Thursday 15 May 2008

Hooked on haiku

After failing miserably at my haiku homework for my writer's group and feeling fazed and befuddled at the prospect of writing a sonnet for next time, I was suddenly seized yesterday afternoon by poetic inspiration.

Watching my daughter having her swimming lesson a haiku appeared in my head. Then and another and another. It's like Maltesers, once you start you just can't stop. I was joined by the friend who had produced several haiku the night before and he confessed that he was addicted. We found that for the rest of the day every turn in the conversation had us counting syllables on our fingers - 5-7-5 - It's a haiku! Now I know there is more to a haiku than getting the right number of syllables (and apparently some people have dispensed with the whole syllable thing and just write three lines of any length) but it helps you focus and limit your word usage. A good general writing exercise I reckon.

I was going to post up my efforts here but have discovered via Sally Q's fab competitions calender a Haiku comp that will donate half its profits to literacy projects for kids in developing countries and in the UK. It's £10 for ten haiku so I only need to write another four :0).

Meanwhile here is one I won't be entering in the comp but which I enjoyed writing:

"Does it?" she asked me
"It does" I replied sadly
"Bigger than a bus."

3 comments:

Karen said...

I keep thinking of Pringles now. "Once you pop you can't stop." Anyway, I just don't UNDERSTAND haikus (Haikii??) In fact I'm going to properly go and look up what they are, and damn well write one.

Good luck with your sonnet!

Jen said...

Oh, yes, there's definitely something utterly compulsive about that counting of syllables on one's fingers. Makes you look like a nutter, of course, but hey ho eh?

Tamsyn Murray said...

I meant to say to you that there's another comp for Haiku on Sally's competition page. I think it closes at the end of the month and you can enter three for free?? You might have already seen it...