FACEBOOK POETRY PROJECT
As
many of you have noticed over the last year, I've taken to posting haikus
through my Twitter account. I've found, actually, that social media can
sometimes function as a sort of gift economy in which people share the best of
themselves with whomever might be interested.
What
you may not know is that the history of haiku itself embodies a similar level
of sharing. Originally, the haiku was a hokku, the first three lines of a
five-line poem called an tanka. These were conversational poems in which one
person composed a hokku along what in English is generally considered to be a
5-7-5 syllabic structure, and then passed it along to someone else who would
complete the tanka with a 7-7 couplet. Most tanka I read today are composed by
lone writers, but I think it would be not only fun but also enriching to
approach the form as it was originally intended. So here's the proposition:
I
will post a series of hokku (many of which will be haiku I have previously
posted but some of which will be new) to my homepage and share the link to
Facebook. Anyone who feels inclined can then visit the initial offering, choose
as many hokku as appeal to them, compose concluding couplets, and post the
completed five-line poems as comments back on the homepage (not on Facebook,
please). After a couple of months, I will go through the whole shebang, make a
generous selection of completed tanka, and assemble a collection of our group
efforts for free distribution as an eBook, of course giving proper attribution
for all collaborators along with links to their own online artistic endeavours.
The ideal release date would be the Spring Solstice, but that would depend on
how things were moving along.
Personally,
I am excited about the possibilities, and hope that many of you will be
similarly enthusiastic. Here is the first batch of hokku. I hope you find
something you can work with. Feel free to complete as many as appeal to you.
SELECTIONS for HOKKU
Week of Jan 5
Bear's
breath on forehead—
eyes
in the dark: still breathing:
singularity.
Snowflake:
sky—
infinite
distance flutters
melting
on my tongue
Scent
of bacon. Eggs
crackle
in drippings. Wood smoke, rain,
and
vanished faces.
Wild
rose startled
pink:
a brain's response to light:
no
one sees the rose.
Wild
rose startled
pink:
a brain's response to light:
no
one sees the rose.
Korean
hillside—
leafless
trees in mauve blossom—
winding
path, fox-holes.
Last
bow to a friend—
grey
sky, brown grass, wisps of snow:
a
hillside grave mound.
Ridge
between rice farms—
magpie
in a naked maple,
lone
leaf on the wind.
How
many stars went
supernova
for the gold
in
my wedding ring?
Untended
grave mounds—
dry
grass, skeleton hillside—
a
sudden magpie.
