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September Morning Tanka
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September Morning Tanka |
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Alison 
since 2008-01-27
Posts 9318Lumpy oatmeal makes me crazy! 
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Early September river whispers its secrets under mist’s cover. A Kingfisher’s haunting cry, shatters a quiet morning. Alison |
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| © Copyright 2008 Alison - All Rights Reserved | |||
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Balladeer
Administrator
Member Empyrean
since 1999-06-05
Posts 25505Ft. Lauderdale, Fl USA |
I love it, Alison! You used the exact syllable count to create a beautiful picture in the reader's mind....sure you're not part Japanese???  |
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JenniferMaxwell
since 2006-09-14
Posts 2423 |
What a beautiful and very haiku-esque tanka, Alison. The images are both serene and haunting. Marvelous! |
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Alison
since 2008-01-27
Posts 9318Lumpy oatmeal makes me crazy! |
Balladeer, Thank you so much. This is fun. Thank you for taking the time. Alison ----- Jennifer, Thank you. You and Sunshine were inspirations. Alison |
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dracula68 Junior Member
since 2008-09-07
Posts 30Illinois |
Hi Alison, my name's Michael. I liked this. Haiku and tanka are a refreshing retreat away from objective meaning into impression. The feelings you want to convey are quite clear. I'm not even sure what a kingfisher looks like, but I can imagine a most lonely and plaintive creature. |
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Alison
since 2008-01-27
Posts 9318Lumpy oatmeal makes me crazy! |
dracula88, Thank you for stopping in and enjoying my poem. I'll post a picture for you later today. Alison |
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moonbeam
since 2005-12-24
Posts 2356 |
It is a lovely poem Alison. I saw Michael's comment and remembered one I wrote about a Kingfisher, the link under will take you to a picture: Kingfisher Suddenly the stream shorts across an oxbow; there’s a jolt of blue. I anticipate the fizz of ozone or at least the acrid leach of insulation singed. But instead the long spark whirls back into itself, arrows in like a dowse of lightning, electrifies the rapid then streaks up, fused with silver. ....... http://www.rspb.org.uk/wildlife/birdguide/name/k/kingfisher/index.asp |
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Bob K Member Elite
since 2007-11-03
Posts 4208 |
Dear Alison, This is a lovely piece of work. Excluding the focus on rhyme and rhythm by shifting your focus to the syllable count seems to have freed you to reach further into the internal world of pictures and sounds that you have available to you and you've made very good use of it indeed. The poem is extraordinary haunting as it is. Like many zen poems, this first impulse is generally the best. Not necessarily the first draft, but probably the first sitting for this sort of work, though many many many people disagree with me. In terms of work on further tankas and like forms, the poet generally attempts to dissolve the self like an alka seltzer into a glass of water, except completely transparent, so in the poem the self actually becomes nature, or at least the nature of the poem. Here you have three interesting words, "whispers, haunting" and "shattered" that put the human presence in the poem. You were not asked to exclude it. What you did was first rate, lovely and fine. Don't change it. For the next one, if you want to, if the spirit moves you and if you feel a point to it only and not as an obligation, you might consider this. Remove those elements that separate the poet from that world, that impress elements of what is human onto that world and do not allow it to be itself, as is. "Whisper" is something one person does to another, and it's a metaphor for characterizing a low sound by making that sound human. For any other poem but this one, such a thing would be fine; not for this poem. "Haunting" only happens to people. It describes the emotional effect the sound has on the poet. For any other poem such a things would be wonderful, but for the purposes of this poem, what does that sound actually sound like and what does it do that makes it distinctive as a detail that demands to be put into a poem? And mornings are not actually glass, although we may as humans thing of them that way. They don't shatter. But that bird cry does do something special to the world around you, if indeed the bird cry is the detail you wish to fix on. Can you actually say what it is without pulling human invention into the poem. These Japanese poems have become very popular over here, but the meditative side of them, perhaps the most important side of them, has gotten lost. They are a moment when the poet becomes the world without the hinderance of anything but the form of the poem. Perhaps I describe it badly. But with your love of the world, I would think such a task might have some appeal. Or not, as you will. Affectionately, Bob Kaven |
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Balladeer
Administrator
Member Empyrean
since 1999-06-05
Posts 25505Ft. Lauderdale, Fl USA |
Interesting comment, Bob, which I suppose is in the eyes of the critiquer. I, personally, can hear a river whispering and imagine the cry of the kingfisher being haunting. It would appear that Alison can, also  |
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Bob K Member Elite
since 2007-11-03
Posts 4208 |
Dear Mike, Certainly. I can too. I said the poem was fine the way it was and not to change a thing. It met the parameters of the exercise and surpassed them magnificently; she should be happy to have written such a poem, and you should be thrilled to have such a wonderful student. Unless I misremember, though, in Japanese culture, poetry is one of those things, like karate, which has a hyphenated suffix attached to it, karate-do, ju-do, aiki-do. These examples are martial arts, but not all of them are. The "-do" business means that the think being described is "a way" or possibly "a method." Brad would be able to be more specific about this than I am, and he would doubtless correct the errors I'm certain to be making. Zen is "a way." The Japanese word "do," pronounced like the slang word for money or what we make pastry from comes from the chinese word "tao." These methods are all methods of reaching liberation or enlightenment. They all use the formal constraints of the method to accomplish certain tasks, not simply because it's great do impose tasks on one's self but because the formal constraints are liberating in some specific ways. I was simply offering some suggestions for looking down these pathways. They're probably more trouble than worth anybody's while, of course, and if I were you I'd simply pay them no mind. I have nothing but admiration for your instruction and for Alison's talents. Sincerely, Bob Kaven |
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Balladeer
Administrator
Member Empyrean
since 1999-06-05
Posts 25505Ft. Lauderdale, Fl USA |
The haiku was not initially designed to be a complete poem. It evolved from the Haikai, which was a linked series of poems by a variety of writers in old Japan. The first stanza of this creation was called the hokku (starting verse), which set the tone for the poem, utilizing the season and location in it's presentation. Only the most accomplished poets were chosen to write the hokku. In the 1890's the hokku became it's own stand-alone form, largely due to the efforts of poet Masaoka Shiki, and the term haiku (good words) came into being. He kept the requirement of having the season be present in the lines. Bob, you are certainly correct that following all of the rules for writing a haiku or tanka would be a challenge - there are 65 of them. One can can search the web for Jane Reichhold's essay Haiku Rules that have Come and Gone, if interested. Few people care to do so. Even Matsuo Bashō, one of Japan's most recognized haiku masters, who died in 1694, said "Learn the rules and then forget them." There are three good rules to follow when constructing.. 1. Write the poem short, perhaps short enough that it can be said in a breath. 2. Write the poem in three lines, with the second line slightly longer than the first and last. 3. Divide the haiku into two parts, using a syntactical break to divide the poem after the first or second line. This can be done by grammar or by punctuation. In Japanese, appropriate punctuation is a kireji ("cutting word") which is a sounded word, such as if we said "semi-colon". There are three major ways to form the haiku or tanka.. * Association, where something in the one line shares something (perhaps in appearance, or in use, or in situation) with something in the line it follows. For example, North Americans associate pumpkin pie with Thanksgiving. * Contrast, where something in the new link (e.g., quickness, darkness, arrival) is in opposition to something in the link it follows (e.g., sloth, brightness, departure). * Comparison, which (like the European use of simile and metaphor) causes one thing to bring another subject to mind. Write two different images that are in some way similar and that complete each other. For those interested, they can study the "mora" vs "syllables" that are used in haikus..but I don't recommend doing so unless you have a lot of time and love pain!  We have American Haikus and Tankas for a very simple reason..if we don't like the rules, we change them! In all serious, however, the modern Japanese do the same and even the old masters claimed that it was vital that the form not "drive" the poem. It is an ancient form that has evolved over time, as has the ballad, going from minstrels and town criers spreading news from town to town now becoming a story-telling method which does not follow the strict rules of the ballad but is accepted as such, regardless. Such is life... |
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Bob K Member Elite
since 2007-11-03
Posts 4208 |
Dear Balladeer, Your grasp of these details is impressive. You taught me some stuff I certainly didn't know. My comments were about what the Japanese hoped poetry would lead to, and how to begin to look at that. Not that I am expert. The Japanese and the Chinese both were concerned not only about what was there, but what was not there in a way that is perhaps foreign to western thought. I was trying to talk about what is not there, which is difficult, and why I was suggesting that it might be better to ignore me. To most people it sounds pretty much like static on the radio. The analogy that's often used and which is taken from the Tao te Ching is that of a pot. Essentially Lao Tsu says that until the potter puts the empty space into the middle of a pot, all you have is an inert piece of clay; afterward, because of the emptiness at the center, you now have a useful object. You have a pot. And it's in fact the very emptiness that makes it useful. The same, he says, with houses. You need empty spaces inside them, and you need door and windows, otherwise they're not useful at all. It is that emptiness, the Old Guy says, that makes us useful. "Lao Tsu" means "The Old Man" as I understand it. As in a good pot, a good poem must contain empty and full. I was beginning to talk about this sort of thing, simply the beginning of it, in an experimental fashion because the poem was talented and I thought it was an experiment worth the effort, to see if the new poems would be different from the old ones, and in which ways. Would she like the differences? (I would hope so, but perhaps not.) They might prove exciting for her or boring, in which case she probably wouldn't even find the task of interest. This was the most likely case, I thought. But I thought it would be nice to offer. This form of poetry seems to offer her a more natural speaking voice than the ballads she's been working at. She's got a gift here, and she might even do well with some of the longer syllabics. Whatever. Best to you and to Alison both, Bob Kaven |
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Alison
since 2008-01-27
Posts 9318Lumpy oatmeal makes me crazy! |
Dear Bob K and Balladeer, my friends ~ I am learning from the exchanges of your thoughts. Thank you for taking the time to help me improve as a writer. I can't help but smile to be reaping knowledge from you both. Alison |
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Bob K Member Elite
since 2007-11-03
Posts 4208 |
Balladeer is a very talented poet and a fine teacher. The two of us grumble about politics but both love the country. I'm even fond of many things Republican, simply not many of the current Republican things. I'm much more left wing than he can actually tolerate, I suspect He's still a good guy and you do well to have him as a teacher. Sincerely, Bob Kaven |
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Alison
since 2008-01-27
Posts 9318Lumpy oatmeal makes me crazy! |
Dear Bob, Yes, you are right. I am very lucky that Balladeer has taken time to teach me. It's my hope that he doesn't stop doing so any time soon. However, this is not to say that I don't appreicate or find the information that you offer me valuable. It is. And I am thankful that you take the time to give me things to think about and pointers on how to become a stronger, more expressive writer. Sometimes, I get a bit overwhelmed with information and need to take some 'down time' to absorb it. I get a bit quiet when I am doing that - and this is where I am mentally right now. I thank you for taking time to write and I hope that you continue to share your thoughts. Thank you. Alison |
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