DREAM HAIGA: Response to One Single Impression Prompt of 5/18/08
The prompt this week at ONE SINGLE IMPRESSION is "bleeding." My response is a dreamku, a haiku-like form based on dreams that I've been developing for a while now.
Please visit One Single Impression to enjoy the variety of responses their prompts always generate.
P.S. Several hours after making the above post: I went to the library on the grounds of the retirement community I live in, hoping to find poetry that is outside my usual "poetry comfort zone." The first book I picked up is one of English and American Sonnets (sonnets are waaaaay outside my comfort zone :-D). When I opened it, I felt compelled to read this first sonnet that caught my eye, by Archibald Lampman:
THE LARGEST LIFE
Nay, never once to feel we are alone,
While the great human heart around us lies:
To make the smile on other lips our own,
To live upon the light in others' eyes:
To breathe without a doubt the limpid air
Of that most perfect love that knows no pain:
To say -- I love you -- only, and not care
Whether the love come back to us again,
Divinest self-forgetfulness, at first
A task, then a tonic, then a need;
To greet with open hands the best and worst,
And only for another's wound to bleed:
This is to see the beauty that God meant,
Wrapped round with life, ineffably content.
This sonnet addresses the query my unconscious mind was making in the dream/ku above. Even also using, ultimately, an image of blood. Synchronicity always amazes me, no matter how often it graces my life.
* * * *
‘til next time, keep dreaming,
Roswila
[aka: Patricia Kelly]
****If you wish to copy or use any of my writing or poems, please email me for permission (under “View my complete profile”)****My other blogs ROSWILA’S TAROT GALLERY & JOURNAL and ROSWILA’S TAIGA TAROT, and Yahoo DREAMJIN: Group for Dreamku – Haiku-Like Dream Poems.
Labels: daily dreamku, haiga, One Single Impression
posted by Roswila @ 12:56 PM
18 Comments:
I love this because it is so mysterious and yes, dream like. I can't imagine where a white hook would come from and why it would be in a dream, so it fascinates me. thank you.
Hi Andree,
I just posted a P.S. that I hope you can make it back for.
Thanks for dropping by. And, yes, dreams are mysterious, as are the entirety of our lives, IMHO. :-)
I think of a mysterious hook in your dreamku and the bleeding for another in the sonnet. The bloodlessness makes me think the being caught does not constitute a loss.
Thank you for challenging me and for sharing your work as well as this sonnet.
Writing in Faith: Poems
Yes, Sandy, you "caught" most of what the dream was telling me. :-)
What clued me in, more than the bloodlessness, was the "white." For some reason I associated that to it being a "spiritual" hook that has me. Then the sonnet opened my understanding even further.
Your poem is wonderfully mysterious-- just like a dream. I, also, marvel at the gifts of synchronicity.
fascinating. I have to tell you that for some reason each of the first three times I read it I read "white hook in my left BRAIN." Don't know why it wasn't until the 4th read that I read it correctly. Clearly my brain is trying to tell me something. Dreams are such amazing things.
I enjoyed the Lampman poem too. Never heard of him but it's a beautiful poem.
Raven, I love it! A dreamku I wrote about a dream, seems to have behaved for you just like a dream. Yes, that is an intriguing "misread" you kept having. I hope it has offered you something helpful. :-)
I'd not heard of Lampman, either. I'm tempted to google and see what else pops up for him. The collection I found his sonnet in was first published in 1916, BTW. I can't find any date in the old book itself I have from our library that indicates when it was re-published. But it's a very old hard-bound volume -- not almost 100years, of course, but it could be as much as 50 or so years old. Maybe I should do some googling on that, too.
Hi!
This is for ANDREE, in particular. I tried but could not get a comment window to open when I went to respond to her post for this week's "bleeding" prompt, and I've sent all the below info in an email to her. But just in case, here it is again:
"I particularly like this haiku of yours. Very nicely written.
As to your question about what the "kireji" or cutting word is. Good question! Below is what I've learned about it so far:
The kireji is a definite break in the haiku. Not just a pause like a comma would make in one complete sentence, but a full break or change so that the haiku is not one complete sentence in three lines. E.g., I believe in yours it would come after "woods." (BTW, you could leave out that dash, if you wanted, as it's clear there's a cut or break without it.)
Why is this kireji also often called "the cutting word"? Because (if I am recalling correctly) in Japanese there would be an actual word that creates this cut, this stop. In kanji -- Japanese writing -- this cutting word/kireji has no meaning except as a sort of "stop sign" within a haiku. (A haiku in kanji is in one vertical line, and there are various sorts of kireji.) Whereas in English we don't need a word to indicate a stop, because our grammar itself indicates when a sentence or sentence fragment is done, over, stopped. Some haiku writers have used/do use dashes and colons to indicate the cut/kireji. But usually English grammar makes it just as clear without any extra punctuation.
Hope that was even a little helpful. Kireji is an extensive study, judging by the little bit of it I've dipped my toes into."
blessings to all!
Brilliant post! I learnt so much here. I am bookmarking this to read again. I like the term Dreamku!
ravages of time
The dreamku was amazing. I, like Sandy, thought the being caught without blood was a positive thing. And then the sonnet just 'arrives' in your life! The world works in mysterious ways.
Thanks for sharing the information about Andree's question. I had no idea and now I am better informed!
Hi vixen,
And I am constantly amazed at how in working to fit something of a dream into a haiku-like form, it often helps an essential aspect of that dream become apparent. Such as when Sandy and you say you "thought the being caught without blood was a positive thing." That was the heart of the dream! I'd gone to sleep, fearful I was being caught up yet again in a situation of taking too much responsibility, but also feeling I could do nothing else because I care. The dream very literally "pointed" out there is no loss of blood here. That my arms are strong enough for this work (in many ways, quite literally). Then that sonnet made the entire dream and my responses to the precipitating situation even clearer to me.
You say you had no idea about kireji? :-) I've been trying to write haiku (and now develop the dreamku form) for many years. I frequently stumble across yet something else I did not know about this deceptively simple form. Not to mention, that writers presently working in the haiku form are evolving it further. In just the years I've been studying it, one-liners became more popular, and the use of colons and dashes to indicate the kireji "fell out of fashion." So not only is haiku history rich and complex, it's a growing poetry form.
Not only is the dreamku facinating, but I enjoyed reading the comments. Sometimes it's good to be a little later than everyone else. ;) I hadn't realized haiku was organic - still changing and growing. Thanks for sharing!
..education!..strange psychic things going on here..won't be surprised if u bend spoons too(minus physical contact ie)/just Joking!/..ur poem's foggy symbolisms attract..many thanks..
Your dream haiga is intriguing, mystical. My first impression was that I was looking at an early symbol for Christ. The fish is better known in our time, yet I interpreted the fish hook as Christ, the one who does not cause bleeding as the hook takes hold of our flesh, our bodily being.
The synchronicity (my spelling is a problem, sorry) of being drawn to sonnets and in particular Lampans' sonnet, is breath taking. He writes of God and imagery that represents Christ.
Thank you for sharing your dream haiga, Lampman's poetry and your understanding of writing haiky.
Hi Judy B,
Oh, yes, I resonated with the Christian imagery the minute I recalled this dream. Although not Christian, I respect all life-affirming religions, and live in a retirement community with a large Christian population. The friendship precipitating this dream is with a Christian woman. Oh, and I was raised Catholic, nearly became Methodist in my long-ago youth, and worked many years ago for The National Council of Churches. :-)
Hi texasblu,
I am sure there are those who would not agree with the idea of haiku as still growing and changing. :-) And I respect it if they wish to adhere to the initial parameters introduced in the West years ago. But I relate to language -- and therefore to poetry forms -- as alive and capable of creative change, as do many others writing in the haiku form.
However, I hasten to add, I do this with respect and admiration for the form's history and do not advocate change just for change's sake. But only if the change brings something to the form consistent with it's spirit. I know that sounds vague but I've never tried to express this before and it would probably take volumes to do so.
Love the sonnet, but your dream haiku was most interesting! Have you got it figured out? I do think it is a spirtual dream.
Hi gardenpath,
Um, as far as I ever figure out a dream, yes, I understand this one. However, that's a provisional "understanding." I may read the dreamku sometime in the future and hind sight will bring something to it I hadn't seen before. :-) For me, working with dreams is like writing poetry. Neither is ever fully finished. I just reach a point I'm ready to rest at, but remain open to future information/changes.
Definitely a spiritual dream. In that sense of "I and Thou" as Martin Buber posited it (existence as a dialogue/encounter). I also recall the bible quote (hope I'm not mangling it too badly :-D) about "Wherever two or more of you are, there I am also." The friendship issues precipitating this dream have caught me up again in the reality of this.
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