Haiku: Signs and Wonders

Movie Clip Wednesday is here




Ho ho! Gracious, goodness! Aunty is pleased to host this week's Haiku Monday! This is a meme started by our own much loved curmudgeon, Troll. Iffin' y'all is new to the game, give it a whirl. Visit Troll Stroll to see past week's Haiku Monday. We has a real good time wif' it--an y'all will be jes' amazed at what yore fellow bloggers manage to capture in jes' 17 syllables.

Haiku is a thought expressed in a poetic form of three lines. The first line is 5 syllables, the second is 7 syllables, the third line is 5 syllables--5-7-5, for a total of 17 syllables. Classical Haiku creates an image or recalls an experience of a specific moment in time. It shares a wee piece of yore experience, your perception of that moment.



One idea is to look at some known, familiar thang, but see it from a new insight. Haiku invites us to perceive more deeply-- It can employ a contrast, an' even surprise, like an "aha!" moment. Haiku can be funny, ironical...summon emotions or inspire...discoverin' depth by paying close attention to the surface. Other poets --not only Haiku--has reckoned that the best poetry aims at uncoverin' the deeper meanin' of thangs.

Even very simple thangs, like a flower growin' in a crack along the sidewalk somehow speaks to us of the struggle to survive, even thrive--to make beauty whar' ya can...or the beauty to be found everywhar' if we but look...oh now, we could make ourselves a book of meaning from that flower growin' through that crack--



French poet Paul Valéry said that poetry is "a language within a language." Poetry aims to take us beyond literal, linear thinkin'.


Thas' why we can imagine thangs--cause we "know" or "sense" that thar' is another world beyond, an we lend ourselves to it. Ever thought how odd it is that we humans do have imagination? How do those other worlds come into yore thoughts?

Dawgs doan have imaginations. Birds doan have imaginations. Animals have instinct an' memory of thangs that is, or wuz... but they doan imagine a whole other existence. Dawgs doan make no meanin' of that flower growin' through a crack. It doan symbolize nuthin' to a creature that doan imagine.




Well, now, I doan wanna git too deep into that territory, lessen' Troll whups on me fer bein' too "erudite-ish."*

But I reckon y'all know how we humans assign meanin' to the seen world to unlock the mysteries of the unseen world. Fancy words like paradox, symbolism an' allegory is taught in collich, but ya' doan need to know none of that to write a bit of verse--it jes' comes natcherly cause humans like to look fer order, purpose. We do it wif'out even knowin' we do it. Like a li'l chile' singin' a song, but knowin' nuthin' of half notes or minor key. Jes' sing an' see what comes out yore mouth. Be funny, be tongue-in- cheek, be contemplative, be political, be yoreself.

The theme fer Haiku Monday, March 7th is SIGNS.

This is how to play:

Write as many Haiku as ya please, come post it heah on the Front Porch, an at yore own blog wif' visuals too' if ya want (not required). The winnin' Haiku will follow the 5-7-5 format that Troll set an' receive the Haiku Badge of Great Honor plus a prize. Thar' will be great amusement, but not necessarily an edge, iffin' ya write in Cracker-speak. HOWEVER, the best of the Cracker-speak offering will git a prize too: A bag of Pork Rinds

Haiku winner's loot will include a large bag of Pork Rinds, as well as a Sign of your times.

Have fun!

* Dearest Troll -Man, please note I din't go all the way to anagogical, cause that really woulda been eruditish. I would dearly love to discuss Flannery O'Connor's anagogical writing--someday.