Poetry Magazines - The best collection of poetry magazines online - Simon Armitage

Poetry Library Southbank Centre - The Poetry Library housing the Arts Council Collection at Southbank Centre

« Previous item
Contents of this issue
Next item »

D. J. Peel

print this page

Museum of Haiku Literature Award

How to set about using this brief span of onerous authority? Unless some haiku really appealed, out went all the opening lines that sounded like titles to what followed (too much a cliché of technique?); out went everything that didn’t seem appropriate to tone or to lend any startling ambiguity; and out went any perceived redundancy of image, or tone inappropriate to content, etc. etc. But after all that, I found that I could have simply gone straight for the haiku that grabbed me by the gestalts: -

frost underfoot
and a ring round the moon
light-years wide

Ama Bolton

Why does this haiku work for me? After the first perception, there is a turning away to the second in line two, and a humanising addition of thought in line three. The sequence follows a natural action, and movement is felt through implication. The diction sounds English, and a syllabic temptation to say ‘around the moon’ has been resisted. There is no redundancy of imagery - the second line simply reinforces the sense of season. And ‘light-years wide’ I take to be artistic license - a visual effect: if the Milky Way can be described as filling a valley, then the moon’s halo might be measured against the stars? It hardly matters, this haiku represents a universal experience and there is a strong feeling of presence. Overall, no great insight or desperately sought cleverness - just simple spontaneity well presented.

 

Page(s) 15

Back to top