ARTS: Haiku help and comments

[Nengyoku]

Yeah, it is a mold that I am finding it hard to tell myself it is okay to break out of. Thank you for the encouragement to do so.

Gassho,
William
Sat

[Tai Shi]

So Very Sad

With Poetry anger
Flows because, like
Broken sand trails
In the sun, my
Someday is done!

I am afraid I will
Not attain true
Enlightenment, not
Possible, I will die.

[Jenny A]

Hello! I'm a new Treeleaf member and delighted to find this Haiku Club. I've been writing tanka, haiku & related forms for some years and I moderate an online workshopping forum for short-form poetry.

Here is a one-line haiku I wrote recently. Feedback welcome.

opening the door a wren sings under the rafters


Gassho,
Jenny
stlah

[Kokuu]

Hi Jenny

It is great to have you here! Tanka have mostly eluded me but I really enjoy reading them. Do you publish anywhere?

Your workshopping space looks lovely in that it is dedicated to Jane Reichhold, and designed by Ron Moss. Ron has written a number of collaborative sequences with my haiku friend Elisa, and his own work is examplary.

That is a lovely one line haiku. All I would suggest is to move the wren song to the end so that you get the 'aha' moment last but that would probably involve moving to a three line format and defeat the purpose of your one line.

One in return

spring sun all over the eaves robin song


Gassho
Kokuu
-sattoday/lah-

[Jenny A]

Hello Kokuu,
Thank you for your reply! Yes, I have published tanka, haiku & haibun in numerous journals, and also have published several books of tanka which you can find here. I used to write tanka exclusively but have turned more toward haiku in recent years.

So for my one-liner, are you suggesting something like:

opening a door under the rafters the wren sings

Or

opening a door
under the rafters
the wren sings

Or maybe

opening a door
under the rafters
wren song

?? I had not thought of putting the wren last.

I love your

spring sun all over the eaves robin song

!! Such a lovely echo of my wren.

Gassho,
jenny

[Kokuu]

Hi Jenny

Thank you for the link to your site. It is lovely you have written so much great work. You can find some of mine here but I have not written much for a while: https://yearinhaiku.wordpress.com/

I am not sure you need my advice on your monoku with your experience. I guess I was thinking of something like this but changing 'opening the door' to 'open door' may be too much for what you wanted to express:

open door
under the rafters
a singing wren


Gassho
Kokuu

[Jenny A]

Hi Kokuu,
Thank you for your kind words about my site & my work. I very much enjoyed browsing your site--wonderful haiku, haibun & photographs! I see that our paths have crossed before--I had a tanka-prose piece in the same issue of Drifting Sands as your 'Autumnal' haibun. And Chen-ou Liu is an Inkstone member--I know him well. (Kala Ramesh is also a member and a good friend of mine.)
Thanks also for your suggestion for my 'wren' haiku. It works well and I will add it to my list of possibilities. But I may want to keep 'opening' as in the original, because I want the 'impossibly true' reading that the wren or his song is opening the door--as I think it might do, metaphorically--a door into the heart/mind.

Gassho,
Jenny
sat today

[Seijin]

I wrote a haiku this autumn.
Its in swedish. But I decided to translate it to english today.
Any advise?
Seijin
Sat/lah

Frosen windbell
Get detached from the tree
Distant spring

Frusen vindklocka.
Plockas ner från trädet nu.
Våren är fjärran

[Kokuu]

Hi Seijin!

I like that haiku. A Google translation suggests that the windbell is taken down from the tree or does it fall?

a frozen windbell
taken down from the tree / fallen from the tree

'distant spring' is a pretty direct translation of the third line and works just fine, although spring can mean both the season and a place where water emerges (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spring_(hydrology)). Otherwise you could say something like 'so long until spring' or 'how long until spring?' A slightly different take on that line might be 'no one talks of spring'.

What do you think? Jenny might have some advice also!

By the way, you might have seen this page on Swedish haiku? I remember seeing many written by Anna Maris: https://haikupedia.org/article-haiku...iku-in-sweden/

Gassho
Kokuu
-sattoday/lah-

[Jenny A]

Hi Seijin,

I also like your haiku. I like the implied silence of the wind bell, deepening the silence of winter. I don't know whether you mean the bell was taken down or it fell, and you may wish to stay with what you observed. But if it did fall, or if you are comfortable taking a little liberty with the "truth," I like the alliteration created if you do this:

a frozen windbell
fallen from the tree
distant spring

I think it is clear from the context that 'spring' here refers to the season, but Kokuu's suggestions for the third line would work also.

Gassho,
Jenny
stlah

[Seijin]

Hi Seijin!

I like that haiku. A Google translation suggests that the windbell is taken down from the tree or does it fall?

a frozen windbell
taken down from the tree / fallen from the tree

'distant spring' is a pretty direct translation of the third line and works just fine, although spring can mean both the season and a place where water emerges (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spring_(hydrology)). Otherwise you could say something like 'so long until spring' or 'how long until spring?' A slightly different take on that line might be 'no one talks of spring'.

What do you think? Jenny might have some advice also!

By the way, you might have seen this page on Swedish haiku? I remember seeing many written by Anna Maris: https://haikupedia.org/article-haiku...iku-in-sweden/

Gassho
Kokuu
-sattoday/lah-

Thank you. I like both your suggestions Jenny-san and Kokuu-san

The haiku was written with the image of an upcoming winter and how the happy sounds of the windbell during summer now was gone, and spring seemed so far.
398256905_6688065004623580_312466742082600819_n.jpg

A combination of things you said could be:

a frozen windbell
taken down from the tree
spring seems distant

Seijin
Sat/lah

[Jenny A]

Hi Seijan,

Thank you for the photo! Nice. Yes, your combination version could work. But in general words like 'seems' or 'appears' may weaken the impact, and they tell how the poet/narrator feels rather than showing. Something like Kokuu's "no one talks of spring" suggests or shows the feeling that spring seems far off, without directly telling it. You have several good possible versions. Have fun deciding which you like best.

Gassho,
Jenny
sat today