Haiku
When I was younger, I didn't appreciate poetry. However, I figured that when I reached an appropriate age, I would come to understand its significance. I expected that time to come around the mid-point of 50 in my life, but now at the tender age of 25, I get it.
Like all things that are not binary, black and white, I favour certain types of poetry over others. Personally, I currently find that Haiku is my favourite. At first, I considered it a lazy person poetry but now, after dedicating some time to writing my own, I think it some of the more complex poetry one can write.
If you were like me and don't really get haiku, let me try to persuade you why I believe that everyone can enjoy and even benefit from writing it.
The task: You have to evoke an image in 3 lines, following a strict 5-7-5 syllable structure.
I have now spent more time than I'd like to admit, drumming my fingers on my leg as I try to work out if a line I've composed fits, or I have to use a different compromising word or have to throw away the line entirely. This may sound like a frankly boring and tedious task, but I invite you to think of composing haiku a taking a snapshot of time and then compressing that into 3 lines. You can then evoke that snapshot by reading the haiku. Here's an example:
A buzzing city Viewed from a mountain trail It was worth the walk
This is a snapshot I took of my holiday to Hong Kong. We had set off on a walk from Tin Hau to go on a short walk to what Google Maps considered Sir Cecil's Ride. It had advised that we take a bus to the top of the hill, and then we complete our short hike. My partner and I had different plans. Having only just arrived in Hong Kong a day before, we decided a better idea was to walk up the hill and then complete the hike before walking (or maybe catching a bus) back down again.
We set off, she had a bottle of water and I had a bottle of a drink I was trying, Pocari Sweat. I know. What a delightful name, but I had been told it was really good for the heat. There were no clouds in the sky, it was 28*C and humidity of +80%. We started our walk and quickly discovered that to get to the hike was going to consist of a lot of steep steps and a gruelling hill. It wasn't long before we had to stop to catch our breath and take on fluids. But as we climbed, off to the side of the hill, the view of Kowloon and the harbour was growing increasingly impressive. Around ¾ of the way up we stopped again and seriously considered getting a bus up the hill, but checking the time, we hadn't been walking long, and it felt like a cop out. After what felt like over an hour (but in truth was 30 minutes) we reached the start of our hike. An obvious gateway is before us but appears to be locked.
We checked Google Maps again, and it recommends that we had to go behind a College to get started. We walked over and check Google Maps again in confusion. It seems like it wants us to follow a small trail off the beaten track, down into a river bed across it and then back up in the undergrowth on the other side. We share a look of confusion and I go first. I almost twist my ankle going down, but I can see a couple of coloured ribbons on the other side and presume that “no, despite all other logic, this does appear to the route Google suggests”.
We make our way across the river and start making our way through the undergrowth looking for clues of more ribbons. We spot some more up the trail. My partner is getting increasingly concerned that we must be going the wrong way, but I wave it all aside. Then her phone signal blips and Google Maps recalculates. Now it suggests we go back the way we came and go through the very obvious gate we thought to go through in the first place. I look at the map, and it seems like if we just push on for another minute up the bank, we will reach the trail anyway (we are high in the mountain now, and I don't fancy going back the way we came). I take out my phone, open OsmAnd and I can see the trail we took on it. It confirms my suspicions. At this point, we give up on Google Maps, and puts “Sir Cecil's Ride” into my phone. OsmAnd acts confused at my request and tells us what anyone who's done the proper walk would know. Sir Cecil's Ride is the name of a trail, not a location to go too. We decide fuck it, let's continue onto the Ride and just follow it. After a bit more of a slog, our t-shirts soaked and bottles 1/3 full, we get onto the main path. It's clear and well established, and we gratefully follow it. Then we have an excellent moment, a highlight of our trip. We see the view.
The city laid out in front of us: The Harbour, Victoria park, Kowloon and the new territories in the distance. People the size of ants scurrying around. The sun sparkling off the buildings. It was the moment I fell in love with Hong Kong. That was when I sat down on a rock, gazing out, and summed up the experience in that haiku.
Now, I took some photos of the view, but if you compared them to any other photos from tourists they would look near identical. My Haiku however, brings me back to that moment in time something my photos can not.
Coming back to the present and the point. Haiku allows me to relive moments