Haiku

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Haiku is a form of Japanese poetry that consists of 17 syllables in three metrical phrases of 5, 7, 5 syllables per line. Traditionally, a haiku poem consists of kigo or a seasonal reference, and a kireji or verbal pause to break up the line, also called a caesura.

The best known Japanese Haiku is by a man named Matsuo Bashō. He was known for his clear and brief haiku. His most famous one is featured below.

furu ike ya / kawazu tobikomu / mizu no oto
an ancient pond / a frog jumps in / the splash of water [1686]
from the haiku found on Wikipedia page about Matsuo Bashō.

Other Haiku Examples:

Cloud Fight a Haiku
Clouds shift on grey sky
Fighting for territory
Rain softens their hearts.
@allpoetry.com

clamour
a radio
throwing clamour of FM station
in a kitchen
@allpoetry.com

black board
black board
showing experiment of something new
a teacher
@allpoetry.com

Huh?
hammers on metal
never on the trees
hard-headed woodpecker
@allpoetry.com

Stalker
Facebook, Live, Myspace:
Tu casa es mi casa.
Your secret is saved.
@fictionpress.com

The bus is shockingly yellow amongst those drifts
Feb-brrr-uary
snow, no school snow, predicted
by the news—Liars!
@fictionpress.com

Thanksgiving’s Undying Shame
Four in the morning,
frantic call to butterball
—the turkey's not thawed.

Last night's fun mocks me
with this clammy, naked bird—
at least, the beer's cold.

Mother you are right.
I am immature, too young
to sport your apron.

Here-take it, I'll watch.
@fictionpress.com


More poetry next week

Examples of Poetry

image provided by kujichagulia1 from photobucket.com

This week will be a focus on Poetry.

Like I said in my last entry, poetry is a way of aesthetically arranging words to make them sound or look a certain way, such as with rhyming words, or so many syllables per line. This week will be a look at some poetry that I found while perusing the internet. Most of the poetry presented probably won't be published works or grammatically correct.

But then some poets never really cared for proper punctuation. Like Emily Dickinson and many of her poems, such as this one, 'There's a Certain Slant of Light." with her random capitalization.

http://poetry.about.com/library/weekly/bldickinsonwinter.htm

Or e. e. cummings and his lack of capitalization, as demonstrated in "i carry your heart with me."

http://famouspoetsandpoems.com/poets/e__e__cummings/poems/14130


Despite all of this punctuality talk, poetry is really meant to envoke the senses, be it good or bad.

This is a poem written in monotetra, or four meteric feet (eight syllables per line) with the last line of the stanza repeated. The title is called 'Becoming a Cat."

http://allpoetry.com/poem/6176393

More poetry next week.

Poetry and Prose

Poetry is a structured form of writing that has a set of rules or a set structure to follow. The rules may be meter, or how many pronounced and unpronounced syllables can be in one line, or the number of times a particular sound can be repeated within the line.

Poetry is more of a use of words in an aesthetic and evocative way. Though this may be the goal of many forms of creative writing, poetry has a bit more structure and set patterns. The only exception is a type of poetry called Free Verse, with no structure, no meter, or no rhymes.

Prose, on the other hand, has less structure and is not as aesthetically designed. It’s more straight-forward and may lack the meter or rhyme of a poem. Proses uses full sentences, detailed paragraphs, and correct grammar. Most literature, newspapers, films, encyclopedias, and other forms of communication are written in this form.

To summarize, poetry is sometimes more structured, while prose is more straight-forward while following standard rules of grammar and sentence structure.

Fiction and Non-Fiction

The first element of writing to be discussed is Fiction. Fiction is basically telling a story that necessarily doesn’t happen in real life. It may be based on events that could happen, but they usually don’t happen. Like an imaginary basketball game that can win a player fame and prestige among his peers. And sometimes it can be outrageously unrealistic that the only places that it could happen would be on paper. Like a talking dog that can sing, tap dance, and save the world all at the same time.

Some forms and variations on fiction include prose, poetry, novels, novellas, short stories, flash fiction, etc. These forms will be discussed in later blogs.

Non-fiction, on the other hand, is an account of particular events that are usually presented as truth. Some interpretations may be accurate, some may not. Most of the time, the information is taken as truth.

Types of non-fiction include biographies, diaries, essays, encyclopedias, book reports, autobiographies. These forms, along with a few others, will also be discussed.

So, to summarize things, fiction can be true or false, depending on how you look at it, and non-fiction usually is accurate unless found out otherwise.

Next week will be a discussion about prose and poetry.

Introduction

This is my first blog and I decided to base it around a theme that invokes one of my hobbies: Writing.

Each week, I'll search the internet for different style of prose, or poetry, and explain it. I'll explain what it includes, special rules that apply to that style, and maybe try it out for myself. It might be descriptive techniques, dialogue, different points of view, genres, or ways to start or end a work.

I'll admit that I'm not a professional at this and I will make mistakes, but I figured it would be fun to explore different techniques on a casual level.

Anyway, see the first real entry next week.