Monostich

[Lake]

summer sun if you'd save some rays for winter

 

divorced photos all turned face down

 

spring rain trees grass all one green

 

even a filthy pond sees white cranes

 

school break amusement park flooded with kids

[tonyv]

Lake, I found MONOSTITCH listed under "Line Construction." I take it that each of these lines is an individual haiku mosnostitch. The first four clearly can't be broken up into three-line haiku -- the monostitch is certainly appropriate -- but the last ... it's possible. I see two thought-provoking ways:

 

school break

amusement park flooded

with kids

 

school break

amusement park

flooded with kids

 

Hmmm ... I know not what I talk about. But, then again, with these two ways muddying the waters, it seems that monostitch is almost mandatory for this last one. I like this concept of haiku monostitch.

 

 

Tony

[Lake]

Tony, thank you for your interest in this one-line thingy and I like your different ways of reading it which is one of the characteriscs of haiku. I just started to learn and write this type of pomes so not every line is satisfactory. What if I change "school break" to "school breaks", thus

 

school breaks amusement park flooded with kids

 

How would you like to read this then?

 

 

Monostich is all of one thing, one breath. I'm so glad there's so much information on poetry here, even this one-line verse is lincluded in Tinker's treatury box.

 

Cheers,

 

Lake

[tonyv]

school breaks amusement park flooded with kids

 

How would you like to read this then?

It changes things significantly, Lake. I read breaks as a verb in this instance. Interesting. But, I like it both ways -- this way and the way you have it now.

 

Tony :)

[Lake]

It changes things significantly, Lake. I read breaks as a verb in this instance. Interesting.

Tony :)

 

:icon_sunny: Thanks, Tonny! That's how I'd like to read, too.

 

Lake

[goldenlangur]

Hii Lake,

 

I do like this on-line haiku idea. Although I have read some I've never tried one. So it's good to read yours here. My favourite is:

 

spring rain trees grass all one green

 

 

Thank you.

[Aleksandra]

spring rain trees grass all one green

- My favorite too.

 

Lake this is perfect done. I love it. Nice idea, and also we have treasure of poetry on our board - thanks to Tinker, and to you all who are participating on the board.

 

Wonderful and thank you.

 

Aleksandra

[waxwings]

lake, you are probably the best reference to what a haiku may be. A monostich is a poem consisting of one line. In effect you have a series of them, not one. Calling them one-line haiku is not right, like saying there are more kinds of haiku than one.

 

It is well known, that haiku can be written in more than one layout, and not just in English but in Japanese as well.

 

It is my understanding that the better haiku has three parts As all your seem to have, each part with its own more or less well defined role/sense/content/contribution/effect. Regardless of how written, the tripartite character should be maintained, or so I believe.

 

Along with that, I like tonyv's first 'broken' version, because cramming too much into the third part seems anathematic to the idea that the second (and longest part) sets up the effect of the last part/line.

 

In that respect, changing to "school breaks" does not make good sense, I think, because the school does not "break" (and fall to pieces) while "school break" is a well established concept, and no plural is needed to have it segue into what the rest of the haiku says.

 

Nice work, but the first two seem to beg for expansion. I would break the third one as follows:

 

spring rain

trees grass all

one green

 

but having pondered it for a while I would choose

 

trees, grass

all one green--

spring rain

 

but only because that is how your observation seems to make more sense when articulated in English, an SVO language (subject verb object, vs. Japanese, an SOV language (like Turkish, Korean Mongolian). (What about Chinese which I have zero knowledge of?). Having done a lot of poem transposition (translation?), I have found that we cannot duplicate the poetic feel w/out rearranging the verbal sequence and reaching for the more appropriate synonyms.

Edited November 3, 2009 by waxwings

[Lake]

Thanks golden, Alex and waxwing for your read and reply.

 

Calling them one-line haiku is not right, like saying there are more kinds of haiku than one.

 

Mine may not be qulified to be called one-line haiku as I am so aware of. But the term is not invented by me (I hope I did) and there is such a thing whatever it is called. Here's a link with more info.

 

http://www.poetrylives.com/SimplyHaiku/SHv...aikuclinic.html

 

I'll come back again to read your comment in detail. Just a fast reply from me right now.

 

Thanks everyone.

 

Lake

[waxwings]

Thanks golden, Alex and waxwing for your read and reply.

 

Calling them one-line haiku is not right, like saying there are more kinds of haiku than one.

 

Mine may not be qulified to be called one-line haiku as I am so aware of. But the term is not invented by me (I hope I did) and there is such a thing whatever it is called. Here's a link with more info.

 

http://www.poetrylives.com/SimplyHaiku/SHv...aikuclinic.html

 

I'll come back again to read your comment in detail. Just a fast reply from me right now.

 

Thanks everyone.

 

Lake

 

 

 

Thanks, Lake, for the great reference. A questionable point of mine is that, in English, a monostich is perhaps best if there is a verb, stated outright or implied. Seems some other languages can get by w/o verbs in such, but the examples the site you point to seem to be rather static, and I did read and do understand the original languages.

 

Your monostichs certainly meet the bill by content and do have the poetic feel to them. Whilethat source speaks of the monostich avoiding some of the conventional ways, such as punctuation, caesuras and potential line breaks, the Japanese haiku does w/o such as well and it is the content that may have prompted tonyv and myself to offer three-line conversions/interpretations of your poems. While I would not call such monostichs as being a?form? of haiku, they certainly do evoke the kind of poetic aura/feel haiku do.

 

Happy writing.

[Lake]

Thanks, waxwing, for coming back to this to share your view which is always respected.

 

I have to admit I've read very little about, let me reword it, one-liner.

 

Two things stick in my mind about writing this are:

 

propulsion: language that drives you to the end of the line with the single line seeming essential to what the haiku is saying, what it has captured.

OR

multi-reading: pauses that are not marked through punctuation but which can be applied at different points in the line to suggest different meanings and/or relationships. (Lynn Rees)

 

Some well written one-line haiku (sorry, back to this term again) I read are not a complete sentence, like this:

 

a last glint of sunlight from each polished headstone

 

it's a sketch, it propells the reader to read from the beginning to the end, it's of all one thing.

 

Some provide multi-readings:

 

spring rain drips from the still naked tree

 

can be read in two ways:

 

spring

rain drips from the still naked tree

 

spring rain

drips from the still naked tree

 

(here you can take 'drips' as either a verb or a noun)

 

So I really appreciate the rewrite from you and Tony on my stuff, that's how it can be read.

 

Thank you for the discussion, it's fun and helpful.

 

Lake

Edited November 5, 2009 by Lake

[Tinker]

Hi Lake, I love these single line haiku. I had not heard the term haiku monostich but it works.. As waxwings said, a monostich is simply a single line. To capture the features of a haiku in a single line can easily be anticipated. Not so easily executed. But clearly you have no problem. Nice.

 

~~Tink