hosts: Sanjuktaa Asopa & Vandana Parashar
on the edge of sleep
the black and white checkerboard
of a dog's bark
--- Julie Bloss Kelsey
(Poetry Pea Podcast, August 19, 2019;
Haiku of the Day at The haiku Foundation for Feb 21, 2022 as part of Victor Ortiz's collection on synesthesia)
The visual of the checkerboard is striking. I imagine a white square ‘lighting up’ each time the dog barks, with the black squares representing the silences in between. I find the notion that we can taste, smell or hear colours fascinating.
Julie shares-
“I wrote this haiku in response to a call for submissions from Poetry Pea on the topic of synesthesia. Medically speaking, this a condition in which sensory perceptions cross over - a person might hear colors, for example. I’ve been fascinated with synesthesia ever since I read The Man Who Tasted Shapes by Richard E. Cytowic.
Most of the poems I submitted were haiku I wrote about how I thought sensory crossover could happen. This poem was the only one taken from direct experience. Sometimes, when I am drifting off, I’ll hear a loud noise - something jagged like a car alarm - and my visual field briefly looks like a black and white checkerboard. I don’t…
Is this the illogical way of thinking of strange things in our sleep? We doze off and suddenly we see ourselves falling down from the sky, it has happened for me. So, if anyone can explain??
.
I thought to build a haiku on my experience.
.
deep sleep
another me falling
from the sky
.
I understand its not a place to workshop. I shall post in Sutradhar.
Awesome! It's fascinating how the mind interprets when the body is half-awake...
Sleep logic----go figure . . .
Nice one.
Billie
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