Wed 28 Feb 2018
Day three, week three – tanka*
Posted by PJ under flowers, poetry, poetry project, spring, tanka
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poetry
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Tue 27 Feb 2018
Day two, week three – haiku*
Posted by PJ under birds, haiku, poetry, poetry project
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above the wetland–glad he’s
left my bird feeder.
*For a definition of what constitutes haiku, tanka, and cinquains, and for an explanation of this poetry project, go here.
*To see all the poems in one place go here.
Mirrored from Better Than Dead.
Sun 25 Feb 2018
Day one, week three – haiku*
Posted by PJ under haiku, poetry, poetry project, trees
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Wed 21 Feb 2018
Day three, week two – two cinquains*
Posted by PJ under darkness, poetry, poetry project
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I cheated on this. The idea had too many variables, so I turned it into a pair of cinquains.
Twilight
dark, moonless
night, two amber
eyes caper down the street
alone.
Headlights
flash and now
I see the woman all
in black holding tightly to
a leash.
*For a definition of what constitutes haiku, tanka, and cinquains, and for an explanation of this poetry project, go here.
*To see all the poems in one place go here.
Mon 19 Feb 2018
Day two, week two – haiku*
Posted by PJ under haiku, peaches, poetry, poetry project
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Fri 16 Feb 2018
Day one, week two – tanka*
Posted by PJ under birds, poetry, poetry project
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Shadow of wings fly
the sun path from the window.
Outside, crows caw, gulls
pipe, finches chitter while all
gather at my bird feeder.
*For a definition of what constitutes haiku, tanka, and cinquains, and for an explanation of this poetry project, go here.
*To see all the poems in one place go here.
Wed 14 Feb 2018
More cinquains*
Posted by PJ under cinquain, day poems, driving, poetry, poetry project
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Edited to add: I hadn’t heard of the school shooting on this day when I posted this or I wouldn’t have been so cavalier about things.
These don’t really count towards my weekly total, but I’m on a roll and having fun. I adapted this first one from an older short poem (I was calling these day poems at the time) so it’s a rehab rather than new:
Driving
shadow-dappled
roads, the world unwinds,
my sighs release the chains that bind
my heart.
The second cinquain is by Adelaide Crapsey (an unfortunate name for a poet if ever there was one). Ms. Crapsey “invented” the American Cinquain back at the turn of the 20th century.  I really love this one:
November Wind
Listen…
With faint dry sound,
Like steps of passing ghosts,
The leaves, frost-crisp’d, break from the trees
And fall.
*For a definition of what constitutes haiku, tanka, and cinquains, and for an explanation of this poetry project, go here.
*To see all the poems in one place go here.
Mon 12 Feb 2018
Day three, week one – Cinquain*
Posted by PJ under birds, cinquain, nature, poetry, poetry project
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Fri 9 Feb 2018
Day two, week one – haiku*
Posted by PJ under cats, haiku, Min, nature, poetry, poetry project
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Thu 8 Feb 2018
I’m going to try something here
Posted by PJ under art, cinquain, haiku, nature, poetry, poetry project, tanka
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But the writing…fits and starts, can’t keep going on anything, things bubbling below the surface, but they won’t come out. I need to write. I long for it so hard, so deep. I think I need to force my own hand, so I’m going to try doing little things with that, too. I remember a writing teacher many long yarns ago who made us do five weeks (out of 20) of nothing but haiku, tanka, and cinquains before he’d let us do any other kind of writing. We chafed at that, some dropped the class, but for those of us who stuck with it this discipline turned into an amazingly freeing exercise. So…
Haiku
Poems of 3 lines and 17 syllables:
Line 1, 5 syllables
Line 2, 7 syllables
Line 3, 5 syllables
Tanka
Poems of 5 lines, 31 syllables:
Line 1, 5 syllables
Line 2, 7 syllables
Line 3, 5 syllables
Line 4, 7 syllables
Line 4, 7 syllables
Cinquain
An American form in imitation of the Japanese forms above. (Some cheat and title these poems, allowing themselves an extra line.)
Poems of 5 lines with iambic accents:
Line 1, 1 accent
Line 2, 2 accents
Line 3, 3 accents
Line 4, 4 accents
Line 5, 1 accent
Can I keep up the discipline? What discipline should I set myself? One a day? One a week?
I’ll try one a day, but that may be ambitious. One a week seems too little. So maybe I’ll compromise. I have to do at least 3 a week. If I do more, that’s great, but at least those three. So, here we go.
Edited to add:Â I started this on a Thursday, so my week runs Thursday to Thursday.
Day One – Tanka (with a thanks to mountoregano and a side thanks to Billy Collins)
The daffodils hold,
their green ranks standing silent.
The peach tree, chafing
with impatience, holds forth in
full spring, laughing pink blossoms.
