On the Spectrum — Why not say it with haiku?
Poetically-inclined writers must”ve had an awful lot of fun generating the letters that appear in Thursday”s Ukiah Daily Journal. A series of haikus issue clever rebuttals to columnist Tommy Wayne Kramer. Their rebuttals ? and his April 18 column ? were inspired by the ukiaHaiku Festival.
Kramer provided several self-written samples of “the kind of muck that will win prizes.” Of course, true to form, Kramer also provided several specimens of what he believes “more precisely reflect what life is like in Ukiah.” It was the latter set of haikus that inspired the writers” rebuttals.
My personal favorite was by James Chapman of Ukiah who additionally rose to Kramer”s challenge of composing his haiku as a palindrome, in which each line should read the same, backwards and forward:
“Kramer did remark
on ukiaHaiku no?
poopy poopy poop.”
A traditional haiku can be summed up with two concepts, “what you say,” and “how you say it.”
When announcing its essay contest for high school students this week, the California Retired Teachers” Association, Cal-RTA 35, Lake County, provided a useful explanation of the difference between content and mechanics. The purpose of the association”s essay contest is to honor the teacher who has influenced you the most, but I think the definitions can equally apply toward helping to explain haiku.
A traditional haiku expresses a momentary scene or insight, according to ukiaHaiku.org. That would be the “content” part. “It uses simple concrete images of things we can see, smell, taste, touch or feel.”
English-language haikus follow a three line format with a five-seven-five syllable count. That”s the “mechanics,” or how you say it, as the CRTA would say.
So when I think of all the heated exchanges that respond to Record-Bee columnists, how is it, I wonder, that no one has ever framed their comments and rebuttals in haiku? I offer these examples by way of encouragement:
“It”s not nice to call
the TEA Party Patriots
by a vulgar name.”
“Cynthia Parkhill
talks too much about bullies and her Asperger”s.”
This hasn”t just been in idle fun, however; I actually did submit a haiku to the UDJ, in response to an earlier column in which Kramer said that libraries were relics of a bygone era. The UDJ printed it on March 4:
“Tommy Wayne Kramer
doesn”t know from libraries.
Give the man a card.”
I had just begun volunteering at the local library, pulling items off shelves for people who placed holds through the online catalog. Here”s a haiku that didn”t make it into the UDJ (but it is in the most recent “Booknotes” newsletter from Friends of the Lake County Library):
“Clutching the printout,
I wheel my library cart,
grabbing books off shelves.”
I could go on making more haikus but I think you get the point. How about writing some haikus of your own? Maybe next year”s festival should inaugurate a special “political commentary” category. Tommy Wayne Kramer could be the judge.
Cynthia Parkhill is the focus pages editor for the record-Bee and editor of the Clear Lake Observer-American. She can be contacted at ObserverAmerican@gmail.com or 263-5636 ext. 39.
