C0rk The Political Poet

I thought I would give you all an advanced warning of a new feature I am going to be bringing to c0rk.blogs.com... But first, let us touch on a little back story so that you all know where I am coming from with this…

I am currently finishing up my work in a class entitled ‘Visions in Writing’ --- the corny name aside, the activities and assignments for the class are actually very enjoyable. One of the major portions of our term work is the writing of 250 haiku. That’s right 250. Our professor, Dr. Riggs, a man to whom I grant infinite respect, has for many years, in an effort to prevent writers block, written 3 haiku a day. Over time he became a little more ambitious, and now writes a sonnet each morning. In an effort to keep all the students in his class writing, we’re required to submit 250 haiku at the end of the term.

The emphasis in this case is placed on quantity versus quality, and I’ve been developing my own brand of lack luster haiku over the last several weeks. I’ve come to embrace this exercise and figure that I can become a little more comfortable with sharing my work by publishing a few haiku each day, HERE on c0rk.blogs.com --- So basically, you can expect some poetry in here real soon. Some will be posts onto themselves, and others will be left as an afterthought at the tail end of other posts.

In case you’re not familiar with the haiku form, here is a brief explanation…

Haiku is a form of Japanese poetry. The challenge is to be able to express vivid ideas in a very limited amount of characters --- Writing haiku in Japanese demands that your entire poem include only 17 Japanese characters. This is commonly regarded as 17 syllables in English. In the common English Haiku form (which I will be using) the syllables occur in a definite pattern of 5-7-5.

Line1 --- 5 Syllables
Line2 --- 7 Syllables
Line3 --- 5 Syllables

Typically, haiku stick to the topic of nature, but you’ll all notice my departure from this standard.

Please keep in mind that the haiku I produce are not designed to be brilliant poetic works, but simple exercises in form and general writing practice. Though your criticism is always welcome, I encourage you to regard these as what they are --- a chance for you to laugh, think, or otherwise be entertained. Enjoy~!