ganja haiku set

Long live haiku!

Most Lit posts related to haiku are silly or worse. Thus I am happy to see an honest attempt. I'll be critical but I have respect for your poems.

Line 1: Rain falls on the park

is a bit unnatural. A rain just rains, it has no intention to rain particularly on a park. Also, short haiku should avoid any unnecessary repetition of information by having a summary like line 1. Thus a natural and precise verse could be for instance: "park benches in rain", with its concrete haiku zoom. Next, "rain falls... on street guitars" sounds too dramatic, unnatural (it's possible but such phrase has to be artistically motivated). Both my objections sound like an exaggeration, but in the context of haiku, these are real objections to me. Finally, line 3 suddenly introduces a political cliche which is hard to stomach. Haiku can address homelessness and similar. But a tired cliche should be avoided like a plague, especially in a haiku. You may even wonder if the experience is authentic in a heavy rain, when the distinction between poor and rich is obscured. This means a logical inference rather than an observation (like saying that rain obscures the distinction). All together, this haiku does not feel like an authentic experience, but rather as politically motivated verses.

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Now about the second haiku. I'll write about verses 4-5-6. Haiku hardly ever uses a simile, there is no reason for it, haiku uses juxtaposition instead. The simile in line 4 is a huge poetic misunderstanding. Cherry blossom are as poetic as pearls. One does not need two mushrooms in a small bowl of a haiku soup. Comparing sakura (cherry blossoms) to pearls robes sakura of sakura's poetic dignity.

Line 5 and 6 are just not haiku, it's a different story (much inferior in my opinion to haiku). Well, we don't really have haiku in this case.

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(I didn't rate this post).

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Thank you seannelson. I hope you will persevere on your haiku road.more...