My name is Ed Bremson. Mijikai Haiku, which means short or brief haiku, is a project that was begun by me, with help from my friend Haiku Jin (who gave me the name of the group). Some possible ideas include taking a haiku and paring it down to its bare essentials, eliminating unnecessary words; or writing a haiku from scratch by concentrating on images instead of grammar. Another idea is to paint images with only a few words, perhaps make impressionistic haiku, using broad strokes. Of course there are many ways to do this. I’m not going to tell you how to use your imagination. Much of the time I personally try to make an actual haiku. Let me give an example. Here is a poem I wrote:
spring moonlight –
a black cat waits silently
in the yard
In Mijikai Haiku, how might we change this? Perhaps:
moonlight
black cat
yard
or
black cat
moonlight
yard
Of course it would also be possible to say:
moonlight / black cat / in my yard OR EVEN
moonlight / in my yard / black cat
You might ask, why do you say “in my yard”? Isn’t that being verbose? Well, “in my yard” is just one possibility. And a lot of the process depends on the effect the poet is trying to convey. And I did cut it down from ten words to six, from thirteen syllables down to seven, which fits in with the spirit of Mijikai Haiku, imho.
Of course, there are many ways to make Mijikai Haiku. Some have experimented using one word, two words, three words, etc.
The above examples are not the only possibilities. Given the imagination of human beings, who knows what paths of creativity and expression we might go down. BY THE WAY, particularly with Mijikai Haiku, there are no correct ways to say this or that. There are only new ideas. Also, like Mijikai Haiku, this statement is a work in progress.
One last thing: let’s make this a fun and safe place to carry on this experiment. Let’s be nice and pleasant to each other so everyone can have fun.
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