The Haiku Foundation Forums

What a lovely haiku. Congrats to Suraja Roychowdury!

Thanks for sharing, Alan!

Alan,

Re. the 'baby bumps', I don't think I've ever done much for Easter Sunday but relax, enjoy the day off and go and see a movie or to the park or the city or whatever - certainly no Sunday lunches. This may be because my family isn't Christian and - more to the point - the friends they have would not distinguish "(Easter) Sunday lunch" from "ordinary social get-together", so that weekend lunches were less likely to be at pubs more likely to be in someone's backyard or in some sort of large park.

I mean... obviously I 'got' the haiku when you explained it, and I like the beer belly/baby bumps contrast, but it didn't ping anything in my personal experience and therefore didn't ping anything on my emotional radar. Sunday lunches are just not a thing in my family, so I didn't make the connection to pregnant women -> Easter --> Easter lunch --> Easter Sunday lunch ---> Sunday lunch -> pub.

I think it was actually the second and third lines of the motorcycle haiku that made the impact on me. I have a temper and can relate to racing off (on foot) down the street in a rage after a fight, just to get away from everything until I cool down. I like the idea of speeding off in my car in a bout of righteous anger, perhaps all the more so because I can't drive and have never had the opportunity to do so. There's something (to me) very fitting about the idea of comparing rage to becoming a vehicle yourself - next best thing to driving like a lunatic! And with the watermelon haiku also, I'm sure we've all found that we say things we can't control if we're angry enough. That image, again, is a very unique one to describe a very common situation.

tl;dr I think I need a metaphor I can relate to so that I can place myself in the narrator's shoes. :)

Hi Lorin,

I only just discovered AHG and have been thoroughly enjoying reading through the latest issue - and particularly that the haiku in each row are arranged by theme - so it'll be a shame to see it stop publishing. Still, thank you and the other editors for your careful work in selecting haiku and maintaing the site.

Best,
Tanvi

Sorry, Anna (and Jan), that was me misreading. Thanks for the correction, Jan!

Tanvi

Thanks, all, for your thoughts.

Alan, I agree that outside Japan we tend to rely too much on the imagist... aesthetic or mindset or whatever the word is. I find that the haiku Jan Anna posted (the watermelon seeds) resonates most strongly with me, so I think I am someone who generally needs/prefers that jolt of emotion. Agree about the subtler ones needing to be reread, though (I need to break my habit of skimming), and I also like the homelike delicate feel of Hoy's comfort TV. I didn't quite feel it in the other haiku; that is, I understood the emotion but that particular situation didn't trigger any memories or associations for me, or something. For me the bluesy bittersweetness that Jan describes either doesn't come easily or will pop up one day in other haiku about other topics more pertinent to my life experience.

One of the most overtly emotional haiku I've read is Tohta's

QuoteAfter a heated argument
I go out to the street
and become a motorcycle

- Kaneko Tohta

I also liked the jogger haiku, empty-handed that Lorraine posted in Beginners' Mentoring, because, again, there was some emotional resonance/connection there for me.

As always, just my two cents.
Tanvi

Hi all,

I'm wondering what the role of emotion in (primarily non-Japanese) haiku is. Are emotional haiku 'better' for not being purely imagistic or are they just a different strand of the thread? To what extent is it the reader's role to bring haiku in through careful reflection and rereading, and to what extent is the writer responsible for igniting such a reaction in the reader (through choice of topic, kigo/place names, vividness of language, juxtaposition, ma, the truth of a real experience or any of the other techniques available to haiku poets)?

Feel free to refer me to any books if this has already been covered in detail.

Cheers,
Tanvi