Learn to write poetry: THE HAIKU

"Furu ike ya kawazu tobikomu

mizu no oto."

Okay, so don't adjust your set, this is an English lesson, but we're looking today at

haiku, which is a Japanese form of poetry, but lots of English poems have been written

in the haiku form. So, first of all, I'd like to thank my students, Kuni and Negu, for their

help in training me to recite this haiku in Japanese. I hope it was okay.

So, this is a poem about a frog jumping into a pond and making a splash. So, it's a very

simple, straightforward scene, just a description of something in nature, and haiku is often

describing something in nature. And you might think: "Well, why...? How is haiku going to

help me learn English?" Okay? So, the... It's a very, very short kind of poem. You can see

it's three lines, not many words, so it's a manageable, short thing to read every now

and then, if you find some on the internet or whatever. And to find if there is a word

in there that you don't know, you can look it up and then you've learnt a new word. And

also, with haiku there is often a philosophical aspect. It's a description of something in

nature, but there's also something there for you to think about.

So, okay, let me just summarize. So, the haiku comes from Japan originally. It started in

the 9th century, so that's a long time ago. Basho, who wrote this poem, lived in the 17th

century, and he's very famous as a writer of haiku and as a poet generally. Okay. One

of the things about haiku is it's always... It's usually in three lines, and the number

of syllables is five, seven, five. Some poets, some haiku I've read in English don't always

follow that number of syllables, but basically they're usually three lines, very short, so

they're very quick and easy to read, and it doesn't take a lot of time to read a haiku

and think about it a little bit, and maybe learn a new word or two.

So, let's count the syllables, shall we? Just to be clear what syllables are. So: "Fu-ru

i-ke ya"-that's five-"ka-wa-zu to-bi-ko-mu"-that's seven-"mi-zu no o-to", five. So that's the

number of syllables, because rhythm is very important in poetry. Okay.

So, now we get on to an English version, and because of copyright rules and all that sort

of thing, I decided I would write one of my own so that I can give myself permission to

use it in this lesson. Okay, so here it is, and I've drawn a tree because that is relevant

to the poem, so... And you might like to count the syllables just to check that I got it

right. So:

"What do I do now? I'm the last leaf on the tree

Waving in the breeze."

Okay? So "waving" is this sort of thing, the breeze is the wind. The breeze... A breeze

is a very small wind; not a very strong wind, just a gentle, little wind. Okay. So, here's

the tree with one leaf left on it. So, it's a scene from nature, if you've ever seen a

tree with just one leaf left, and you're looking and thinking: "Is that going to be blown off

soon or will it stay all winter?" But a part from being a scene from nature, you might

think: "Well, that's quite philosophical as well", because if you relate it to a human

person who is feeling alone like the last leaf on the tree... Maybe the last person

in their family. "What do I do now? I'm the last leaf on the tree, waving in the breeze."

So it has a kind of philosophical element as well if you start thinking about the deeper

meaning of it. Okay.

So, I'm not really a poet, so that just proves that you don't have to be a poet to write

a haiku. So I'm going to encourage you to try to write one of your own and just follow

the number of syllables, write one in English, and post it in the comments on the engVid

website. But before we finish this lesson, I just have one more haiku to show you written

by a friend of mine who has given her permission for us to use her poem, and it's actually

quite a funny one, so you can have humour in haiku as well, so let's have a look at

that.

Okay, so here is an example of a modern haiku written by my friend Sarah Lawson who has

given us her permission to use her poem. That's the copyright symbol there to show that it's

her copyright, her property. And it's quite a humorous poem, it's quite funny, but I probably

need to explain a little bit to explain why it's funny. So, anyway, we're in London here

filming and London is a big city with a lot of traffic, and there are often traffic jams,

very slow. The cars can't move very quickly, they get stuck. So, the first line: "A London

gridlock", and a gridlock is when the traffic just gets so stuck it can't move. If you have

a crossroads or something and the traffic, they're trying to get through the traffic

lights in both directions, and they're just stuck there, waiting and waiting for ages.

So, that's a gridlock.

"A London gridlock - But still the drivers went from

Tooting to Barking."

Okay. Now, if you don't know London, you may not be familiar with these two place names:

"Tooting", which is in the southwest of London; and "Barking", which is northeast. Okay, so

if you're literally going from Tooting to Barking, you're going from there to there,

right across London, through the middle and out the other side. So it's a long, long way.

So that's the literal meaning. Tooting is a place, Barking is a place. But in addition

to that, there's a double meaning here. "Tooting", there is a verb "to toot", "toot", and it's

the kind of word that imitates the sound. So when you're in a car and you sound the

horn, usually press the middle of the steering wheel or something and go: "Bur, bur, bur,

bur", that's tooting. So, the double meaning is there's a place called Tooting, but there's

also the sound and the action, the verb: "tooting", the drivers are tooting. Okay. Making a lot

of noise, trying to get through. And also Barking is the place, but "barking" is also...

It's an idiom for somebody who is going a bit crazy, because the full term is "barking

mad". Okay. So, if somebody is barking mad, you imagine them barking like a dog. Maybe

not literally, but they just say strange things and they do strange things. So, people just

use the word "barking": "He's barking. That man is barking", and it means barking mad,

you know, very strange person. So, that's the double meaning of this line. The place,

places on either side of London, but also they're tooting their horns; and the traffic

itself, because they can't get where they want to be very quickly, it is driving them

mad. They're going mad because they can't get through to their destination. So that's

the humour. And people say when you explain a joke it's not funny anymore, but I hope...

I hope you can see the humour in that. So, that's just to show how a haiku can be funny,

can be a joke.

So, again, I'd like to suggest that you give it a try and see if you can write a haiku,

either... Well, in your own native language, but also definitely in English. Try to write

one in English and post it on the engVid website in the comments section, and that would be

a lot of fun to see what you've all written and for you to all see each other's haikus.

So... Okay, so I hope that's been interesting. And there's a quiz, I'm sure there's going

to be a quiz on this, so please look for the quiz. And there may be a resource sheet about

poetry more generally. So that's all for now, so see you again soon.