Check It Out

 A ferry headed to Victoria, BC tomorrow, time with my college pals this weekend is the reason I am posting a day early. 

So enjoying Writing and Enjoying Haiku by Jane Reichhold.  A fabulous book on the instruction of haiku.  Today’s reflection is about one of the techniques from the last half of the list.

Techniques thirteen through twenty-four include some of my favorites to write: the “yugen” or the mystery, “sacredness in common things”, the paradox in which the haiku engages the reader and then leaves something to ponder further, and finding the divine in the common which tends to happen unconsciously.

My first blog post three years ago was based on a haiku prompt, the yugen. There is a photo with the haiku of a summer thundercloud.

messenger spirit
waving summertime greetings
twilight clouds gather

Today I read this and wonder if there is enough mystery or sacredness of common things within the haiku?  Are summer thunderclouds common enough? When I revised it for my print on demand book, Solace au Naturel, I revised it this way:

spirit orchestra
sky harp melodies ascend
heavenly bridges
diaphanous souls given
solace, vessel left behind

How could I revise it to make it stronger yet?

spirit orchestra
solace for diaphanous souls
vessels left behind

OR

spirit orchestra
diaphanous souls
vessels left behind

OR

twilight clouds
sky harp melodies bridge
heaven-earth

Reichhold makes me rethink and revise. ( and I am going through all the haiku in Solace au Naturel to revise)  Perhaps revision is never completed. Next week I will share some from her “haiku revision check list”.

Poetry Friday Round-up is at The Miss Rumphius Effect. Thanks, Tricia.

BTW, Pam C. aka Mother Reader has opened up registration for the Third Annual Kidlit Con. It’s the weekend of October 16-18, 2009 in Washington, DC and promises to be a smashing event. More information here.

Happy Reading.

MsMac