…in support of World Poetry Day, 26 Sept 2011…
reconstruct the human spirit, through haikus, on Twitter
a selection of these haikus will be read during the e-Learning Webinar of the Durban University of Technology on 23-24 November 2011
What is it like to live in the 21st century? Write haiku to express your experiences.
How and where to tweet
- Go to http://twitter.com – create an account.
- In the search box at the top, search for mari_pete – follow me – click on Follow – and I will follow you.
- Here is my first haiku tweet: #haiku-mp: midnight summer skies / beam with electronic eyes… / haikus make me sleep
- Tweet your own haiku – use the following format:
- Start your haiku with #haiku-mp (this way our haikus will be grouped during a search).
- Separate your three haiku lines with /
The haiku challenge – here are some guidelines
A haiku consists of three lines, with 5, 7 and 5 syllables — seventeen syllables in total.
Haikus are image-based, and use season words.
Haiku poetry is a rendering of an experience, not a comment on it.
Many good haikus achieve a shift (at the end of either the first or second line) – the poem being “cut” in two, creating imaginative distance through contrast, comparison, juxtaposition.
The challenge for me is to develop into a haiku poet, pursuing the discipline of this poetic form. While in awe of the masters, I have a playful, risk-taking approach to this. I invite you to join me on my journey…tweet as many haikus as you wish. No doubt, poets will choose at times to deviate from the form.
Send me an email if you would like to receive an invitation to the DUT e-Learning webinar: mpete@dut.ac.za This invitation is available at http://maripete.co.za/tweet-haikus/
Marí Peté
“In this mortal frame of mine, which is made of a hundred bones and nine orifices, there is something, and this something is called a wind-swept spirit, for lack of a better name, for it is much like a thin drapery that is torn and swept away at the slightest stir of the wind. This something in me took to writing poetry years ago, merely to amuse itself at first, but finally making it its lifelong business. It must be admitted, however, that there were times when it sank into such dejection that it was almost ready to drop its pursuit, or again times when it was so puffed up with pride that it exulted in vain victories over others. Indeed, ever since it began to write poetry, it has never found peace with itself, always wavering between doubts of one kind and another. At one time it wanted to gain security by entering the service of a court, and at another it wished to measure the depth of its ignorance by trying to be a scholar, but it was prevented from either because of its unquenchable love of poetry. The fact is, it knows no other art than the art of writing poetry, and therefore, it hangs on to it more or less blindly. “ Masuo Basho, Journal of a Travel-Worn Satchel in 1687 (tr. Nobuyuki Yuasa) in The Heart of Haiku by Jane Hirshfield
LINKS
How to write a haiku poem: http://www.wikihow.com/Write-a-Haiku-Poem
http://www.toyomasu.com/haiku/#howtowritehaiku
SOURCES
Haiku. The poetry of Zen. Manuela Dunn Mascetti (ed) Newleaf 1997
The Heart of Haiku. Jane Hirshfield (Kindle)
THANKS
to Chris de Beer, who suggested haikus in the first place. This project took root while I began to write #wordstrings (short poems) inspired by jewelry creations of Chris and Marlene de Beer: http://chrisdebeer.blogspot.com
