Basho?

Yesterday I didn't write a blog, however I did write my fourth Haiku. I posted it onto the winter Haiku page and this morning I was delighted to have received a comment. My delight was short lived. This could be my paranoid mind but I found the tone of the comment to be accusing and condescending. I sent a riposte. The tone intended was one of slight sarcasm, condescension and flippancy.
Perhaps I should not have responded. But then, I felt quite upset by the comment. I am new to the Haiku website and new to Haiku in general. I found the gentleman's comment off putting and not entirely friendly, even though he summed it up with - best wishes. Still, I had to laugh at the whole thing for it has turned out to be yet another wierd coincidence in this week of many.

I first discovered Haiku last year at my creative writing group. We briefly learned the aspects of traditional Haiku, such as the 5-7-5 syllables and a seasonal reference. I wrote my first Haiku, of which I was quite proud.

hark! There's a cuckoo
heralding the start of spring?
No. The clock strikes one

And then I forgot all about Haiku and concentrated on other aspects of both creative writing and my life. That was until recently, when I decided to take my writing to another level and applied for an Open University course. The course is called Understanding the Arts, or something like that. It is a level one course on the road to a degree in English language and literature. One of the things I will be studying on the course is Haiku.
This week I borrowed a book from the library, called 'Teach Yourself Creative Writing' by Stephen May. I have borrowed this book before. Using a tip from the book, I wrote a poem called Turning Back The Clocks, which is about Autumn. I'm proud of this poem and might share it with you one day. Anyway, the librarian, seeing my choice of reading material suggested I might be interested in a poetry group that is starting up soon. I had not noticed the poster for this group and would have otherwise missed this opportunity. I felt that serendipity was at work that day.
  Later, I read the chapter on blogging and decided to begin one. In this chapter is a tip from author Caroline Smailes. I visited her blog and as often happens with the internet, I got led off track and ended up on the Haiku pages. I soon became a member. How strange, that the first person to make a comment on my poem, (a positive comment about my Haiku entitled Martini) happened to be the person who had led me to the Haiku page.
   I read other people's poems and came across one that mentioned Orion. From my house there is a perfect view of Orion across the wintery sky and looking at this constellation is one of the few pleasures I find during this depressing season. I decided that I too would write a Haiku with Orion as the seasonal reference. Afterall, Orion is there for us all to share.

My poems are mainly based on personal experience. The Martini Haiku came about from a number of factors. About four years ago on a skiing holiday in Bulgaria, we really did snap off the tips of icicles to add to JD and coke. We also used icicles to give our huge snowman a wonderful spiky hair-do. This year, at Christmas I took to drinking gin Martini's, as they are less fattening that wine, and frankly they taste so vile, that I drink slowly and don't get sloshed very quickly. And of course, this winter, we have experienced some fantastic icicles in the UK.

The seagull Haiku was inspired by a trip to the local dump and my attempts to feed robins in my garden. We have a recycling centre not far from our home and even though we are at least a hundred miles from the sea, we have many seagulls in the area because they scavenge at the tip. I set up a make-shift bird table, during the recent freeze. I attracted sweet little coals tits, blue tits and robins. But to my dismay, overhead a flock of seagulls began to fly, circling my garden the way vultures circle the airport in The Gambia. I once witnessed a seagull dive-bombing my cat. She came home with a hole in her back! So I have abandoned the bird table idea and have hung a coconut shell filled with fat and seeds from a tree. This still attracts robins and tits but thankfully not the vicious seagulls.
I am working on an idea for a Haiku, based on the idea of robins, birdtables and a rather alarming headline I read just before Christmas. I didn't buy the newspaper, so I didn't read the article, but the gist of it was that top restaurants are serving robins as a delicacy. As you can imagine, I was horrified by this headline. I thought my Haiku might go something like this;

Christmas card robins
serve them well, on bird tables
not dinner tables.

My third Haiku, the one I received the comment on, was based on a recent sighting of a barn owl. I was driving home in the snow, when I saw out of the corner of my eye, a large bird flying slowly. My first thoughts were of a pigeon, but it was dark and pigeons don't tend to fly about at night. The road was deserted so I slowed down more (I was driving very slow as it was) and turned to look properly at the bird. It was an owl. I could only see the underside of the bird, which was white, so I thought it was a snowy owl. When I got home, I looked on the R.S.P.B website and found that it was highly unlikely to be a snowy owl because it had been too small. Besides, snowy owls don't live around here. It had almost certainly been a barn owl, for they are white underneath, brown on top. I must admit I was quite freaked out by the owl sighting. The reason for this is because I know that in many cultures owls are linked with death. I spotted the owl flying just metres away from the sight where someone I know was killed last year, in a car accident. Because of this, the owl sighting has stayed with me. When I thought of Orion - the hunter, I remembered the owl and the poem was born.

I was unaware that a famous Haiku poet had written a similar poem, hundreds of years ago. In fact, I was unaware of the poet Basho per se. I expect I will study Basho in my OU course, that begins in March. Although the comment upset me at first, I'm grateful to have learned of Basho's existence, for now I can study his work in advance. Also, I can learn from the master. And really, I should be pleased. If my fourth Haiku, is similar to one of Basho's, then I should take that as a compliment. Trouble is though, I didn't and have responded accordingly. Oops! I've probably made an enemy now. Typical, four days into the blogging lark, and four poems into the Haiku lark and I'm upsetting people. But, it was never my intention and we all have to start somewhere.