haiku. or not.

[ro6ot]

I'm learnding! about the poetry form I thought was haiku but actually, I guess, is senryu. From wikipedia I quote:

The following senryu by Shūji Terayama copies the haiku structure faithfully,
down to a blatantly obvious kigo [season word],
but on closer inspection is absurd in its content

Comments

[m0mmabird]

Personally, I read that and get a visual of some poor kid playing hide and seek (gee, wonder how I got that) and they happen to be the poor sucker who's friends go off and leave and never really look for them. Thus, a very long time passes as this kid's hiding under the bathroom sink, waiting, very pleased at what a good spot they found to hide in. Meanwhile, the friends are all down the street laughing...

Absurd...hmmm...

[ro6ot]

possibly because of the other info on the page where I saw this poem, or not but whatever, the 'count to three' threw me into the 'it' (seeker) rather than hider; like, counting REALLY slowly so as to more-or-less never have to actually start seeking. you know?

upon further consideration, I guess that what was meant by 'absurd' was from a perspective of "compared to traditional haiku" which I am only just now realizing may possibly "supposed to be" fairly direct / require little thought to assemble into a mental image; the thought is supposed to happen after the mental image is assembled rather than before.

[kitty_scarboro]

i suppose what i was always taught was just the structure of the haiku and the topic actually determines haiku from senryu?

who knew. i suppose to me all haikus seems a little absurd because they require you to make connections, i.e. the beauty of the form. but perhaps that is just me.

[ro6ot]

see, I was never taught that senryu exist. color me under-educated. playing ketchup as always.

[current music: "ketchup song" from prairie home companion advert]

[kitty_scarboro]

oh - i didn't meant to say that i learned the difference in school --- i meant to say we were just taught the structure of a haiku and didn't talk about content at all.....

and then i was supposing they are same structure --- just different subject matter.

[ro6ot]

yeah. so we're on the same page.

except its still a bit of a surprise for me.

like if I suddenly learned that, oh, lets see;
"two slices of bread, together, with cheese between them, mayonaise on the inside of one slice and mustard on the inside of the other, ISN'T called a sandwich IF it has paper-thin slices of red onion too AND the cheese is smoked cheddar- that's not a sandwich, that's called a 'hinkleblurf'."

I'm sure I'll get over the shock soon enough.