Messing Around with Poetry

I was reading about the Japanese poetic form Haiku in a recent National Geographic. The article informed me that, “In their purist form, each haiku must comprise three lines of five, seven and five syllables, and include a kireji – a “cutting word” that lends the verse contrast, and, crucially, a kigo, or seasonal reference.”

*There seems to be a debate as to whether haikus have titles. One source says flat out “No!” Another as adamantly affirms “Yes!” But quibbles a bit by saying that if a specific “title” is not provided the first line of the haiku fulfills that function.

Anyhow the article reminded me of The Proestry Project that I undertook and published here on The Wall back in 2005. I defined it thus:

Prosetry is a literary genre.  It is primarily prose, but too short to fall into genres with which I am familiar.  Also it shares a variety of characteristics with poetry.  It is softer, more subtle and ephemeral than prose; yet still lacks the formal structure of either the lofty Haiku or the grittier limerick.  The lexicon is, of course, cloned from poetry, hence prosetry for the genre and proem for the individual unit.  They are proving to be one sentence constructions, but broken out of a single line with conscious intent.  Perhaps a nod to ee cummings’s use of space upon the page.  Also, I am resisting the idea of titles since, as our English teachers always said; a single sentence should convey a complete thought.  Hence the content of the proem subsumes the function of a title.  

Naturally I obsessed over these two notion’s separated by 18 years. So they kept me up into the little hours for a couple of nights resulting in:

First, a haiku I composed for today’s sky, trying to follow the rules NG reported. The title - if my software retains it - is in a smaller font as a nod to the title/no title controversy.

  

Flight

Cutting autumn sky

Wings sweep clouds from morning light

Catch cranes ascension 

Second, I went back and played with a couple of proems from the Prosetry Project and discovered that with only minor edits the proems could take on the haiku form. I have left them without titles because, as noted above, proems universally do not have titles.

Proem Number 34

You’d think these midnight

Muses might once acknowledge 

Dawns obligations 

Proem Number 33

Though not a poet

Still I might have been one if

I had had less time