Your daily dose of poetry. In the form of more traditional or modern haiku, free form poems. In English, German or French.
Read poetry and follow me for photography or some moody thoughts.
Why in English?
The size of the German or French speaking haiku community seems to be rather small. Outside Japan haiku seem to be most popular in English speaking countries. So I decided to mostly stick to English as a way to communicate my compositions to interested readers.
Why bluesky?
A chance for creative minds to share their work and thoughts without the toxicity of...you know what.
Why haiku?
If you cant express emotions in three lines, don't try to do it in thirty.
I stumbled upon this peculiar form of Japanese culture six years ago. A well read friend highlighted Japanese poetry to me. It started as a kind of fun between the both of us, throwing 5/7/5 experiments and jokes at each other. But then the challenge quickly grow on me. Am I capable to express myself in such a condensed form? Describe nature with such few syllables? Especially the structure of my German mother tongue caused some serious hick-ups. But those difficulties got me hooked. Now I can't do without transforming experiences, thoughts, remembrances, nature, emotions into three lines. I'd like to share some of them. If you're interested, come see me at bluesky.
Form: A haiku is a Japanese form of poems, consisting of three lines in 5, 7, 5 Japanese morae (for a more in-detail explanation, look here) each. Morae do not exactly translate into Indo-european language group's syllables. I still try to stick to the 5/7/5 scheme, just because it ads another layer of complexity and challenge. Sometimes I deviate, trying to condense the essence of the poem even more. Going free form can add an odd beauty to a haiku while avoiding unnecessary fillers.
Content: a haiku can describe a natural phenomenon - may it be the famous cherry tree, a mountain or an animal - in a certain time of year and sometimes during a specific time of day. To add some flavour, the writer can try to describe a motion and/or emotion and end the poem with a surprising line, strenghtening the impression even more.
In short: In my interpretation a good haiku is an extremely dense form of poetry that still achieves to summon a relatable picture of a very complex observations, motions and emotions in front of the inner eye of the reader. Very few haiku achieve do achieve that.
Challenges
I'm still trying to acquire this kind of mastery without falling into the trap of repetition and understanding a haiku as a set of bricks that need to be shuffled together. A haiku should always stick to it's original intention and translate it into relatable, understandable experiences for the reader. It's very hard not to deviate from this intention in order to make words fit. Trust me.
Why Photography?
I've always been interested in depicting certain angles of reality, the beauty of fragments, condensing emotions, transforming and composing the human experience into shareable art. Photography is not truth, not reality. It's art. As art it shall speak to the spectator's conceptions of reality and truth by trying to connect one soul with another. That's what I strife for. I use photography as a perfect addendum for poetry. Both interlock and communicate with each other. Sometimes I write about pictures I took. Sometimes I take pictures that resemble certain emotions that I tried to express in poetry.