Haiku

[Julius]

Catkins dust the air
Pollen carried on the breeze
All life a gamble

[Erthona]

Julius,

Welcome to the site.

(Please note you are perfectly welcome to ignore any criticism that anyone writes about your poetry, that goes double for me)

Think I might change the title, untitled would be better than "haiku". All that is going to do is have people argue over if this is a haiku or not (personally I think it all a farce anyway, but it is good exercise in the value of words) .

"Catkins" is a bit of an obscure word unless your field of study is botany, or a related field, then I guess it would be fairly common nomenclature, but I don't think that holds true for the general population. As the word (Catkin) covers so many flowers in so many formations it's difficult to get a handle on it when it is written as a plural.

Example: "Bees buzz the air" In this case it is many of the same thing. Your usage of "Catkins" is not, if you see my point, so it should probably be singular. Regardless, I think due to the nature of the word you drastically narrow your audience, as "catkin" requires some amount of background information to make the definition make sense.

The "All life is a gamble" is just a rewording of the trite phrase "life's a crap shoot". Can't offer much help on the last, maybe on the first two lines.

"catkin dust the air
pollen flies upon the breeze"

or maybe "pollen igniting the breeze"

But then observing that life is a genetic crap shoot, is just so over done. maybe you can find some other conclusion that is a little more unique.

Oh yeah, of course for me it doesn't matter either way, but ELH (English Language Haiku) is generally no punctuated, which would mean not capping the start of the line. Generally in any poetry, only the start of the sentence is capitalized. I'll attach my blurb on that below.

I'm sure others will be more positive in their critiques, I'm just not a very positive type person, so try not to take it too personally. Or go critique one of my poems and say real nasty things about it

Best,

dale

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typesetting
As a service to your reader(s), please do not cap the start of every line. That was originally a necessity related to typesetting (maybe). Capping the lines in print went out in the 1950's, primarily because it was no longer a need in typesetting, and it was less confusing to the reader. Most people coming up through the school system tend to read poetry either in text books or in anthologies. The compilers of these texts prefer not to use copyrighted material, which means they include more of the older material that is typeset in the old way, giving the impression that is how it should be done which is an unfortunate misapprehension.