Haiku – three ways

Dear Babysitter,
thank you for taking such care
so I can write some.

Dear Corner Cafe,
the music and the people
and the Karma. Too much.

Dear this world of mine,
you are like Bill Wordsworth¹ this week-
Too much with me².

 

¹The world is too much with us – William Wordsworth³
²Tonight reading  Richard Wright’s book of Haikus – written while he was in exile in Paris.  Learned that while far less common (more like a million times less common) – a 5-8-4 Haiku is an option.  I’ve also read that seventeen syllables is all that you need. I do though, love the balance of 5-7-5.
³Oh. My. God. Pretentious. Notes on my Haikus -like frakin’ Eliot’s Wasteland – but not even close, because I’m not Eliot.

 

mememe and haiku

There’s a mememe going around Facebook tonight, and I thought I might just play along…  I’m doing it here — not in my notes on Facebook because, well my post count is decidedly low these days.

So apparently,  don’t take too long to think about it. Fifteen authors who’ve influenced you and that will always stick with you. List the first fifteen you can recall in no more than fifteen minutes.

ready – go -

1. F. Scott Fitzgerald
2. Kurt Vonnegut
3. Sylvia Plath
4. Madeline L’engle
5. Barbara Kingsolver
6. Bill Shakespeare
7. Harper Lee
8. Ken Kesey
9. John Irving
10. Roddy Doyle
11. Alice Walker
12. Henry David Thoreau
13. Ralph Waldo Emerson
14. Mark Twain (even if Irving said he didn’t like him).
15. Frank O’Hara

That’s a pretty sweet list- that takes me from Elementary school to modern day, and all those authors showed up at different stages of my learning and teaching. To be honest, I rambled off the first thirteen in three minutes and the last two took another  four or five on their own.

As promised, Haiku

Ode to a pinched nerve in my neck-

I think the world needs
to lay off me, when I have
shit that must be done.

Library Haiku

there is something in
the ritual of picking
the right book to read.