This short animated illustration video shows the idea of our upcoming column Haiku Horticulture – what it is about, how to write and submit the haiku you’ve written for this column.
Read all the details about this column in here: Haiku Horticulture. We hope this little video gets haiku writers excited. What do you think about it? Please share your thoughts and feedback in the comments section below or on Twitter at @HaikuSeed_.
Featuring haiku brought to blossom by terrific writers from #HaikuSeed prompts: door frame, mango, wintry, evening walk, bloom, pattern, tranquil
I seldom dive into language-specific commentary or poetry form-specific commentary. Basically my commentary is not technical. I’m also not good at writing appreciation. I hope the amazing writers being featured do not take offense if my commentary lacks literal words of praise. When a haiku sets off a chain of imagination inside me, there is an ecstasy I experience that I’ve often been aware of when I read haiku by Basho, Issa and the like. So my commentary is usually about all these images in my head spawned by the featured haiku and this is how I show my appreciation for the writers and their amazing haiku.
Apart from the beautiful image, I feel this haiku lends to several interpretations of human scenes. A lover halfway through the door, leaving angry. Or a lover halfway through the door, taunting and playful. Of course, the cut in half is too sharp of an expression for both these interpretations, unless you subscribe to the absurd.
Why does the writer say the half moon is hiding in the door frame? Did she first search for the moon through a couple of windows in her room, couldn’t find it and she comes out of her room and there! the half moon is hiding in the front door frame.
Featuring few brilliant haiku brought to blossom by terrific writers, seeded by #HaikuSeed prompts. #HaikuSeed:weeding, roadside, crane, moss, jolly, scarf
early spring the crane and the heron playing statues
The image of a crane and heron standing still is quite trivial and the haiku wouldn’t be doing much if it was just describing it without doing something more with the juxtaposing image. I felt that early spring doesn’t give any life to the triviality of this moment even though spring itself and the birds are full of it. Instead, the writer’s creative use of playing statues brought all the life into the haiku. Not only is it an entertaining way of saying that the birds are standing still like statues, it could also mean that the crane and the heron are actively playing a game of statue. This interpretation brings back memories from childhood where we as kids shout “statue!” pointing at a person and the person has to literally freeze in place and stay still like a statue. The idea of a crane and heron playing this game is quite amusing.
