HAIKU DIALOGUE – Literary Devices – alliteration
Literary Devices with Guest Editor Alex Fyffe
For this series, I’d like to focus on the use of various literary devices in haiku. We tend to think of these techniques as applicable to longer lyric poetry – haiku is often taught to be a form without literary trappings, a simple breath of a poem, honest and straightforward, without ornament. Of course, this is a misconception, as the best haiku tend to be very carefully crafted, with one good poem often going through several revisions. And just like their longer cousins, haiku are capable of tackling metaphor, simile (despite what you might have heard), personification, symbolism, allusion, and any number of other techniques. Each week, we will take an in-depth look at a different technique and apply it to our haiku.
next week’s theme: personification
The darkness waited. The cat danced. George Harrison’s guitar gently wept. The wind moaned. Or did it howl?
I find personification to be a wonderful illustration of our capacity for empathy. It is easier to connect with nonhuman animals, things and ideas when we place human characteristics on them. Of course, there is the danger of over-romanticizing the world, of giving false impressions of events, of forcing a human perspective on things that cannot care about us one way or another. Some would argue that this kind of device has no place in haiku. And yet all of the masters, including Basho, Buson, Issa, and Chiyo-ni (among many others), made use of it. For more on this, see the forum on personification and anthropomorphism here on The Haiku Foundation’s site.
Despite the debate in the haiku world, personification remains a highly popular poetic device. It’s satisfying to find human qualities in the behavior of animals and plants and describe nonliving things and ideas as though they had their own will. Personification can bring an entire city to life. There’s something animistic about it; Japan’s traditional beliefs are filled with stories of personified objects, too. It is extraordinary to see the inanimate world as a breathing thing, filled with the same spark as us, to see animals as our peers and not as things simply to be used. Personifying the things in our daily lives can help us feel a deeper kinship with them. Emily Dickinson famously personified Death, not as some terrible reaper but as a kindly gentleman and a supple suitor. In this way, ideas, too, can become knowable, familiar, and comfortable.
For this prompt, write a haiku or senryu that makes use of personification – attributing human qualities to inanimate objects, animals, or ideas. I look forward to seeing your submissions!
The deadline is midnight Central Daylight Time, Saturday August 06, 2022.
Please use the Haiku Dialogue submission form below to enter one or two original unpublished haiku inspired by the week’s theme, and then press Submit to send your entry. (The Submit button will not be available until the Name, Email, and Place of Residence fields are filled in.) With your poem, please include any special formatting requirements & your name & residence as you would like it to appear in the column. A few haiku will be selected for commentary each week. Please note that by submitting, you agree that your work may appear in the column – neither acknowledgment nor acceptance emails will be sent. All communication about the poems that are posted in the column will be added as blog comments.
below is Alex’s commentary for alliteration:
One thing I noticed while reading through the alliteration submissions is that the amount of alliteration acceptable in a haiku varies from writer to writer and topic to topic. At first, I found myself rejecting submissions for relying too heavily on alliteration – repeating the same sound five, six times or more – but then I would read a haiku that used just as many repetitions and still managed to work somehow. I think the difference mostly came down to the topic and mood of the poem. Some could effectively convey a sense of fun and rhythm:
be-bopping bluebirds in the birdbath
Susan Burch
Hagerstown, Maryland
a banjo busker’s ballad bobbing in the breeze
Dan Campbell
Virginia, USA
These two use the musicality of their subjects to keep the beat, the double-B sounds of Burch’s bluebirds and the iambic hexameter of Campell’s street performer both earning all of those B-words along the way.
Others were successful at using so much repetition to create a sense of magical wonder:
shooting star
my sister stirs
in her sleepRoberta Beary
County Mayo, Ireland
Beary’s poem shakes things up, as well, by switching between types of S-words: the soft “sh” of “shooting,” the way “stirs” acts as both a slant rhyme to “star” and an echo of the “ster” in “sister,” and finally the slow lullaby “sl” of “sleep.” Everything clicks together so well, the repetition doesn’t bother us but carries us further into the poet’s world.
However, generally speaking, the poems with slightly more subdued alliteration tended to feel fresher, less overbearing. One way of doing this was by varying the sounds being repeated.
rush hour in the rain –
London library lends
shelter and silenceCristina Povero
Italy
Povero moves us from the rumbly outside R-words of “rush (hour)” and “rain” inside to the pleasant L-words of “London library lends” where we find the hushed S-words of “shelter” and “silence,” each set adding to the poem’s meaning and feeling, similar to this poem by Matta:
beachside birds
the moonlit movements
of hurried hatchlingsRichard Matta
San Diego, California
He takes us from the bombastic birds to the soft shuffling night movements that they’re presumably watching, which come from newborns hurrying away toward safety.
Some of the subtlest submissions used little or no alliteration, mostly using assonance and consonance to tie their lines together:
long afternoon
a glossy drongo
whoops me outNeena Singh
Chandigarh, India
wild violets…
her eyes no longer
entwined with mineAna Growl
Surrey, UK
In Singh’s poem, the short “O” in “long” follows through in “glossy” and “drongo,” and the “oo” in “afternoon” connects to the last line’s “whoops.” The E-sounds in “glossy” and “me” also help to connect lines two and three together. Growl’s poem repeats the long “I” sound in “wild violets” in the second line’s “eyes” and the third line’s “entwined” and “mine,” an internal rhyme that works because of its proximity. I also love the image/metaphor in this poem, with the other person’s eyes having gone “wild,” no longer attached to the speaker’s.
Here are some other favorite examples:
abelia blossoms
the buzz around
my hospital bedSue Courtney
Orewa, New Zealand
a pas de deux
upon the pond
lone dragonflyAnnie Wilson
Shropshire, UK
Rarely do we get a strong reflection haiku that is so subtly sketched as this one by Wilson. In fact, it might take a second for the brain to connect that the lone dragonfly is having a pas de deux with herself. (Especially those like me who know nothing about ballet and have to look up “pas de deux”… Shh, don’t tell anyone!)
overnight love letter
the loops in her script
filled with moonlightBarrie Levine
Massachusetts, USA
One of the more romantic haiku I’ve seen in a while. Beautiful detail.
summer’s last swallows sweep the sky
Ingrid Baluchi
North Macedonia
lace drapes
lift in the breeze . . .
lingering over teaKathleen Trocmet
Texas, USA
dawn moon
he moans my name
in his sleepMinerva Pendleton
Ohio, USA
Unspoken words
burst like blackberries
on my tongueCaroline Ridley-Duff
England
Although we often hear “Don’t use simile in haiku,” this is one of those “rules” that isn’t always followed, even by Japanese masters, many of whom have used similes in their work. And like all poetic devices, I think it can work well when done right, as we see here with Ridley-Duff’s poem. We could imagine a version of this without “like,” of course, but I like it just the way it is.
pine needles
drop on the page …
I pauseDaniela Misso
Italy
koi carp…
cedillas softening hard csTony Williams
Scotland, UK
Williams made me look up a word, and when I did, the cleverness of his poem shone brightly. By commenting on the hard sounds of “koi carp,” and using the soft sounds in “cedillas,” “softening,” and “cs” itself, he illustrates the image of koi tails swishing through the water, gracefully antithetical to the harsh sounds in their names.
flooded corn fields
crows call out
the subconsciousBryan Rickert
Belleville, Illinois
rinsing my dad’s hair
in the hospital . . .
broken bones bondingGeoff Pope
Paducah, Kentucky
& here are the rest of the selections:
slow xylophone
rain beads
beams of sunDustin Hackfeld
Ingleside, Texas
heatwave
honeydew melon cooling
her skinDeborah Karl-Brandt
Bonn, Germany
psithurism…
the swish of my skirt
in the summer breezeJackie Chou
USA
journey
a rivulet joins
the riverSubir Ningthouja
Imphal, India
getting acquainted
behind the smile
the biteStephen A. Peters
Bellingham, Washington
light rain
mother sings
a tajik songBakhtiyar Amini
Germany
a gaggle of goosebumps
taking wingAlan Peat
Biddulph, UK
river’s edge —
rounding a ridge
to roaring rapidsRonald Degler
Harbor City, California
it rains. . .
The grass grows greener
in my mother’s gardenVincenzo Adamo
Italy
gnarly gnats gnawing
incessantly …
tundra buzzBonnie J Scherer
Palmer, Alaska
thundering through
the thorns and thistles
prey and predatorRavi Kiran
India
windless day
the woods whispering
with a tiger’s howlChen Xiaoou
Kunming, China
busy bee
furls and unfurls
petal by petalChittaluri Satyanarayana
Hyderabad, India
one stall over
someone rolls the R
in “mierda”Joel Dias-Porter
Atlantic City, New Jersey
sister’s scrapbook
wishes written with
peacock plumeNitu Yumnam
India
winter gray
wondering again
where you’ve goneMaurice Nevile
Canberra, Australia
a seriography
of blot shots . . .
leaving the dark roomKati Mohr
Germany
a shower in April
sparrows spill rainbows
in sparkling sunKeith Evetts
Thames Ditton, UK
daylight –
the light flight
of a dragonflyluce del giorno –
il volo leggero
di una libellulaDennys Cambarau
Sardinia, Italy
suddenly
among the shades
a slender snakeLuciana Moretto
Treviso, Italy
crinkled sky—
the crisp crackle of starch
Mom’s cotton saris(Cotton garments are often starched in India to reduce wrinkling.)
Rupa Anand
New Delhi, India
now the mountain of no more
Richa Sharma
India
pink-footed pigeon
picks a path
through fallen leavesandrew shimield
UK
crayon moons
loose their loops
empty nestDaya Bhat
India
my will like a willow bending in the breeze
Vandana Parashar
India
morning mist
in the mountain meadows
cowbells melodyNatalia Kuznetsova
Russia
sultry day—
the smell of straws
from a scarecrowHifsa Ashraf
Rawalpindi, Pakistan
forget-me-nots…
faces fade
into the far farawayTracy Davidson
Warwickshire, UK
top of the moor –
a scatter of turbines
turning turningAnn Rawson
Scotland, UK
marsh reeds
waving with the wind
the sea’s long horizonHerbert Shippey
Tifton, Georgia
cicadas sing-song chant
Peggy Hale Bilbro
Alabama, USA
stippled light
spiders spin sun strands
between the bordersJohn Hawkhead
Bradford on Avon, UK
year by year
these flocks of cranes
coming and goingRam Chandran
India
state fair–
the poetry tent
unattendedRuth Holzer
Herndon, Virginia
summer blizzard
the shepherd herds his flock
towards shelterBruce H Feingold
Berkeley, California
backyard blues
the hungry jay blurs
raspberry bushesM. R. Defibaugh
USA
dusk death dislocates the meaning
Vijay Prasad
Patna, India
the night
of fireflies. . .
missing himMeera Rehm
UK
crowdedcablecar—standingontheedgeforcoolbreeze
John Zheng
Mississippi, USA
sweet tea
honeybee and me
in cloverCaroline Giles Banks
Minneapolis, Minnesota
dreamcatcher in breeze
—a spider
weaving its webKeiko Izawa
Japan
a revolving door–
cicadas’ chorus
dawn to duskTeiichi Suzuki
Japan
magenta a melodic stream
Tiffany Shaw-Diaz
USA
silent sunshine
sand grains slip
in the hourglassArvinder Kaur
Chandigarh, India
farewell
his ashes floating
with flowersMinal Sarosh
Ahmedabad, India
how many more?
black and beaten
begging to breathePeg Cherrin-Myers
Franklin, Michigan
red roses
the simplest of regretsAnna Maria Domburg-Sancristoforo
The Hague, Netherlands
her howls drowned
by the pounding surf
smashed sandcastleLouise Hopewell
Australia
the puppy
paws
in my pumpkin patchMargaret Mahony
Australia
the sand castle
slips into the receding tide
real estate sea changeSari Grandstaff
Saugerties, New York
crakesticks
an underfoot crunch
in the rimesimonj
UK
orb web
the death spiral
of a fairy mothLaurie Greer
Washington, DC
haiku morning
sunshine and silhouettes
on the windowsillDanita Brandt
Michigan, USA
whistle stop
rain drizzles
on a thistleBona M. Santos
Los Angeles, California
tea leaves . . .
a tale
I tell myselfpetro c. k.
Seattle, Washington
working watermill
haunts the hotel lobby
check in/check outron scully
Burien, Washington
tuning the radio …
bees buzz
around the bassDaipayan Nair
Silchar, India
a monk meditates
in the misty morning …
mountain monasteryMilan Rajkumar
Imphal, India
Shinto shrine
the shelves overflowing
with shoesMaxianne Berger
Outremont, Quebec
white flowered vines
weave a trellis
sweet breezeSusan Lee Roberts
Montesano, Washington
summer sizzle
the postcards
from my loverCynthia Anderson
Yucca Valley, California
sinking sunset
gold tipped tail
of the cedar waxwingJohn Pappas
USA
nightfall
far from home
on footRichard Straw
Cary, North Carolina
the sun shows
to the lonely shadows
the way homeil sole indica
all’ombra solitaria
la via di casaMaria Cezza
Italy
trembling memories
all my ancestors
carved in stoneVjekoslav Romich
Croatia
wintry train station
the wisp of steam
with your whisperMarianne Sahlin
Sweden
sand dollars
a seagull plunders
the wrack lineLorraine A Padden
San Diego, California
drought gardening
the outcomes
much in doubtSusan Farner
USA
skipping stones leaping away from questions
batu melompat jauh dari pertanyaan
Christopher Calvin
Kota Mojokerto, Indonesia
empty platform–
how long you lingered
before leavingPippa Phillips
Kansas City, Missouri
following
freshly fallen snow
a flame robin’s songGavin Austin
Australia
full laundry line
the lilies of the valley
lend their scentMona Iordan
Romania
watching windswept
only a woman
can be an islandKath Abela Wilson
Pasadena, California
it creeps cautiously
from room to room to room…
moon shadowkris moon kondo
Kiyokawa, Kanagawa, Japan
door after door
discovering the universe
restless heartStoianka Boianova
Bulgaria
my sister’s silent steps –
the slow movement of cloudsLos pasos silenciosos
de mi hermana…
El lento movimiento de las nubesJulia Guzmán
Córdoba, Argentina
dew drops
stretching the strength
of spider silkC.X. Turner
UK
the soft soft smell
of Sunday—
wild mintAdele Evershed
Wilton, Connecticut
their old bones
grow together
bent birchesJames Gaskin
Fukushima, Japan
the click click
of the ticket taker
Grand Central StationJohn S Green
Bellingham, Washington
quake-toppled temple
how the wind lingers
in the broken bronze bellSonam Chhoki
Bhutan
ribbon candy
a row of rippled icicles
on the roofValentina Ranaldi-Adams
Fairlawn, Ohio
summer heat
Queen Anne’s lace leaning
over an empty birdhouseAnna Yin
Ontario, Canada
tea for two
the tinkling of
introductionsLori Kiefer
London, UK
winter solstice –
so wide a womb
in her shortening skirtLuisa Santoro
Rome, Italy
State fair
cotton candy clouds
lead the wayCarol Judkins
Carlsbad, California
gin sick
bringing up blood
in the snowAsh Evan Lippert
South Carolina, USA
night train–
crying babies lulled
by the clickety-clackLafcadio
USA
after
the action flick
the silent screenP. H. Fischer
Vancouver, Canada
pixel-peeping…
sweating
the small stuffNancy Brady
Ohio, USA
Guest Editor Alex Fyffe teaches high school English in the Houston area. Although he has been writing haiku off and on for a decade, he only started submitting his work during the Global Event known as 2020. Since then his haiku and senryu have been published in various journals, including Frogpond, Modern Haiku, Failed Haiku, Akitsu Quarterly, and the Asahi Haikuist Network. Alex’s first glimpse of haiku was in a collection of writings by Jack Kerouac, and he found the work of Issa while studying abroad in Japan, but he didn’t fall in love with the haiku until he discovered the free-form work of Santoka Taneda. Currently, Alex uses haiku in the classroom to ease students into poetry and build their confidence as readers and writers. Alex also posts haiku on Twitter @AsurasHaiku.
Lori Zajkowski is the Post Manager for Haiku Dialogue. A novice haiku poet, she lives in New York City.
Managing Editor Katherine Munro lives in Whitehorse, Yukon Territory, and publishes under the name kjmunro. She is Membership Secretary for Haiku Canada, and her debut poetry collection is contractions (Red Moon Press, 2019). Find her at: kjmunro1560.wordpress.com.
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This Post Has 13 Comments
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b r e a thtaking!
these two poems were favorites of mine.
I am just realizing as I write, that they both have s
sounds~
Roberta’s haIku has a simplicity and power,
but beyond that– a mystery! I
thinkin writing these
poems for the prompt– we are most successful when
we are writing from a deep place, of experience or memory of experience !
nor just word play… even when it has to do with
words and sounds1 we wonder… what makes Roberta’s sister
still… is it a coincidence or is she stirred by the stars…
in Jackie, rooted in the unusual word discovery… A word many of us don’t know…
Once known it continues to inspire… and speak to us in real time
like a tree rustling with its mysterious voice. Love both of these
poems and poets.
shooting star
my sister stirs
in her sleep
Roberta Beary
County Mayo, Ireland
psithurism…
the swish of my skirt
in the summer breeze
Jackie Chou
USA
Thank you for feeling the resonance Alex and inspiring me
to write
watching windswept
only a woman
can be an island
it always amazes me that a prompt involving sound can bring back
experience open it and deepen the associations. And bring a moment alive.
In this case, the windswept islands in the Susquehanna, near Harrisburg
and the poignant moment I saw them swept into my mind.
I had gone there to show to my father, my first child. My father had left our family. My mother had become an island indeed. –back in the NYC area nurturing my four younger siblings.
And I also a woman now– knew an island life without him.
Somehow the use of alliteration was natural to this lonely windswept feeling.
Thank you for sharing, Kath. I found your poem to be a bold assertion and a counter to Paul Simon’s claim of islandhood. I could feel the emotion behind saying it, the deep loneliness tinged with resentment (perhaps with some societal exhaustion) that would make someone feel that way. I am happy to hear that the prompt was able to draw this out of you.
Thank you, Alex, for including my haiku in the Dialogue this week. Congratulations to all the poets! Wednesday is a highlight of the week with this feature (continuing the theme).
Thanks for including my haiku too. I particularly loved this immersion in rhetorical figures.
Thank you, Alex, for choosing one of my haiku; it’s always a pleasure to be included with all the wonderful haiku written by poets from across the globe. So many wonderful examples of alliteration including Carlsbad, California’s Carol Judkins’ ‘cotton candy clouds’ (even her name and residence is alliteration). Thanks to Lori and KJ who keep this column going each week.
Now, back to reading more.
Thank you Alex for including my haiku
It is a pleasure each week to participate and read, a wonderful collection.
wild violets…
her eyes no longer
entwined with mine
/
Ana Growl
Surrey, UK
/
This haiku has a haunting, bittersweet quality to it. Perhaps a child has grown and left the nest. Perhaps a romance has ended. Perhaps someone has passed away. Perhaps . . .
I agree entirely. The poem is open enough to apply to many different situations but specific enough to capture how all of those things feel. A definite standout for me this week.
Thank-you Alex for once again choosing one of my haiku. Always a pleasure to be published. Thank-you Kathy, Lori, and the others at the Haiku Foundation who do their part weekly on this column. Congrats to all the poets.
Many thanks Alex for these weekly challenges, one of my favorites this week is:
Unspoken words
burst like blackberries
on my tongue
Caroline Ridley-Duff
England
Thank you Alex for choosing my love letter poem for comment. And your prompt has yielded a crop of so many delightful and creative uses of alliteration. Thanks also to kj and Lori for keeping this amazing feature on track each week. The weekly prompt and deadline are an integral aspect of my practice.