TheBanyanTree: Haiku challenge

[Laura]

I challenge everyone subscribed to The Banyan Tree to try out a haiku.  There are a few of us 
here who really like them, for whatever reason, but I hate for us to hog all the fun.  So - give it a 
try!  Just one, please?
Not sure exactly what a haiku is?  Senior English a long time ago, and for whatever reason you 
missed poetry day anyway?  Well, here is some of what Wikipedia has to say about haiku:
In English, haiku are usually written in three lines to equate to the three metrical phrases of a 
haiku in Japanese that consist of five, seven, and five on (the Japanese count morae, which differ 
from English-language syllables; for example, the word "haiku" itself counts as three on in 
Japanese (ha-i-ku), but two syllables in English (hai-ku); writing seventeen syllables in English 
produces a poem that is actually quite a bit longer, with more content, than a haiku in Japanese). 
Because most Japanese words are polysyllabic, with very short sounds (like the syllables in the 
three-syllable English word "radio", but unlike the one-syllable words "thought" or "stressed"), 
the seventeen sounds of a Japanese haiku carry less information than would seventeen syllables. 
Consequently, writing seventeen syllables in English typically produces a poem that is 
significantly "longer" than a traditional Japanese haiku. As a result, the great majority of literary 
haiku writers in English write their poems using about ten to fourteen syllables, with no formal 
pattern.

*   Possibly the best known Japanese haiku is Basho's "old pond" haiku: 
  (note from Laura- chinese characters did not paste, darn it.)
This separates into on as: 
furuike ya 
( ) 
(fu/ru/i/ke ya): 5 
kawazu tobikomu 
( ) 
(ka/wa/zu to/bi/ko/mu): 7 
mizu no oto 
(  ) 
(mi/zu no o/to): 5 
Roughly translated:
old pond 
a frog jumps 
the sound of water 


See?  Easy! Even the "rules" are flexible.  More like "guidelines" really.  ;)  Go on, give it a try!!



-- 
Laura
wolfljsh at gmail.com
http://wolfsinger.wordpress.com