writeALONG! 22 April

Padma Rajeswari
Apr 22
2 min read

A TUESDAY FEATURE

hosts: Padma Rajeswari, K. Ramesh

Only the unpublished poems (that are never published on any social media platform/journals/anthologies) posted here for each prompt will be considered for Triveni Haikai India's monthly journal -- haikuKATHA, each month.

Poets are requested to post poems (haiku/senryu) that adhere to the prompts/exercises given.

Only 1 poem to be posted in 24 hours. Total 2 poems per poet are allowed each week (numbered 1,2). So, revise your poems till 'words obey your call'.

If a poet wants feedback, then the poet must mention 'feedback welcome' below each poem that is being posted.

Responses are usually a mixture of grain and chaff. The poet has to be discerning about what to take for the final version of the poem or the unedited version will be picked up for the journal.

The final version should be on top of the original version for selection.

Poetry is a serious business. Give you best attempt to feature in haikuKATHA !!

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Once again, here are some quotes from Haiku: A Poet’s Guide by Lee Gurga (with Charles Trumbull).

“Nouns are the meat of haiku.”

“With nouns we are most clearly able to convey our experiences without interpretation.

‘Show, don’t tell,’ is the haiku way. Here is an image: a boy on a swing. Here is a statement: I saw a boy on a swing. The image presents what was experienced without putting the author in the picture. Further, the image here, like many images in haiku, does not contain a verb. Though verbs are certainly used in haiku, they are not absolutely necessary and many haiku poets do without them.”

“Actual practice provides no clear answer; an informal survey … looked at 100 anthologized haiku by top English and American writers and found that about 40% contained full verbs, 35% used participles, and 25% had no form of verb at all. If the verb can be eliminated without harming the action, it might be worthwhile doing so.

Consider, for example, how much less effective Carolyn Hall’s haiku,

empty sandals

on the beach

pull of the moon

would have been had she written

her sandals

lying empty on the beach

the moon is pulling

Notice also that in the first version, the second line acts as a pivot, an effect lost entirely in the second.”

How do we react to this quote? Can we produce a haiku full of action, i.e. one that’s not still life, without the aid of a verb?

180 Comments

Linda Papanicolaou

Apr 26

Interesting thread this week. I noticed a couple of posted haiku that have verbs so did the exercise of mentally rewriting them without, and realized that some haiku want verbs, some don’t. Early on in my writing days, an instructor told us that we should always have a verb or the poem is static without one. I’ve never believed that and have always liked verbless haiku for their immersive, sensory quality.

Anyway the prompt has made me think about something Jerry Ball wrote years ago about verbless haiku. I found it at The Haiku Foundation. Here’s a URL that will lead you to it

https://thehaikufoundation.org/book-of-the-weekwhen-almost-nothing-happens-haiku-with-very-few-verbs/

Edited