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Transcript from the TEDx video:
Amazement of the Ordinary:
Life through a haiku lens
“We see things not as they
are, but as we are.”
That’s a quote from the Talmud, an ancient text, containing opinions of thousands of rabbis on a variety of subjects.
That’s a quote from the Talmud, an ancient text, containing opinions of thousands of rabbis on a variety of subjects.
Now I’m sure many of us have been there, overlooking the
ordinary because we feel it’s… well ordinary… mundane, boring, annoying, a
distraction, or mostly unnoticed in our busy schedules.
I’d like to talk about how a tiny practice of reading or
writing haiku, the world’s shortest type of poetry, can add an extra depth to
our world.
I’m adding examples of my own haiku poems to attempt to
inject some lateral shift time, as in our linear lives some of us can rarely
take time to step off, safely, we’ve just got to keep going even if it kills
us, even if it alienates those we love.
Lateral shift?
Bending time? No.
It’s just that sometimes we are only aware of how long time
is if
1) it’s horribly boring, or
2) we are in great danger.
This could be your third choice, your third option, and all
without a safety net, to have something parallel on your timeline.
mist haze-
a crow cleans its beak
on a rooftop aerial
Ah, perhaps you are a
driver, worried you might miss the early
morning sights and sounds of birds getting up for their own day ahead?
traffic jam
a driver fingers the breeze
through the sunroof
One of the world’s greatest short story writers, Raymond
Carver, back in the old century, wrote about people who worried whether their
cars would start in the morning; about unemployment and debt; of individuals
who make our day to day life tick.
He never pretended a wonderland still existed but said: “a writer sometimes needs to be able to
just stand and gape at this or that thing—a sunset or an old shoe—in absolute
and simple amazement.”
Are we not writers of our own life, writing out cheques, or
pin numbering our way to coffee and snacks; those last minute remembered bunch of flowers at a
supermarket, to filling our cars with petrol to get somewhere…
an attic window sill
a wasp curls
into its own dust
…and however much we can afford a mortage, or need to pay
the landlord…
the rain
almost a friend
this funeral
As the 1931 song says: "Brother, Can You Spare a
Dime?"
Brother, Sister, can you spare yourself a haiku moment?
sunlight breaks
on a bird
and its portion of the roof
A day consists of 86 thousand and 400 seconds: A haiku is
six seconds.
Try bending some time, maybe on your travels, catching a…
train whistle
a blackbird hops
along its notes
a blackbird hops
along its notes
Mary Oliver, a poet, said, from When Death Comes:
When it’s over, I want to say: all my life
I was a bride married to amazement.
I don’t want to end up simply having visited this world.
I’d like to end with this last haiku, that takes less than
six seconds to say,
and, time me if you’d like…
this small ache and all the rain too robinsong
TEDx YouTube link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LxLTiR7AKDE
Other links:
http://tedxtalks.ted.com/video/Amazement-of-the-ordinary-life
http://area17.blogspot.co.uk/2013/03/dates-for-next-online-haiku-tanka.html
Amazement of the Ordinary transcript haiku poetry publication
credits:
mist haze-
a crow cleans its beak
on a rooftop aerial
Publications credits:
Azami 38 (1996); First Australian Online Anthology (1999); Cornell University,
Mann Library, U.S.A. "Daily Haiku" poet (October 2001); The Haiku
Calendar 2003 (Snapshot Press); Watermark: A Poet’s Notebook - Crows (2004); Wing
Beats: British Birds in Haiku (Snapshot Press, 2008)
Award credits:
Runner-up, The Haiku Calendar Competition 2002 (Snapshot
Press)
traffic jam
a driver fingers the breeze
through the sunroof
Publications credits: Snapshots
2 (1998); tinywords.com (2002); The New Haiku (Snapshot Press, 2002);
Travelogue on World Haiku Festival 2002 , Part 2 (Akita International Haiku Network 2010)
an attic window sill
a wasp curls
into its own dust
Publications credits:
Woodpecker Special Issue, Extra Shuttle Issue ISSN 1384-6094
(1997);
Snapshots Four (1998); First
Australian Online Haiku Anthology (1999); Haiku International 2000 Anthology,
Japan ISBN 4-8161-0675-8 (2000); HaikuOz Information Kit (2001); The Omnibus
Anthology, Haiku and Senryu, Hub Editions ISBN 1-903746-09-4 (2001); Cornell
University, Mann Library, U.S. "Daily Haiku" poet (October 2001);
tinywords.com (2002); Yomiuri Shimbun, Japan (for my birthday, September 16th
2002 while in Tokyo); The New Haiku, Snapshot Press, ISBN 978-1-903543-03-0 (2002); Raku Teapot: Haiku Book and CD
pub. Raku Teapot Press in association with White Owl Publishing Book: ISBN
1-891691-03-1 CD: ISBN
1-891691-04-X (2003); First Australian Haiku Anthology, Paper Wasp ISBN 0 9577925 9 X
(2003); Yomiuri Shimbun Go-Shichi-Go On-Line feature Language Lab (2005); Swot,
Arts & Literature magazine, Bath Spa University (2007); Travelogue on World
Haiku Festival 2002 , Part 2
(Akita International Haiku Network 2010); THFhaiku 2012 app
Award credit:
Highly Commended, Haiku Collection
Competition, Snapshot Press (1998)
Joint 7th Best of
Issue, Snapshot Five (1999)
Education: HaikuOz
Information Kit: The Australian
Haiku Society Getting Started With Haiku.
the rain
almost a friend
this funeral
Publications credits: Azami #28 (Japan, 1995); Snapshots 4 (1998); First
Australian online Anthology (October 1999): Blithe Spirit article On
minimalism and other things DJ Peel Vol 9 No.3 (1999); tempslibre
(Belgium 2001); Cornell University, Mann Library, U.S.A. "Daily
Haiku" (Oct 2001); The Omnibus Anthology, haiku and senryu (Hub Editions Hub Haiku series 2001);
Hidden (British Haiku Society Anthology 2002); The New Haiku ISBN
978-1-903543-03-0 (Snapshot Press, 2002); First
Australian Haiku Anthology (2003); Birmingham Words Magazine Issue 3 (Autumn
2004); seven magazine feature: “Three lines of simple beauty” (2006); tempslibre (Belgium 2010);
Blogging Along Tobacco Road: Alan Summers - Three Questions (2010); Travelogue
on World Haiku Festival 2002 , Part 2 (Akita International Haiku Network 2010); The Temple Bell Stops: Contemporary
Poems of Grief, Loss and Change (Modern English Tanka Press 2012); THFhaiku app
for iPhone/iPad/iPod Touch (2011); The In-Between Season (With Words Pamphlet
Series 2012)
Award credit:
Highly Commended, Haiku Collection
Competition, (Snapshot Press 1998)
Joint 9th Best of
Issue, Snapshot Five (1999)
Temps Libre analysis in French:
sunlight breaks
on a bird
and its portion of the roof
hi wa torini
yane no ibasho ni
sosogi keri
Romanised version (Romaji) trans.
Hiromi Inoue, Masegawa Kawauchi
town, Ehime Prefecture, Japan
Publications credits:
Haigaonline vol. III (2003); Haiku
Friends ed. Masaharu Hirata (Umeda, Osaka 2003)
train whistle
a blackbird hops
along its notes
a blackbird hops
along its notes
Publications credits:
Presence #47 (2012): THF Per Diem (September 2012): The
Elements
In Swedish:
tågvissla
en koltrast skuttar
längs med dess toner
tågvissla
en koltrast skuttar
längs med dess toner
trans. Marcus Liljedahl
Gothenburg, Sweden
theevandiude choolam
oru karutha pakshi thulli
athin swarangalil
oru karutha pakshi thulli
athin swarangalil
Malayalam translation by Narayanan Raghunathan (2012)
neruppu vantiyin choolam
oru karuppu paravai thulliyatu
antha svarangalil
Tamizh translation by Narayanan Raghunathan (2012)
train seeti
ek kale rang ki chidiya naachti
vah svar lahiri me
Hindi translation by Narayanan Raghunathan
(2012)
this small ache and all the rain too robinsong
Publications credits: Modern
Haiku vol. 44.1 winter/spring 2013
.
