It’s fairly easy to take a pop at haiku, the Japanese poetry form. Three lines of 17 syllables (five, seven, five) make a good target for mockery—possibly because of the semi-obligatory Zen component that can seem pretentious.
Viz: these examples from Kate Miller-Wilson
On yoga:
I’d go to
yoga,
But they don’t serve donuts there.
Namaste right here.
On a road trip with kids:
Music on,
windows down,
We’re not even late yet, but...
Someone has to pee.
On cats:
In the
morning light,
You sleep despite my meow.
I stand on your face.
And
yet—even these spoofs carry haiku-like universal truths, distilled to their
pure essence because of the limitations of the form.
Poetry
always wins, folks.
But let’s also
have some more, ah, kosher examples from a master, Matsuo Bashō,
perhaps the most famous poet of the Edo period in 17th Century
Japan. Here’s one of his in the original
transliteration, with several translations. Note that getting the sense of the
poem in English sometimes results in violating the syllabic strictures:
Furu ike ya
kawazu tobikomu
mizu no oto
The old pond,
A frog jumps in:
Plop!
Alan Watts
The old pond —
a frog jumps in,
sound of water.
Robert Hass
dark old pond
:
a frog plunks in
Dick Bakken:
Listen! a frog
Jumping into the stillness
Of an ancient pond!
Dorothy Britton
©2024 Bas Bleu
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