Don't We All, Sometimes?
u
TRIOLET*
By G.K. Chesterton (1928)
kn
I wish I were a jellyfish
That cannot fall downstairs.
Had I one thing I'd wish to wish,
I wish I were a jellyfish
That hasn't any cares,
And doesn't even need to wish,
"I wish I were a jellyfish
That cannot fall downstairs." **, ***
y* A short poem of fixed form, having a rhyme scheme of ab, aa, abab, and having the first line repeated as the fourth and seventh lines, and the second line repeated as the eighth.
** Does this meet the criteria of the form (it seems to me that it clearly doesn't)?
*** There seems to be to be a lot of poetic license taken, in general, with short form poetry. Haiku by people on the in seem to almost never be 5 - 7 -5.
b
What Did Haiku Ever Do To You?
h
Poetic lisence
Runs rampant in haiku form
Rubs me the wrong way
I understand free style
But why mess with a haiku?
posted by rabbi neil fleischmann @ 7:26 PM
3 Comments:
As I understand it, they mess with haiku b/c English syllables do not properly represent the Japanese ones anyway, so there's no point in adhering firmly to any particular scheme.
That's not what they taught us in elementary school, and that's mighty hard to let go of.
I'm at an advantage there, since I never heard of haiku till well into adulthood. At any rate, here's an explanation of the rationale behind haiku of less than 17 syllables:
http://www.ahapoetry.com/keirule.htm
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