Eros Haiku Series Preface
Preface
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This haiku sequence is entirely devoted to the experience of love, the sensual desire which is part of our natural appetites. Writing about it requires both restraint and subtlety. The poetry is most successful when allusion and obliqueness are the guides. When the reader goes beyond the words and sees other images, other ideas, and even far distant meanings, it is then that the haiku are most successful and enduring.
We invite other members to join this sequence, but we would like to maintain a few rules. Each poem should have a kigo, and each poem should have a least one kireji, one cut or pause. These ideas have come from the traditional Japanese haiku, and while English language haiku may be written without them, we respectfully ask that each poem added has these two characteristics.
Please use your own style, whether in traditional or in modern forms. Some will be longer, some minimal, but the important idea is subtlety. The history of love poetry is an immense source of inspiration. The first stanza is a tribute to Chiyo-ni, the greatest Japanese woman poet, and one who was never afraid to present sensuous ideas. The second stanza draws upon the tradition of Japanese love poetry, while the third recalls a fragment of a 6th Century BC poem by Sappho describing a crushed hyacinth on a mountain path.
This sequence will be quite difficult to write, some poems coming from an immediate inspiration, others after some hours of thinking and re-casting. We concede that some poems may leave the reader in little doubt, others may take some time to work out. Some like IX will express a metaphysical idea, others like X will have that sensitivity which is the mark of true Eros.
Hugh Bygott and Dana-Maria Onica |
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