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A LITTLE HISTORY -- Haiku is both a type of poetic pattern and a way of experiencing the world. This short, 17-syllable form, usually written in three lines with a 5-7-5 syllable count, focuses our attention on a single, insightful moment.
Haiku derives from a type of Japanese court poetry called tanka that was popularized and refined during the 9th through 12 centuries.
Three great masters of "hokku", Basho, Buson and Issa, lived during Japan's Edo-period (1600-1868) and their work still exerts a great deal of influence on how haiku is written today. All three men were born in rural villages and spent many years practicing and refining their art form as well as wandering the countryside, observing nature and the human condition. They followed in a long Japanese tradition of poet-wanders, who seek to experience the
world through direct contact.
Following the time-tested haiku formula of 5-7-5, people from all over the
country wrote to to describe the current state of life… in the form a short poem.
Feel free to submit
your Haiku about anything...
THE ODD RHYTHMS OF INDEPENDENCE:
I've had no projects,
At all for four months or more,
Last week I got three
TOO MUCH OF A GOOD THING:
Too much work ahead
I need to subcontract it
When it rains it pours
UNDEREMPLOYMENT IS A FULL-TIME GIG:
Business is down.
The phone does not ring.
I am busier than ever!
FAMINE, THEN FEAST:
Months passed in famine
Then six projects all at once
Five turned away. Ouch
LAST PERSON STANDING:
Times are not so good
Consultants take fulltime jobs
More work left for me!
ROMAN HISTORY:
There’s no place like Rome.
A salad of Caesars tossed
aside by the Goths.
PLAYING THE WAITING GAME:
Market started up
But now it is slowing down
I still have no work.
A PRESSING ISSUE:
Gutenberg printing
thrills all the writer types with
a moveable feat. |
