[Shiro-hai Entry] Everyone's Haiku Tournament
Grinding ink, slowly, the great mystery, a single autumn character
The weaver girl leading the ox, behind the shed, a love song
Autumn rain, a 16-beat nocturne
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*Note*
The following is miscellaneous information regarding my entry.
I wanted to compete purely with haiku, so I initially planned not to write this.
I worried about it quite a bit, but since there were people who said, "I would love for you to write about the circumstances and background of your haiku creation," I have recorded it here.
I am writing at length about rather unrefined things.
If you don't need this, please feel free to skip it m(_ _)m
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Grinding ink, slowly, the great mystery, a single autumn character
Inspired by IKUKO's article, I remembered something I love.
Calligraphy. Among that, I wrote about the time spent grinding ink, which I especially love.
[Points of the Haiku]
1. For the "suru" in "suru sumi" (grinding ink), the kanji (磨る) is easier to understand. However, I wanted to make the ink stand out in the first half. I wanted to bring out the relaxed, soft feeling of when I am grinding ink. I hesitated, but I adopted the hiragana notation.
2. Should it be "suru sumi ni" or "suru sumi e"? I worried about this for about three days. "Ni" has more rhythm, but the sound is strong. "Ni" requires effort when pronouncing it. "E" is softer. Also, I judged that "e" is more appropriate for the direction of leaning one's heart toward the ink.
3. In "yururi," I put both my own relaxed feelings and the meaning of slowly grinding the ink. Ink should be ground slowly. Even if you grind it in a hurry, you won't get a good color. It goes well with the sound of "suru sumi" in the upper phrase, and "yururi" was the only word that could express the two meanings above.
4. "Taigen" (Great Mystery). I think it is a word you may not be used to hearing. It means "a state of mind with nothing unnecessary; a state of selflessness." The time spent grinding ink is not just about being laid back. I slowly layer my heart onto the ink. Beyond that, there is a selfless version of myself. A sense of tension that makes my spine straighten. Clear and dignified. Even the sound disappears.
"Tai" is just the bold character. "Gen" has the meaning of "a color that is deep and where light does not reach. Black" (like the 'gen' in brown rice). I thought this would be effective for the "autumn character" that follows.
5. "Autumn character." Since the protagonist of a haiku is the seasonal word, here it is straightforwardly "autumn." If you make the second half only kanji with "Taigen Aki Ichiji," "Aki" (autumn) comes exactly in the middle. It brings out a sense of it being the protagonist.
|Leading|the|ox,|the|weaver|girl|behind|the|shed|a|love|song
This may come as a surprise, but I am a woman. Until now, because of my first-person pronoun (oira), my blunt remarks, and my rough behavior (lol), I have been thought of as a man online. When I thought about that, the phrase 'weaver girl leading an ox' just popped into my head. This is good. It has a feel that no one else can produce. 'Weaver girl' refers to Orihime and is a kigo (seasonal word) for autumn. I wanted to express it as a haiku.
[Haiku Composition Points]
1. 'Leading the ox.' The Tanabata legend needs no explanation. It is famous for 'Kengyu' (the cowherd), Altair in the constellation Aquila. The Japanese name personifying it is 'Hikoboshi.' Leading an ox is a symbol of a man. If I said that in this day and age, I would probably be scolded from all sides (lol), but I don't mind being scolded. 'Leading' (ken) feels more like the weaver girl's heavy breathing than just 'pulling' (hiku). Who is this person? She's just using Kengyu as is. That's fine. Since it can only be expressed through this metaphor, this is good.
2. 'Behind the shed.' A noun with a sense of contrast. Or placing nouns that seem unrelated at first glance in the upper and lower phrases. I felt vaguely that it was effective, but I learned that it was established as a technique called 'two-object shock.' This might be a slightly different nuance, but I wanted to place an expression that contrasts with the first half, where the 'weaver girl leading an ox' is breathing too heavily. Since there were no sheds in the Nara period when the Tanabata legend was introduced to Japan (and the country is different, too), this is also a metaphor. If it conveys a sense of being out of sight, a secret feeling, then that's fine. I made the hiragana 'ura' (behind) correspond to the 'uta' (song) in the lower phrase. Because 'weaver girl shed behind' would have too many kanji in a row.
3. 'Love song.' This lower phrase was what I struggled with the most this time. I had about 20 candidates, like 'blushing cheeks' or 'a single drop.' In the end, I went with my own intuition. I wondered if it was okay to write 'love' directly... but it seems the author wanted to convey, 'Even I have a cute side (ﾉｼ*｀ω´*)ﾉｼ' (lol).
|Autumn|rain,|a|16-beat|nocturne
The young judge is surely smiling cynically. It doesn't have a kireji (cutting word). It's not a middle-seven. 16 is alphanumeric. The perfection as a haiku is surely low.
[Haiku Composition Points]
1. Three-part break. I read in an online explanation that 'generally, in a poetic form of only seventeen sounds, it becomes a dull thing without rhythm, just plop, plop.' Wait. Hold on a minute. Who decided that? I want to resist the idea that three-part break = all bad, as if thinking has stopped.
Regarding this haiku, I want to make it musical rather than poetic. A linear precipitation zone caused by the autumn rain front. Needless to say, autumn rain falls for a long time. If it were summer rain, it would pour down and stop immediately, so I would put in a break. But this is autumn rain. It shouldn't stop in the middle, right? You wouldn't want the music (melody) to stop in the middle either, right? It's a buzzkill.
2. '16-beat.' What is appropriate for a haiku is surely 'sixteen-beat.' But this is a haiku that I want to specialize musically. Where is the musician who writes 'sixteen' in kanji?
3. 'Nocturne.' This is cliché, but the image of the song is Chopin's Nocturne No. 2. There was a wonderful performance by Fujiko Hemming on YouTube, so I'll post it. Borrowing the power of Fujiko's video is something a coward would do (lol). It's just reference material.
16-beat and nocturne. The field of music is the same, but if you consider them two things that are inherently incompatible, could this also be a type of two-object shock?
The perfection as a haiku is likely the lowest among what I submitted this time. But in the end, this was my favorite.
Lastly,
To everyone running the Shiro Cup,
To all the judges,
To all the other participants,
I thank you from the bottom of my heart.
I am a novice who only encountered haiku a month ago, but I have a conviction.
Haiku is wonderful.
Thank you for introducing me to haiku.