Bookshare User Sends Haiku

A guest Beneblog by Lindsie Verma of the Bookshare Team

Hot Fall Sun hangs low

Cooling breeze ruffles oak tree

Beneath, small boy reads.

And now, as an old man, that boy is still reading. Thanks! –Don Meyer, Bookshare user.

We get a lot of emails from happy users, but never before have we received gratitude in Haiku-form! When we asked Don for permission to post his haiku, he said, "It was very gratifying to find that you, and your team, enjoyed the haiku. As I said to you before, that boy was me. Even now I can still see the sunlight filtering through the oak trees, the shadows, the life that surrounded me as I read poetry under the oaks in front of Crown Point Country School. Even as early as the third grade I had learned to sit quietly and observe everything with the whole of my body, all senses. I did not start to write poetry until my late thirties, though, when, finally, all the bottled up emotions began to emerge. I know, now, that my 'journey of a thousand miles' had already begun."

Born in the early 17th century, Haiku as a literary form was a product of the game Renga in which poets wrote alternating stanzas to create poems with sound unit counts known as "on." From this pastime grew the three-line, 17-syllable literary form we know it as today. This form of poetry has risen in popularity in the west, though it has come a long way from its beginnings in feudal Japan. Traditional Japanese Haiku tended to focus narrowly on nature, whereas modern Haiku take on a bevy of topics. Take for example Hipster Haiku in which the author rages against her urban setting, a far cry from the outdoor scenes set by Bashō. No matter the topic, Haiku spans the linguistic divide as a universal form of artistic expression.

Bookshare collection

Haiku books few but varied

For your enjoyment:

Cat Haiku by Deborah Coates

Gay Haiku by Joel Derfner

Haiku: Seasons of Japanese Poetry by Johanna Brownell

Hipster Haiku by Siobhan Adcock.

On Love and Barley: Haiku of Basho by Matsuo Basho

Morning Haiku by Sonia Sanchez

Comments

jem said…
With a little (3-syllable) poetic license from the official translation, this is a haiku rendition of Article 37(1) of 'The Copyright Law of Japan':

It is O-K
To reproduce in Braille
Works already made public.

Popular posts from this blog

Vinod Sena in memoriam

Bringing Millions of Books to Billions of People: Making the Book Truly Accessible

Skoll World Forum: My Annual Heart-Mind Feast