Wednesday, March 23, 2016

Carpe Diem #945 pine needles


Dear Haijin, visitors and travelers,

First I have to apologize for being late with publishing our regular and ThemeWeek posts. I will publish today our regular post only and the Theme Week episode "blue" tomorrow.

Today I love to share a very old method of choosing subject material for a poem. This haiku writing technique is known as "Narrating an Admirable Act". The old Chinese poets were the first experts, but the Japanese ran a close second. In the Imperial collections of waka, some of these poems with this attribute were categorized as "laments". Usually the poem is polite bragging of one's goodness or elevating one's poverty to an achievement.

Jane Reichhold shares the following haiku in "Basho, The Complete Haiku" as an example of this haiku writing technique:

burning dried pine needles
to dry my hand towel
such coldness


© Basho (Tr. Jane Reichhold)


poorhouse

I don't understand this haiku writing technique really well, but I have given it a try:

weeping willow
in front of the poorhouse
children's laughter


© Chèvrefeuille

Not a strong one I think and I don't know if this one is correct in the use of this haiku writing technique.

This episode is NOW OPEN for your submissions and will remain open until March 27th at noon (CET). I will try to publish our new episode, spring evening, later on.

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