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.