The new edition of Frogpond — the journal of the Haiku Society of
America — has a number of haiku by Carolyn Hall, some of which
are included in an Essay entitled “To Tell the Truth,” in which
Carolyn discusses whether a haiku must always tell exactly —
literally — what happened (Frogpond XXVIII: 3, at 57). She says:
“I believe the purpose of haiku is to touch us at the
core. We write haiku to record our experience. We
put our haiku out into the world in hopes of sharing
our emotional response with others. And sometimes
that requires fictionalizing the haiku just enough to
stay true to the moment but also to communicate
to our audience the full impact that experience had
on us.”
Carolyn then gives several examples of situations where a
little bending of the facts helped her better recreate her
emotional response to a situation. She concludes:
“A truthful observation in seventeen syllables or
less does not (necessarily) a haiku make.
Sometimes it is necessary to distance oneself
physically, emotionally or temporally from the
‘facts’ in order to enable an audience to share
in your emotional experience. In short, truth
in haiku sometimes requires bending the truth.
Ever so slightly.”
Here are four of Carolyn’s instructive haiku:
endless drizzle
the hairdresser shows me
the back
baiting one fish
with another
autumn dawn
war news
the underbelly of a moth
pressed to my window
cloudless sky
the baaing
of penned sheep
“endless drizzle” – Frogpond XXVIII: 3
“baiting one fish” – The Heron’s Nest (IV:11); Frogpond XXVIII:3
“cloudless sky” – The Heron’s Nest VI: 7; Frogpond XXVIII: 3
“war news” – The Heron’s Nest (V:11); Frogpond XXVIII:3
p.s. To lawyers and law students: Carolyn’s lesson holds true
in the practice of haiku, not in the practice of law.
potluck
Our buddy Prof. Steve Bainbridge seems to be sorely missing
the adrenaline rush of being a Public Intellectual, now that the Harriet Miers
spotlight has been extinguished. If we were the praying type, we’d be
asking St. Jude to find him a new cause celebre.
by dagosan:
“you look so good”
on their counter, too,
Metamucil
nearly-full moon
the walk to the market
got a lot steeper
[Nov. 9, 2005]
