Quicksilver: the chronicles of a newcomer to the art of haiku
Quicksilver
Hg2
One Step At A Time: Learning About Haiku
By Laura Sherman
I had originally thought that syllable count was the driving force behind haiku, but after studying all the comments from my first article, I see that I was mistaken. Haiku is about poetry first.
I took the advice of my mentors from this amazing group of writers and started writing down my observations of the world around me. I purchased a little notebook and opened a new Word doc within each of my active computers, so that when a haiku thought hit me, I could write it down.
Writing down fragments of haiku, unedited ideas, really helped me. Some of these turned into haiku, while others wait for further inspiration.
Whenever I tackle a new subject, I’ve learned to take things one step at a time. John Stevenson said it best when he advised, “I would start with a bit of advice about accepting advice: let it pass through you. However heavy the hand that offers it, whatever “authority” is behind it, let it go for now and give time time to work. I imagine this as a digestive process. However good something looks on the plate, there is only part of it that can be digested in such a way as to nourish one.”
For me learning is often a layered experience, where various nuances hit home at different stages.
I decided to focus on the poetry and the essence of the moment I wanted to capture. I tried not to be too concerned with structure, seasonal words, etc. It isn’t that I ignored the many elements we discussed, but I decided to work first on finding my voice.
Here are two poems I wrote after I had absorbed all of your advice, read wonderful haiku from others and then went out into the world and observed, writing notes in my little black notebook:
abandoned ship—
giggling playground for many
hermit crabs
wispy white lines
form characters—
summer sky haiku
Had I not been thinking with haiku, I might have missed these moments.
Did I succeed in sharing these moments with you? I would love to hear your thoughts on them.
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Quicksilver is a column on troutswirl, the blog for The Haiku Foundation, devoted to showcasing the questions, ideas, and evolution of a beginner to the art of haiku, Laura Sherman. Each installment will feature some of Laura’s new work as well as her ideas and thought-processes concerning them. It is hoped that readers will respond with reactions, ideas, and advice on her work and provide feedback on how she might develop and improve her craft.
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Laura, thanks for sharing your journey.
Jane Reichhold has written a very useful article on some of the techniques used in haiku and examples of how they may be used.
http://www.poetrysociety.org.nz/August2005/haikuarticle/janereichhold
Thank you so much, Lorin and Gabi, for your discussion and links on “ambiguity” in haiku. It is so helpful to a beginner like me.
I read the material you both suggested very carefully, to make sure I understood how and where ambiguity works, or doesn’t.
In a nutshell, here is what I learned: The haiku poet who uses ambiguity must be a careful writer, for while, as Lorin says and Gabi’s sites indicate, there are pros and cons for the inclusion of ambiguity (riddle, pun, paradox, enigma, double-entendre, twits, for example), but its value has more to do with the excellence of the author, not for the use of it.
As I understood it, using ambiguity suggests the author wants to speak on several levels. If it is not done with rigorous attention to BOTH the haiku’s essence and the audience, it might become a superficial contrivance, which, more likely than not, degrades the haiku and confuses the reader.
Please let add that Lorin’s reference to William Empson’s “Seven Types of Ambiguity” is worth studying, for it showed me (an editor) the extraordinary range of ambiguous interpretations in a way I had never seen.
Thanks again for your help,
Dafne
ah, I see that Gabi has posted whilst I was writing my last post.
Hi Dafne,
Sorry if I’ve caused you confusion. I hadn’t heard of the term ‘pivot word’ before (& though I’ve now read Gabi’s posts on her WKDB, I still find the term a tad obscure)
I’m not sure why ‘unresolved ambiguity’ should be ambiguous, though.
For a simple exercise, consider when you come across words that you don’t know or words written in a language you don’t know, within the context of a sentence….or a ku, for instance, Sandra’s haiku which is featured on Troutswirl here at THF:
waiting in the wharenui:
my son’s mihi
different to mine
- Sandra Simpson
If you don’t happen to speak Maori (like me), the meaning of this haiku is ambiguous. We might think,”Where are these two waiting and goodness me! just what is it that’s being compared here?” Part of the way this haiku works is the humour of our responses to this ambiguity, our attempts to make meaning, which will be misreadings if we don’t know the two Maori words. When we discover the meanings of the Maori words, the ambiguity is resolved and (I’ll lay odds
) our eyebrows can return to their normal position as we enter a ‘true’ reading of the haiku. Resolved ambiguity.
In the haiku that Laura quoted as an example of ‘a pivot-word haiku’:
rain hammers down
on the unfinished building
cranes perch
I can see that ‘cranes’ is ambiguous in context, since the word might as easily denote the bird species as the industrial sort of crane. A dictionary can’t help me resolve the author’s intended meaning with this one, so as a reader, I’m left with both possibilities.
Unresolved ambiguity.
See Gabi’s post for explanation of ‘pivot words’ (and yes, Laura, I would imagine that we’d simply call them puns in English, so I don’t understand why the term ‘pivot words’ was coined. Maybe someone could clear this up for me.)
As for the merits of ambiguity in haiku, consider that there are examples of intended (deliberate) ambiguity and unintended (which can be just plain confusing or hilarious) in all kinds of writing. Ambiguity can be used to good effect in haiku, as it can in other kinds of writing. There is no ‘rule’ for or against it. The very existence of the ‘gap’, caesura or ‘kire’ in haiku can often produce ambiguity, so it’s well that anyone writing haiku is aware of it.
William Empson, an English literary critic, famously wrote his ‘Seven Types of Ambiguity’ back in the 1930s.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Empson
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seven_Types_of_Ambiguity_%28Empson%29
“Does anyone know of a discussion that focuses on the merits (or not) of ambiguity in haiku?
Dafne”
Here are some LINKS
http://wkdhaikutopics.blogspot.com/2008/08/pivot.html
Riddles and Haiku
Creating depth or confusion ?
http://haikuandhappiness.blogspot.com/2007/03/haiku-riddles.html
.
Ah, Alan, thank you! I see. It’s pretty funny that in my other writing I pride myself in speaking plainly with simple vocabulary, but you’re correct that I can wax “poetic” with haiku. I have been curbing that impulse, but need to knock it out further.
I get the concept of the field notes now. It will help me to achieve my goal!
Hi, Lorin! Thank you for your insights. I think pivot-words are just puns, which might encourage me to be “clever” and avoid the purpose of speaking plainly. I like the pivot-line and now understand it much better!
“You’ll begin to ‘trust the reader’, too, to take a more active part in reading, to infer meaning rather than just receive it.”
Wow, you know, I guess I wasn’t really trusting the reader. I wanted everyone to make sure to get the meaning behind my haiku, so I hit them over the head with a two by four.
When I started this project, one of my big questions was, do my haiku communicate? Do people get what I’m trying to say? That’s very important to me. I think people do, so I can back off a bit. I agree that field notes will help.
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