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August (Haiku)
Edit 2
Ironweed dust-mauve;
turquoise beaded dragonfly
stutters seeking lake.
Edit 1
ironweed dry mauve
turquoise beaded dragonfly
stutters seeking lake
original version;
driftwood gutter beached
turquoise beaded dragonfly
stutters seeking lake
(Trying again.
Haiku hard for unworthy
wordy person.)
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Great imagery with the second line. And "stutters" is a perfect verb to describe how they fly and pause. I really liked that. The first line seemed disjointed and I couldn't get a solid image from it. But those last two lines...golden.
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(08-29-2016, 02:57 AM)cvanshelton Wrote: Great imagery with the second line. And "stutters" is a perfect verb to describe how they fly and pause. I really liked that. The first line seemed disjointed and I couldn't get a solid image from it. But those last two lines...golden.
You're right, I've changed that first line at least ten times and it still doesn't work - my disadvantage in having been there, picked up the driftwood from the gutter, and wondered how the heck it got there, 300 miles from the sea. Dry, yes, but so unnatural... should probably devote that line to a more plausible part of the scene - ironweed, perhaps.
Thanks! With these darned little poems it's good to know parts are working, but a miss anywhere's as good as a mile.
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August (Haiku)
Edit 1
ironweed dry mauve
turquoise beaded dragonfly
stutters seeking lake
New first line, hopefully more connected.
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I think that the purpose of haiku is saying more in less, so I'd go for short, simple words and minimise polysyllabled ones as well as any double adjectives.
I suppose 'dragonfly' must remain, as it's important for 'August', but 'turquoise beaded'? It seems to be descriptive, but makes the line too long.
So perhaps something like:-
Ironweed dried mauve.
Blue dragonfly
stutters seeking lake
?
~ I think I just quoted myself - Achebe
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I don't think the current edit needs any changes. As much as English haiku demands neither rhyme nor line count, it's always a plus for me, and you already say very, very little (it's almost creepy, how complete everything is, with the three words per line) while showing a whole, whole lot. It is missing the customary (at least for poems this formal) em dash, though, so that "ironweed dry mauve" feels like it further describes the already very definite dragonfly. And "stutters seeking lake" is a bit on the bad-sort-of-ambiguous side -- who seeks, exactly, the dragonfly or the lake? with one finding it easy enough to argue for either. Oh, and last, aren't ironweed buds already mauve? so the first line ends up, on further thought at least, being a bit redundant. Well, there's the irony, then -- it does need some changes, I think. Just not as fundamental ones. The middle line is perfect, by the way, especially as I'm currently taking an entomology class.
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Edit 2
August (Haiku)
Ironweed dust-mauve;
turquoise beaded dragonfly
stutters seeking lake.
Thanks to the excellent critics. @Achebe outvoted on condensing L2 but agree, seems best to relent on absent English capitalization and punctuation to avoid excessive ambiguity. Like @RiverNotch, captivated by 3x3 typography - but there's something to be gained with the hyphen and semicolon (hyphen needed, em-dash would have been unfortunate visual repetition though with opposite effect on the reading).
(Checked Hiroshige and Hokusai prints for inspiration: neither seems to have portrayed ironweed but their dragonflies are, of course, perfection )
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