{"id":8262,"date":"2014-04-08T16:57:33","date_gmt":"2014-04-08T20:57:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/?p=8262"},"modified":"2014-04-08T16:57:33","modified_gmt":"2014-04-08T20:57:33","slug":"in-praise-of-short-poems","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/2014\/04\/in-praise-of-short-poems.html","title":{"rendered":"in praise of short poems"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"haiga<\/a>
courtesy Wikipedia<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

I grew up on haiku. It’s popular in school classrooms now — fast, and relatively easy to teach — but I don’t remember there being a lot of my friends who learned it as children.<\/p>\n

My familiarity with it — and subsequent fondness for it — may be due to my father, an inveterate reader and lover of poetry. I inherited his collection of Kipling, Shakespeare (one of my earliest books was a child’s Shakespeare that my father gave me), and other poets.<\/p>\n

Then, when I began to study poetry, haiku seemed so (deceptively) easy. Seventeen syllables, 5-7-5, how hard is that?<\/p>\n

VERY hard. \"haiga<\/a>To create an evocative image — bridge the gap between writer & reader — in SEVENTEEN SYLLABLES??<\/p>\n

Actually, I adore short poems — haiku, tanka, limericks, and recently the lune.<\/em> The lune is an attempt to make English conform more nearly to the spirit of haiku. It’s a 3-5-3 setup, and also very hard.<\/p>\n

Today’s poem is really multi-cultural. It’s a lune — my own — in the haiga<\/em> <\/a>tradition. Haiga<\/em> are drawings (usually by the haiku author) accompanying a haiku. But that makes them seem more independent of each other than they are. Think of graphic novels, how the text & illustration are inseparable. That’s more the way of haiga<\/em>, I suspect.<\/p>\n

They’re a wonderful reminder (for me) of how Buddhism often works in the arts. One not more important than the other; each enhancing the other. And the idea of essence: that you can somehow see\/ touch the heart of an object\/ feeling with these few words…<\/p>\n

My attempt is a contemporary riff: a lune<\/em> w\/ a photo. Let me know what you think.<\/p>\n

\"photo<\/a>
photo the author’s<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

lune for Pascal\u00a0<\/em> ~<\/p>\n

the dog barks<\/p>\n

hungry for my hands<\/p>\n

heart hungry<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I grew up on haiku. It’s popular in school classrooms now — fast, and relatively easy to teach — but I don’t remember there being a lot of my friends who learned it as children. My familiarity with it — and subsequent fondness for it — may be due to my father, an inveterate reader…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":398,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[774,317,22],"tags":[11,1181,1187,262,775,1359,318,1263,1190,1201],"class_list":["post-8262","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-haiku","category-national-poetry-writing-month","category-poetry","tag-beginners-heart","tag-britton-gildersleeve","tag-buddhism","tag-buddhist-blogs","tag-haiga","tag-haiku","tag-national-poetry-month","tag-national-poetry-writing-month","tag-poetry","tag-writing"],"yoast_head":"\nin praise of short poems - Beginner's Heart<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"I grew up on haiku. 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