Skip to main content Help Control Panel

Shakespeare's Monkeys

Infinite Monkeys. Infinite Typewriters.

More in AmaNana's Personal Space

I took the last banana

Written for my sweetheart when I was monkeying around with Senryu. Perhaps it could be known as a Haiku overbyte. I byt off more than I could eschew.

Because you weren't there
If there, wouldn't have been one
Slipping me appeal

04/18/2007

Edited after reading Pags wonderful (informative!) comment:

Because you aren't here

There glares a fell banana

Slipping me appeal

;-P couldn't make fall work, how about fell? ;-P

 

Author's Note: You are the top banana!

Anstey - on May 10 2007

hmmm technically
isn't it a senryu?
at least..i think so.


-----
  • stephan

AmaNana - on May 10 2007

Well, it depends on if it's human or monkey thinking it, right? if monkey/nature haiku, if human senryu? right?


Anstey - on May 10 2007
I think... it lacks a seasonal element. And not all in present tense... BUT, i'm not completely clear either. Perhaps someone more edu-ma-cated coudl help us out. regardless, it's amusing.
-----
  • stephan

Pags - on May 28 2007

I Think,,, a rose by any other name would smell a sweet. Does it matter what we call this poem if it works as a poem?

It counts like haiku/senryu but it doesn't work like haiku/senryu. But there are those who would argue that the count is everything, in which case, it is one or the other.

In my opinion both haiku and senryu gain their power by the juxtoposition of concrete images. The careful choice of the two images creates feeling and meaning. Imagine a rose. On its own it is simply a rose. Consider how its meaning changes by placing it in different contexts eg. on a bush covered in many other similar roses, wilting on the ground by that same bush, tucked into a woman's ponytail, tucked into a book of poetry, dried and lying beside socks in a man's drawer, or clutched in a toddler's fist.

Stephen mentions the lack of a season word. In Japanese the season word it vital and adds layers of meaning: you can buy (or find on the internet) books listing season words which pinpoint the exact time of year in which your poem is set. In English we do not have set lists. Some people like to use translated Japanese season words eg crane, morning glories, cherry blossom. But many occidental writers use occidental words which carry with them multiple layers of meaning - thanksgiving, barbeque, fall, barndance. The use of these words ads richness to a form which can be very sparse.

Then there is the thorny issue of what is different about haiku as oposed to senryu. My rule of thumb is nature versus the rest If all the images are nature based then its probably haiku. If the images come from something other then its probably senryu.

But the one thing which is common in both haiku and senryu is that the poem captures a very specific, fleeting moment. In the change from one image to the next there is a friction which causes an emotion. Good haiku and senryu all do this - provoke a memory of emotion. As Stephen says, they are usually written in the present tense. But it is the immediacy of the captured moment which is the thing. And to me, this is the key thing which your poem doesn't do. This doesn't make it a bad poem. Just makes it a pain to classify!

And of course, as I said before, this is just my opinion. Others will argue differently.


AmaNana - on June 5 2007

I just can't take anything seriously, sometimes. Thanks for the wonderful information, Pags! You are a sweetheart!


Share
* Invite participants
* Share at Facebook
* Share at Twitter
* Share at LinkedIn
* Reference this page
Monitor
Recent files
Member Pages »
See also