raw life

I’m ‘Ghost’ prompter for Carpe Diem Haiku Kai today. Here is a part of what I suggested:

“Think of an emotionally charged situation that you witnessed or participated in. (e.g. birth, death, argument, sickness, new love, etc.) The power of these situations is to do with the cycles of life, birth, growing, dying, death, and regeneration what I call “raw life”.

Take some time to re-encounter, reimagine, and relive tangible details of the happening: the surroundings, scents, sounds, sights, touches, or tastes.

Take two “images” that seem integral to, or sum up, or suggest, the situation. e.g. the smell of disinfectant, sound of breaking glass, touch of grass, etc. You can use “images” from a person too: a pale face, shaky hand, shy eyes, dancing step.

Present these two “images” and allow them to do the work of recreating the situation and its emotions for your reader.”

Bound to produce more senryu than haiku I thought, but it’s amazing how the haiku still remained very haiku in most posts. You’ll find links to people’s posts at the site-link above. Add your own if you like.

Meanwhile I decided to work directly with the images I listed above, and mostly what I produced is very senryu, though it is such a sliding scale between the two.

new lovers —
smooching in the scent
of grass

her pale face —
the teenager
in love

through the posy
of wildflowers
her shy eyes

disinfectant —
holding her hand
for the stitches

in slow motion
glass pours over us
the car accident

his shaky hand —
autumn rosebuds
in an ancient vase

and from a ‘raw life’ experience of mine:

the warmth
of late afternoon light —
his deathbed

slanting yellow light —
the release of pain
from my father’s face