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on the wire
a swallow sharpens
it's wings
jp
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Swallows sharpen their wings; a sparrow preens its wings and all its other feathers, too. Swallows preen most of their feathers, but, unlike the sparrow, they sharpen their wings - literally, enabling precision for flight. Exercise: Closely observe a swallow preparing its wings (and tail feathers - usually they perch on a [high] wire to do this).
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'Here in rainy England the return of the swallows from their winter vacation in Africa, is THE kigo (seasonal reference) of summer’s start in our folk imagination. Also a general kigo of summer – but the start is the key attribute.' — jp
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Optional format (I'm happy either way, actually - see discussion below, though). . . .
on the wire—
a swallow sharpens
it's wings
jp
* Typo employed as a visual joke - simulating preening.
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Swallow haiku 'Workshopped':
(May 26, 2010 - June 2, 2010)
Michael Dylan Welch
Traditional haiku requires a season word and a cutting word. So when I read this poem:
on the wire
a swallow sharpens
it's wings
I immediately wonder why it has no cut to it. (And of course, you mean "its" not "it's".) So whether it has a season word or not (I'd have to look up swallow to check it), the poem still lacks a cut, and thus lacks the great potential that cutting words offer to create space and implication. Even putting that aside, to me this poem is vague. How does a bird “sharpen” its wings? Let alone do so on a wire? Preen, maybe, but sharpen isn’t accurate, or too metaphorical (metaphors point to their creators, and not as directly as possible to the thing such as it IS). I’m also left not knowing what I’m supposed to feel. It feels like a so-what poem, even if I try to figure out what sharpening wings might mean. Rather, the abstraction of sharpening wings seems to be a jewel on the finger that keeps me from seeing the moon, so to speak. On a scale of 0 to 5, I’d rate this a 2. When I use this scale, here’s how I break it down: 0 = clueless; 1 = deeply flawed, probably beyond repair; 2 = clearly flawed, but usually fixable; 3 = okay; possibly publishable; 4 = good/strong, definitely worth publishing; 5 = classic (extremely rare)...
John Potts
Yes, that should be 'its'.
on the wire
a swallow sharpens
its wings
(The typo has been preened - maybe I should leave it in as a visual pun? Yes, I might do that)
on the wire
a swallow sharpens
it's wings
A swallow, in England here, is a summer visitor (usually from Africa). In fact, one of my African contacts shared some interesting wintering swallow vignettes! That was interesting.
The swallow I saw on the telephone wire was preening it's wings to a sharper profile, literally - for flying. Also, visually, a swallow has sharp wings.. and uses them thus.
Maybe it is a one image haiku? But, the sharpening mitigates this, somewhat. I'll have to have a ponder - thanks for the headsup.
As for these cuts you mention, I'm currently happy with line-drops and breaks in the syntactical unit (caesura and enjambments). The reason for this is that the subconscious mind of the reader will fill in the implications, without further syntax cues, although sometimes I pop them in - if the spirit of the haiku (et al) moves me.
Bear in mind, the verbal of a haiku is simply to trigger the right brain - where the vision emerges from into the consciousness of the meditator. Superfluous musical notation not required.
Transparency is the guideline in my transcendent approach. We simply don't need the frills to de-code a ku. In a school class there are different criteria - here we're mentioning the raw experience to haiku experienced grown ups.
Michael Dylan Welch
Okay, swallow is a summer season word for you. That’s good to know. In California (and perhaps the rest of the United States, they are often considered a spring season word because of their famous annual "return" to Capistrano (see http://www.infoplease.com/spot/swallows1.html). But I must say, whether they're summer or spring doesn’t really add anything to your particular poem. We all know they fly great distances, and that they preen their wings for flight. But so what? You might get more mileage out of the poem if you said "telephone wire" (to suggest communication over great distances, which isn't present by saying just "wire"). As your poem is, the "summerness" of swallows doesn’t bounce of anything else in the poem to create any kind of resonance. It still strikes me as a so-what poem. And the “sharpens” metaphor points away from the preening that it’s really doing to what *you* think about it (the abstraction of “sharpening”). You say the bird was “literally” sharpening its wings, but I don’t really buy that. Anyway, yes, at most, this is a one-image haiku, but “sharpening” doesn’t “mitigate” that – not for me. And you say the subconscious mind will fill in the implications. But *what* implications? It strikes me as nearly completely flat. I don’t see any implications at all. This really just half a haiku, and needs something else to juxtapose with it to give it real depth.
John Potts
Yes, the swallow is the definitive kigo for the start of an English summer, in the folk imagination...
swallows in the sky
we smile too—
old shoes
jp
26-09-11
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