This book I read
Is also the Iliad;
Homer just wrote.
Author notes
Written January 27th, 2006
In a list
A contest entry
- 24 Hour Haiku Contest by Nicole Hanna.
300 points, ended January 29, 2006, 20 entries
• next poem in this contest, remove from contest
What did you think
Comments
1 - 15 of 15
-
Well, Your link about Cohen was from a brazilian site - so I guessed a little because some of the songs of Cohen are (and in this case, it just my non-informated sensation) very similar to a few Bossa Nova music (and In the end, I know Bossa Nova is a genre of brazilian music that got some popularity in USA, and it is from the 50's so time enough to be know to one like Cohen and I know, he had closer "suspects" for the influences such as Dylan). But even if not influence, it may be interesting - Bossa was created also by a Brazilian poet/singer named Vinicius de Morais, it was also strongly basead in the lyrics, the soft rythim and individual performers. One of them; Joao Gilberto, who also works with guitars, a slow voice tone, turned my attention. Of course the themes are different (Garota de Ipanema, probally the most famous single music of them is also about pretty woman) as we could expect coming from a Canadian to a brazilian but you may find some appeal. Another name besides those 2 is Tom Jobim... -
Kudos to you, Joao, for 'sticking to your guns' - bravo! 
The Brazilian bossa nova? I don't know, I've never done it.. but always willing to learn
~Gen
-
No research, I am a specialist in Jorge Luis Borges and I studied Haikus in my specialization.
Again - A reader finishing the book is also a image that suggest the metaphor for the reader to infer.
And one typical - because I did posted one example, I had others , is enough to invalid the claim "metaphors can not be used in haikus".
Homer been dead for 2000 years is not an abstraction - it is a concrete fact - so concrete that I did not said it in my haiku and you already knew. And in the same way to understand Basho poem you would had to know that in winter the autumn dusk is "heavy" and can be related to the crow. The abstraction was you call is in the mind of the reader, in his interpretation, not in my poem.
And coherent sense or not is irrelevant - I have found many haiku writers to claim the use of paradoxes as the form of opposing the images in the haiku and in this case; it is a paradox I am using.
Again I know the rules, you may think it is a bad poem, but not that is not a haiku. You still can not reckon that the image of a reader reading a book and the writer finishing it after is not a metaphor of ciclical time (and in deeper sense of the ciclical literature) in the same way someone saying "withered roses/in disposable bouquets/valentine day" do.
So do you like or not brazilian bossa nova ?
-
Well, at least it prompted you to do a little research
However, Basho's famous "crow ku" is still an image that by comparison suggests the metaphor for the reader to infer.
And finding one atypical ku by a writer (not a haijin) to mimic, without long experience and understanding of the form, is not a cogent argument
Homer has been dead for about 2,000 years. Therefore the statement makes no coherent sense, and has nothing to picture -only an abstract concept.
As I said before, 'You cannot bend the rules until you learn and understand them thoroughly first'.
That was a paraphrase of what Basho said, "learn the rules, and then forget them".. the operative word is to learn them - first.
-
I did not presented a thought, not statements - In haiku you can use metaphors (Baisho metaphorical haiku "on a bare branch / a crow settles / autumn dusk"; and you may argue I misused the metaphor, not that It can not be used, altough I did presented the metaphor in the way they should in haiku, clearly, tied by verb and another image) : and there is no abstraction - as the elements to suggest what I say are in the text and they come from a concrete fact to a different lawyer of interpretations.
Here is a Haiku of Jorge Luis Borges "Algo me disseram
a tarde mais a montanha.
Mas isso já era." Rough translation: Somethin was told to me/The evening plus the mountain/But that is gone already.
They repeat the same actions of my haiku first line something is told/read - second line: who/what was told, and last line a expression to refer to time. There is plenty of other examples which is the basic rule - statment of simple fact (There is no difference of someone reading a book or saying flowers withered; there is no difference as saying this book is "also" the iliand as saying "like all flowers In my garden" and no difference saying "Homer "just" wrote it as saying "winter arrived".) You are just not considering the comtemplation of a reader and a book in the same way we can do with a flower and winter to refer to the passing of time.
As I said, I am not up to discuss if my haiku is good or not - to each to his own, but It is a haiku and I am not lost in their rules.
As anything, lets move foward and do you like brasilian bossa nova ? -
Joao, you are forgetting the fundamental concept and rule of haiku & senryu is image, always - NOT thoughts, statements, metaphors or abstractions.
It takes a great deal of study, patience and practice to grasp that and do them well. You cannot bend the rules until you learn and understand them thoroughly first.
-
Well done Joao, you have made people think and question!! Brilliant work and good luck
-
Oh, I know what a Haiku is and I have read the column - I must point I am not breaking any rule of haiku, expect the nature theme - which the contest holder have allowed and moderm haikus writers have time or another break this up.
That was not an abstraction, just wanted for you to think about what I am saying - that is adding levels of interpretation to a concrete simple fact (and that is something that I have seen many Haiku rulebooks to suggest).
I disagree about the personal thoughts ,not even the column in AP suggest that a personal thought is forbiden, altought in most place there is a suggestion for non-use of personal pronoums or a very reduced use. I think case, the fact "I" read is irrelevant, since the "I" is actually any reader.
There is a haiku "style" know for ridles; so a reader may have how to capture but the understanding can be harder.
Oh, well, even the mention of time (mention to stations) is somehow present since the poem talk about time returning but this is another "rule" that moderm haikus have left also oncer or another.
But well I do not want to keep argumenting with one of the contest judges since I may looks like I am argumenting for the contest and not just to talk about poetry, for me it was good enough to write and see people reading it.
-
Thanks Misty Cyr;
Even if somehow a haiku have a bit of the sense of "economy" it does not mean you can not use an more elaborate expression.
But in this case I think you are doing the mistake of thinking I am just saying I read the Iliad - but that is not it. I talking about the time cicles and literature, so a book I just read is the Iliad of Homer writing again.
Edited on Jan 28, 9:23 p.m. because ''. -
i wonder about the symplisity of this one. i think but am not to sure on this so please just take this merely as a question. shouldnt a haiku be the most simplest of ways to say something. i think this can be said in 5 words... i just read the iliad. which to me means that you seam to be using up words to make up sylibols, which i have a tendancy to do too when writing this form as they are the hardest to me. i do like that you took a very modern theam for this one as usually you get a much more clasic feel with hiakus. good luck in the contest
-
Unfortunately that is an abstraction, and haiku are not about expressing personal thoughts, feelings or opinions. It has to have an image the reader can picture and see for themselves.
A bit like artistic photography, a snapshot, only in words.
If you check the link to a column about haiku writing on the contest page, you'll see what they are about.
~Gen
-
Get any book you have (Aeneid, Ulisses, The Divine Comedy, Lost Paradise, etc) and look at him and say this book is also the Iliad and Homer just wrote it.
-
I'm afraid this is just a statement, and not very coherent, with no images to picture, compare or contrast.
-
Wow, how fast are you
Thanks
-
Lovely. I had to read that book during my summer Greek classes that I took in high school. They are as interesting as is this haiku. Thanks for entering!
Adding your comment:
1 - 15 of 15
