Comments on: Woolen Cap | Wind haiku poem example | 113008

By: Ken Wagner

Ken Wagner — Sat, 10 Jan 2009 01:40:19 +0000

Was -
A cold breeze
penetrates my woolen cap,
I can’t go home.

By: Kris

Kris — Fri, 09 Jan 2009 23:56:34 +0000

Yeahhh!

By: Ken Wagner

Ken Wagner — Fri, 09 Jan 2009 20:26:21 +0000

I like the suggestion, Kris. What about -

A cold breeze cuts
through my woolen cap,
I can’t go home.

I like the hard “c” sounds that run through it.

By: Kris

Kris — Fri, 09 Jan 2009 01:48:39 +0000

Ken, one thing I’m coming to admire about you is how graciously you take comments and suggestions.
You are right on both counts: the last line jolts the reader, & it’s non-poetic, which of course isn’t necessarily a bad thing.
So now I have an insane urge to suggest you tinker with the middle line. For me, “penetrates” is slightly formal languge, but not formal or poetic _enough_ to add much special. Could you see going back to “cuts through”?
I think that would make it stronger.
thanks for listening!
Kris

By: Ken Wagner

Ken Wagner — Fri, 09 Jan 2009 01:26:51 +0000

All great suggestions, Kris.

Personally, I like that the final line jolts the reader to a different place, even if it is gracelessly non-poetic. Once there, you “can’t go home.” The land is cold, and the wool won’t work with the wind. Or, as Adriaan would say, Ouch.

With Eliot, “I should have been a pair of ragged claws / Scuttling across the floors of silent seas.” I just don’t belong.

By: Kris

Kris — Thu, 08 Jan 2009 04:02:57 +0000

Ken (& Adriaan)
I like both the process you’re going through and the meaning a lot, but I’m not sure about “I can’t go home.”
For one thing, it doesn’t have a resonant end-of-poem sound in English . . . don’t ask me to explain, that’s just a feeling.
For the second, it throws me into wondering about plot . . WHY can’t you go home? No home? too far? pissed everyone off? So I totally forget about your woolen cap.
Maybe that’s just me though. . . .

If I wrote it I might make the “can’t go home” more explict:
“Far from home” “I can’t go home yet” “Miles to go” “miles still to walk”
Even steal from an old song: “500 miles from my home” (though come to think of it “miles to go” steals from Robert Frost a bit)

Any of that work for you?

Best,

Kris

By: Adriaan

Adriaan — Fri, 05 Dec 2008 12:47:15 +0000

“The walk is not done,” I like that kind of priorities.

By: Ken Wagner

Ken Wagner — Fri, 05 Dec 2008 10:42:58 +0000

This one is the most truthful, too. It is not that home is far or not far. I can’t go home – yet. The walk is not done. I also like the sound that “can’t” adds.

Thanks for helping me with this.

Was -
A cold breeze
penetrates my woolen cap.
Home is not far.

By: Adriaan

Adriaan — Fri, 05 Dec 2008 09:21:41 +0000

Ouch! You can’t go home… That makes it really sharp. It almost sounds as if you don’t have a home. But as a haiku it’s quite good.

By: Ken Wagner

Ken Wagner — Fri, 05 Dec 2008 02:35:54 +0000

What about -

A cold breeze
penetrates my woolen cap,
I can’t go home.