On Tuesday’s post there was a haiku that wasn’t strictly a haiku and the only one who noticed was a friend on FB – I have since corrected it – for some reason I read quietly as quiet+ly; two syllables. Nope – qui-et-ly. 

If you saw yesterday’s post then you might think that writing short lines is something I do and you would be right. While my posts might not convince you,  I am a concise writer – of poems, business correspondence and term papers. 

In a college lit course we were assigned papers of a particular length and I struggled mightily to reach the quota. When the professor handed back the papers he commented that he had actually counted the words and I had hit it precisely including the bibliography. My response was along the lines of “Do you want 2000 words of drivel or 1000 words that are to the point?”  He laughed, he liked me. I got an A.

I once set myself the task of writing one poem each day – good, bad or indifferent – just for the discipline of it. None went further than four lines. I can knock off 4 lines of decent poetry in the blink of an eye – I think in quatrains. But there they sat – 4 lines, unfinished. Often my entire thought was contained in those 4 lines, no need to go further. 

I wrote another haiku yesterday and I think that will be the last. In the several creative writing classes I’ve taken I always hated having to write in an assigned format – I didn’t mind an assigned topic but an assigned format – that irked me. I know the reasoning behind it and the discipline of it but that doesn’t mean I have to like it. For the assigned format of a Shakespearean sonnet, I wrote an anti-sonnet, whining about how I didn’t like writing to form. The concluding couplet was “I am a writer not a hack, So you may have your sonnet back”  I got an A+ on it. The professor liked me. 

Thinking I might do a haiku-a-day I had an idea but cramming it into 5-7-5 did not please me. Here it is:

Not the aches and pains
But lack of future vision
Says that I am old.

Meh. I have another version that I like better but it was 5-7-6. I think I might go back and just make a regular ole poem on the theme. Or not.