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Date Posted: 09:58:44 03/18/01 Sun
Author: Beki
Subject: Re: spring haiku
In reply to: jan 's message, "spring haiku" on 09:24:24 03/18/01 Sun

Your second haiku is on the mark, third comes close but first needs some work. There is too much going on as it reads, haiku seeks to capture a single moment, a single image like a verbal photograph. I know I have never posted haiku yet but it happens to be my specialty. I will post some immediately following this response :-) But to lend some credibility to my response let me tell you I moderate haiku forums at two different websites (one where I am also an administrater), I have published about 40 of them, including one in Japan, and many many places on teh net I am known as "the queen of haiku", a name given to me by others. So...let me continue......

The syntax of the first line is not one usd with haiku (inverting subject and predicate) and the use of "strew" in this poem is very awkward...the poem reads like in the first line, the tree blooms, then you are commanding someone to strew the petals about, and then suddenly there is a princess too. I think you mean the almond tree is dropping its petals and your poem would better reflect that in this way (of course if that is NOT what you mean, forgive my interpretation):

Almond tree blooms,
drops petals on sandy lane -
princess smiles again.

In your middle line you had 8 syllables, not 7. While it is perfectly acceptable to have haiku poems with less than 17 syllables they may never have more. Also words like "the" and "a" are avoided as they waste space, so to speak; EVERY WORD of your poem should be absolutely necessary. SOmetimes I do use those words, when they are necessary, as in my first ever published poem:

Wild geese flying south -
shadows that cross the moonlight
cross the water, too.

In your poem I would have left "a" in the second line except that it made it too long.Ther eis much more to haiku then you ever learned in school or in a forms book. These are some of the things they don't teach you :-)

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