Haikus & limericks

Only 4 weeks till the Summer Show and one class that even those who hate gardening can enter is class 59 – a limerick or haiku themed “Spring”.

Haiku is a short form of Japanese poetry – an “epigrammatic Japanese verse form in 17 syllables”, according to my dictionary.  The 17 syllables are usually divided into 3 lines, of 5, 7 and 5 respectively.  They traditionally contain a reference to the season, making spring an ideal subject.

To get you into the swing of things, here are a couple by Bashō Matsuo (1644–1694), considered one of the masters of the form.

April’s air stirs in
Willow-leaves…a butterfly
Floats and balances

Old dark sleepy pool…
Quick unexpected frog
Goes plop! Watersplash!

 

Or perhaps you prefer these by Kobayashi Issa (1763 – 1828)

spring begins–
sparrows at my gate
with healthy faces

spring breeze–
golden flowers in bloom
on Mount Mutsu

Don’t worry, spiders,
I keep house
casually.

(I can definitely empathise with that one!  These don’t follow a strict 5-7-5 pattern, but I guess they may have done in the original Japanese.)

 

Limericks are also short with rules but have a rather different feel to haiku.  They have 5 lines with a strict rhyme scheme (AABBA) and the 3rd and 4th lines are shorter than the other three. In contrast to the lyrical and enigmatic haiku, limericks are humorous and frequently rude.  They are almost synonymous with Edward Lear but many other renowned authors and poets have written them including Mark Twain, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Rudyard Kipling, H G Wells, W H Auden, James Joyce and Isaac Asimov, to name but a few.  Clement Attlee even wrote a short autobiography in limerick form:

Few thought he was even a starter;
There were many who thought themselves smarter,
But he ended a PM
CH and OM
An earl and a Knight of the Garter.

 

I tried to find one of Lear’s about spring, but this was the best I could come up with:

There was an Old Man with a beard,
Who said, “It is just as I feared!
Two Owls and a Hen,
Four Larks and a Wren,
Have all built their nests in my beard!”

Quite a lot of his start with “There was an old man / person /woman …” and he frequently uses the same word to finish the 1st and 5th lines, which strikes me as cheating.

 

Not about spring at all, but rather wonderful is the following by Dixon Lanier Merritt (often incorrectly attributed to Ogden Nash):

A wonderful bird is the pelican;
His beak can hold more than his belican.
He can hold in his beak
Enough food for a week,
Though I’m damned if I know how the helican!

 

A more modern master is Ranjit Bolt, author of the delightful “A lion was learning to ski”

 

So, take up your pen, stare out of the window for inspiration and get writing!  Haiku or limerick? Enigmatic & lyrical or witty and cheeky?

 

Here are some pictures to get you thinking: