“Sit down, sit down.  

Take a breath and explain.”

No good--she must pace,

and her hyperventilating breath

and scatterbrained thoughts

break her words into pieces

that you laboriously string together.

She’s distraught, you learn,

because everyone hates her

(though you're proof to the contrary).

And added to that,

it’s the end of the world

--or soon it shall be--

and even if it’s not,

she makes you wish it were.

Related posts:
 On Poetry, On Ogden Nash, On Haiku Part 1, On Haiku Part 2, and On Nijuin.