Ecocritical Haiku
Somewhat inspired by a discussion taking place on www.inthemedievalmiddle.com, the following haiku is meant blur the line between art and theory—or theory and practice, if you prefer—by engaging its own eventhood and eventualization. You know, in a naturalistic sort of way.
spring invitation—
chirps against receding waves
repose averted
I'm not a haiku author. Or an ornithologist, for that matter. All I know about birdcalls is that they wake me in the morning by perturbing my cat. So, forgive the clumsiness of the effort. Let me know if you think there's potential in this gesture, though, as I continue aggregating my verse into a chapbook. Also, feel free to re-raise the issues voiced on the aforementioned medieval studies blog; the intertextual ideas being debated are particularly relevant to repoliticizing cultural encounters, and there's nothing like poaching another site's thread to foster online harmony.
Actually, this is not a bad first attempt at all. As someone who has spent a great deal of time studying Eastern poetic traditions, I find it entirely appropriate the forms produced by these traditions be used for ecological critique, since their very imagery and subject matter is under threat. With so few words, it may be difficult to link the event of ecology and critique to the event of the poetic form, but if you can emphasize form-as-function in a way that the structure becomes a constituent element of interpretation, you'll have something. I mean, isn't it always?
Reply to this