Philip Noble Home Page
HAIKU FROM 55 DEGREES NORTH
Constructed in html by Philip D Noble last updated 15th June 2000
stag stock still
smelling blaeberrines
for the last time
Haiku poetry is a most appropriate forms of creativity for the Internet. Good haiku poems are short, easily memorised yet not superficial. They can be appreciated in a brief moment and recalled with pleasure at a later date with fresh insight. Just as favourite photographs are carefully preserved, and looked at over and over again, with fond memories, so haiku may serve the same purpose. They have also been referred to as 'flash bulb poems'.
Traditional haiku poetry originates in Japan and involves some basic rules such as three lines of the structure
5 syllables-
7 syllables-
5 syllables
They would centre on nature and usually contain a 'season word'. This may be a season in itself or an event or happening that is usually associated with a special time of year. For example sledging (winter season); nuts (autumn); swimming(summer): broken ground (autumn / spring).
The poems are simple and descriptive and do not use alliteration, simile or other Western poetic devices. Since the seasons are experienced in differently in various parts of the world I chose to entitle this little collection 'Haiku from 55 degrees North' this being the latitude of my home. While many of the haiku are from direct observation others have come about as a result of reading or listening to others.
The use of and extremely simple and disciplined language structure to suggest lively images is paralleled in Origami, the Japanese art of paper folding. Simple rules are followed which after a few simple precise folds, allows a square of paper to represent a recognisable image or object.
In a sense the possibility of this image has already been there all the time waiting to be discovered. Similarly some sequences of words can be 'discovered' or 'pointed out'. These are known as found Haiku.
The traditional Haiku poet attempts to describe what has been there all the time but has generally been thought unremarkable until attention is drawn to it.
The native North Americans understood Haiku thinking:
It's like looking back at that and saying,
"Well, that was simple, Why in the world didn't I know that !"
And you think, "Well, I knew that.
I just didn't know that I knew that."
SHADOWCATCHERS by Steve Wall.
published by Harper Collins1994.
As did Kingsley Amis character Lucky Jim in the novel of the same name when he wrote
I really believe that there are things
that nobody would see,
if I didn't photograph them
Links to notes about :
Click here to go to Simple Kirigami Haiku book (from one A4 Sheet) LITTLE HAIKU BOOK
Click here to return to Philip Noble's Home Page
Click here to e-Mail Philip Noble
Links to some other Haiku pages:
The Shiki Internet Haiku Salon (Japan)