ROUND ONE

1.
Wakes of krill
scattering before
one lone whale

2.
words, potter's clay
taking shape beneath my pen
ink becomes image

Though I like the images and the message and the connections within #2, the mere use of the personal pronoun moves it out of the traditional cool weather territory of haiku. The author is observing him or herself and telling us about how s/he feels observing him/herself writing. Haiku demands that one be subtler. Ku #1 floats majestically into the next round.

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3.
face to the rain
in gold boa and black cape
the bearded iris

4.
Hands clap a white cloud.
Old woman’s flour smudged nose
smells the loaves baking

Back in the early days of haiku writing we were all greatly impressed with the term wabi (Japanese for an almost indefinable quality of things that have weathered, taken on a patina of use, or endurance against hardship). The easiest English concept for this quality was 'old' and so there was an abundance of haiku filled with the old things of 'old' until the word became a pariah in the magazines. Why does the bread baker have to be old? One could make connections between the "Hands clap a white cloud" (an excellent line that I would save carefully to use again) and gray hair and baking and be able to suggest that the woman is old instead of having to express it exactly. I do give this author lots of credit for the way the lines are in two parts and the interesting way of going from the "flour smudged nose" to its function of "smell[ing] the loaves baking". However, the show-off in the rain goes ahead.

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5.
Your steel blue peepers,
I must trace your photographs
and grieve about you.

6.
fat raindrops splatter
flowers furl their petals as
umbrellas open

A no-brainer, right? Four pronouns in #5 is a dead giveaway (forgive the unfortunate pun). With a bit of rewriting the author could have given up three of them without losing the sense of the thought. And this thought (with the concept of grieving) is, as you know, in tanka country, and far from the hills of haiku. I feel the author was trying to fill out the 5-7-5 formula and make the reader feel sorry for his or her loss. Somewhere recently I was reading that trying to elicit sympathy was the ultimate act of ego. Haiku is the great ego destroyer and valued for this exact quality. It drives our occupation with ourselves out into the natural world where hopefully it gets lost in the grandeur of the grandness. We turn to haiku precisely because we want to take our minds for a walk on the wild side of life. For this we will follow the umbrella into the next round.

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7.
Leaving enough slack,
Like a boat tied to the wharf
You battle life's tides.

8.
a crisp dawn rises-
followed at sun down by the
pheasant's parched call.

Ah, you have already spotted the pronoun in #7 and know it has lost the match. Too bad. I love the thinking here and feel this is a tanka just waiting to be written. Perfect observation and combination. Go for it. And leave out the word 'like'. Tanka assume readers are smart enough to mentally understand the simile without the signpost of the word 'like'. Also, consider using only the words you need to express your thought and not count the syllables until you have said what needs saying. For a tanka you need one more little image but I am sure it will come to you as you think back on the time you saw a boat tied to a wharf. The pheasant screeches ahead into the next round.

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9.
stone wall ahead
harder to face
Your back

10.
the clock in the rock
singing new kid in the block
give me blues and rock

When people begin to try out a new poetry form, it is usual that the first efforts consist of attempts to follow the example as closely as possible. When the new genre comes from a foreign language (as it often does), the poet ends up copying, not the signature aspects of the original poem, but the sometimes false attempts of the translator. One can feel that the author of #10 has surely read an early translation of haiku, when translators felt they had to make the ends of line rhyme so the haiku sounded like English poetry. As translators became more comfortable and secure with the poetry of haiku, this feature was dropped. Occasionally a rhyme will spontaneously appear in one's haiku, but most people would quickly rewrite it out. They would have a good reason because when the rhymes appear at the end of lines they have a tendency to 'close down' a poem, to make a conclusion that wraps up the thought. The basic thrust of a haiku is just the opposite – to force outward so the reader's mind takes a leap into the beyond. A few people, who read the romanized versions of Japanese haiku, have seen how these poets have used what sounds like rhyme to our ears. This comes from the fact that their sound units all end with vowels (except the 'n' sound). So each part of each word ends with one of ten sounds that gives such an easy rhyme that it can become alliteration (the use of repeated sounds to carry a feeling). Still the Japanese haiku writer would avoid end line rhymes for the reason above. Whew, you had to read all that just to find out #9 backs itself into the next round.

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11.
long-legged on rock
such mastery of stillness
heron awaits lunch

12.
The frail skeleton
Of a fluttering brown leaf
Gently torn apart

Here we have two 5-7-5 haiku facing off in this match. I am not against the discipline of syllable counting and when someone makes a 5-7-5 haiku work the gratification is tremendous and I would be the first one to applaud. What makes the hackles on haiku writers' (and judges') necks rise is to find examples of the English sentence being sacrificed on the chopping block of syllables. Ku #11 has three phrases instead of a phrase and a fragment (as in #12) and the first line feels it needs an article ('a' or 'the') in the worst possible way. Again, I would suggest that you write out your ku using the words the idea needs. You can skimp on articles (often) in the fragment but give the reader the experience that you are acquainted with English sentences in the second half of the verse (the phrase portion). Say this part of your thought so it flows off your tongue. This makes the briefness of the fragment that much more evident and exciting. Ku #11 need not be abandoned. The observation is valid. Go back to the moment you saw the heron. What else was going on? Ku #12 may be frail but it won this match.

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13.
Crimson butterfly
Twisting, turning, unable
To flitter away

14.
a bird crosses the blue sky
then on the same trajectory
a plane

One of the basics of haiku is the idea of using nouns instead of verbs. A few very good ku have been written with no verbs; a balance act which skirts the danger of the 'grocery list' haiku. In addition, here the one the noun ("butter – fly") actually has a verb in it. This only adds to the feeling of overload. If I found the verse as written in #13 in my notebook, I would look to myself to ask what was I feeling when I observed the scene or when I wrote that down. Often in the verbs we use for our haiku are clues to what we are feeling. This is especially true if you find a verb reoccurring often in your haiku. I suggest you take a moment to think what this might mean. A friend of mine, who was care-taking her invalid husband, was surprised to find how many of her ku contained the word "captures". This is not wrong, it can bring the reader to a new understanding of nature, but it is a sign of something strong happening within the author. And there goes that bird in #14 into the next round because the butterfly cannot get away.

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15.
sudden polka-dots
black on the gray path
then I feel the rain in my hair

16.
High tide and low tide
relentless, this old mighty
scours the bridge pilings

I feel surrounded by the sound of counting; syllables being ticked off on bent fingers. The use of "tide" twice in one line is the first hint of how this practice loses the goal of saying things succinctly. And then in the second line, I want to know the rest of the line. I want to ask the author "this old mighty" what? I have a polka-dot phobia, but still #15 wins this match.

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ROUND TWO

1.
Wakes of krill
scattering before
one lone whale

3.
face to the rain
in gold boa and black cape
the bearded iris

If Shiki were alive, I feel he would pick #1 as the winner of the whole contest and we would be done with this right now. Still, I have trouble with the middle line "scattering before". Somehow that fails to give me the concrete image (a picture for my mind). I love the sound of "Wakes of krill" and even the image that gives me. Also, I would question the need for both the words "one" and "lone". In a genre where we celebrate the saving of just one tiny unnecessary word it seems this line should be checked over more carefully. Could I trade in "one" for a noun in the second line? In the meantime, we will chase after the gold feather boa.

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6.
fat raindrops splatter
flowers furl their petals as
umbrellas open

8.
a crisp dawn rises-
followed at sun down by the
pheasant's parched call.

These two are so close, that I can only suggest a tiny technicality that separates them. Ku #6 ends in a verb. Usually, we try to get haiku to end with a noun. Otherwise, the author has done everything right. A small thing, but in a contest, even that makes the difference.

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9.
stone wall ahead
harder to face
Your back

12.
The frail skeleton
Of a fluttering brown leaf
Gently torn apart

I love what is being said in #9 and wish that all of this were in a tanka. This is perfect material for that form. I am bothered by the three line end stops, yet I will admit the jerkiness of the poem as a whole perfectly fits the feeling it emotes. But the subject of the poem is not haiku material. We are left with the leaf.

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14.
a bird crosses the blue sky
then on the same trajectory
a plane

15.
sudden polka-dots
black on the gray path
then I feel the rain in my hair

I feel that the author of #15, when he or she saw that the haiku was not going to fit into the pattern box, just tossed the box aside. This I would encourage you to do. But I would also hope that you would also stick with the poem long enough to consider at least giving it a haiku (big belly) shape. I know you were right to put the punch line (the answer to the riddle) in the last line, but with a bit more revising, I feel this poem could be worked into a short-long-short line form while still using some of the same images. Due to my own dislike of polka dots, they would be the first to go. However I love the second line (and a marvelous five syllables!!! why waste this in the middle?) and that feels like a good first line to me. You see, it only needs a bit of tweaking to make an excellent haiku out of this one.

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ROUND THREE

3.
face to the rain
in gold boa and black cape
the bearded iris

8.
a crisp dawn rises-
followed at sun down by the
pheasant's parched call.

I feel the strong connection between sun down and the "parched call" (excellent description of the cry) is really all this little poem needs. The introduction of sun rise and "crisp' seems a bit too much. I know that placing something that rises against something that sinks is much admired by the Japanese poets, but the author has created such an original and descriptive combination between the setting sun and the pheasant's cry that s/he should be satisfied with presenting this beauty in the best way possible. Ku # 3 goes ahead.

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12.
The frail skeleton
Of a fluttering brown leaf
Gently torn apart

14.
a bird crosses the blue sky
then on the same trajectory
a plane

One of the objectives in haiku is to use words to present a feeling and ku #12 does this very well. What an aura of fragility, of helplessness, of giving up to the elements this verse contains. It is almost too much and that is where the problem lies. The author had too many available words (by using 17 syllables) and has overloaded the verse. Also, the last line seems to add information we already know: if the leaf is a skeleton it has been torn apart. I do like the combination of "frail" and "fluttering". But I would question the use of "brown" because if the leaf is just a skeleton how can it still have its brownness?

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ROUND FOUR

3.
face to the rain
in gold boa and black cape
the bearded iris

14.
a bird crosses the blue sky
then on the same trajectory
a plane

Whatever I failure I find in #14, I also find in my own work and myself. I have seen exactly what this poet has seen and I have tried to find the haiku words to be as impressive as is this image. Yet, I was not able to do any better and this effort by someone I do not know leaves me feeling someone else has not gotten it right either. We both have failed to put our fingers on the mystery.

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THE WINNER:

face to the rain
in gold boa and black cape
the bearded iris

.........................jen

This haiku is built on the riddle technique. It opens with the image of someone holding their face up to the rain. This is a very sensuous act, no matter who is doing it. So the scene is set with an image and a feeling. Then with the next line the author adds the images of a "gold boa and black cape". I do not need to tell you where that should take your mind, but mine goes outside a theater where someone, surely a woman, just leaves the magic of the make-believe world to step back into the real world and finds delight in the reality of rain. She takes a precious moment to revel in it without thinking of her fine clothes. But then comes the punch line, the answer, the twist. The author is describing to us an iris. Usually when we think "iris" we think of the feminine gender, mostly because of the Greek goddess Iris or Rainbow (another connection). But in addition to this answer we also get the information that the iris is "bearded" (a common part of the name of iris to differentiate from the similar flower, the sweet flag which has no "beard"). However, when we combine "bearded", "gold boa", and "black cape", I get the image of a flamboyant male, dressed outrageously and gorgeous in himself who is also very sensual and appreciates the delicate touch of rain. This is an extra twist that carries this poem into other realms. Perfect. Marvelous. What a joy to find this haiku today! Congratulations to jen!

Poems Copyright © Individual Authors 2001.
Commentary Copyright © Jane Reichhold 2001.

Let me read another Sea Shell Game .
Show me the form so I can submit my haiku to the Sea Shell Game.
Maybe I need to read up on haiku.