Per Diem News

Per Diem for January 2014: Slip-Realism

Haiku is replete with the quotidian—it is the everyday that is the stuff of our poetry. And yet, what makes it of interest is our perception of it as not ordinary, as, in fact, uncanny. Slip-realism aims to explicate this daily miracle. January Per Diem editor Alan Summers defines it thus:

Slip-Realism—unearthing the anonymous; avoiding the straightforward; parallel narratives in our day and night lives: new ways of perceiving the real (after Nouveau réalisme).

He goes on to describe what he’s looking for:

It’s an approach to focusing on subjects often on the periphery of our vision. It’s also incorporating, where possible, sound as essence; aural landscape; or visual marker, because we are surrounded by soundscape. Think of yourself as just freshly kidnapped, hood over your head, perhaps in the trunk of a car, and you need sound markers to gauge the journey.

Slip-Realism is about the ‘side’ of things, and ‘on the edge’ outside day-to-day life of the mainstream of public life.

Find yourself in this special place all month via Per Diem, on the THF website.

This Post Has 3 Comments

  1. Many thanks again to Jim Kacian, and Stella Pierides, of The Haiku Foundation for presenting Slip-Realism on THF.
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    I hope people are inspired to attempt the challenge that I created, and was enlarged upon due to a commission by the New Zealand Poetry Society’s haiku editor Sandra Simpson.
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    The Slip-Realism Perception Challenge | New Zealand Poetry Society
    https://poetrysociety.org.nz/affiliates/haiku-nz/haiku-poems-articles/archived-articles/the-slip-realism-perception-challenge/
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    See also my recent commentary on Marilyn Appl Walker’s haiku as per Slip-Realism:
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    endless night
    the scrape of a blizzard
    across the plains

    Marilyn Appl Walker (USA)
    The Heron’s Nest, Vol. XXVIII, No. 3, September 2016

    https://charlottedigregorio.wordpress.com/2017/12/27/daily-haiku-dec-28-2017/#comment-5933
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    warm regards,
    Alan
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  2. Alan,

    The above regarding Slip-Realism (as opposed to Slipstream) seems so right-headed and well-defined, opening yet another crack in the pond of the mind. Thank you, and, as well, to Dru Marland for an inspired poem.

    pajamas

  3. Thanks Stella, for presenting my introduction for 31 excellent haiku that carry aspects of what I mean by Slip-Realism.

    The first poet may be unknown to many regular haiku writers, but she both writes haiku, as well as illustrates this genre (and other poetry).

    January 1st, 2014

    Elbowed by that north wind
    I step aside and see it
    fling the lark skyward

    — Dru Marland

    Happy 2014 everyone!

    warm regards,

    Alan

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