Modern Haiku
Modern Haiku
by Matt Miller
Strolling through the French Market
In New Orleans,
The smell of rotting human flesh wafted up into my nostrils.
Modern Haiku
by Matt Miller
Strolling through the French Market
In New Orleans,
The smell of rotting human flesh wafted up into my nostrils.
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at Café Du Monde –
dipping beignets
in raw sewage
so, the “modern” in your haiku is the semi-current event, or is it the overload of image and word in what’s intended to be a much more constricted form? I think I smell a subtext.
hell, I can’t shut up today. one more thought: does this also refer to death a thousand miles up river, floating down? you may have (intentionally) butchered the haiku form, but the richness of your long-winded brevity is relatively impressive.
Well, I think “Modern” here means an ‘updated’ form of the tradtional haiku giving the author the liberty and flexibility to say what needs to be said.
I don’t think the poem is a reference to the Minnesota disaster, but the lingering tragedy of the Hurricanes, which, I believe, just had its 2 year anniversary…there was a lot of stuff in the news about how much damage and bad memory still remain…exponentially compounded by a government that’s more concerned about ‘nation-building’ in Iraq (half-way across the world) rather than rebuild our own country {guess that would entail having a semblance of a domestic policy). Sorry to enter into politics but that’s part of life outside the vacuum.
And not to be contrary, but shit, I love it when someone butchers a ‘form’ or is too ‘wordy’ (Out with the traditional and in with the revolutionary!)…that’s just me.
“Modern Haiku”, reminescent of Ginsberg’s ‘Wichita Sutra’, loved it!
well, that’s like updating a sonnet by making it 21 lines. I don’t dislike that at all, but I am curious as to why, and whether or not there’s an intentional significance.
That’s cool. I didn’t mean to be a jerk…hope it didn’t come across like that. I enjoy reading your insightful comments…whether i agree with them or not.
But anyways, yeah, I like John Berryman’s 18 line sonnets called Dreamsongs written in 3 stanzas 6 lines apiece (in 5-5-3 iambic pentameter..mostly)…and the 385 songs as a whole are a dramatic monologue epic poem…mind-boggling…and very unconventional at the time he wrote it and later received Pulitzer for. Language and form should always be moving into new ‘frontiers’ to remain original, individual, and ‘to expose naked truths of life’ …this is just my opinion. But I also enjoy reading some classics including traditional haikus.
any friend of Henry is a friend of mine. But there’s a very tight consistency to Berryman’s 18 line poems, nearly every one composed of three six-line stanzas that provide a skeleton on which he hangs an intense variety of style and content, many of which he composed after bartime. As for haiku, I’ve seen far more experimental forms (by Johnny Fathom or Elizabeth Jill) that go way beyond Matt Miller’s use of a single cluttered clause for a final line. This one almost seems like it just deteriorates into clumsey language at the end, but I think he has a purpose in that – he usually does. I wish he’d weigh in, because it’s certainly caught our attention. Anyway, nice to have an actual dialogue here.
It is nice to see a conversation here. I wish I had more time to involve myself. Ah… the good old days. Where is Matt? He should have something to lend about this.
Thanks for the comments! My purpose behind this was twofold. First, it is commenting on the lack of grammatical understanding of modern writers. Not only is it in incorrect haiku form, but there is a misplaced modifier. Grammatically, it is the smell of rotting flesh that is walking through the market. Second, it is meant to comment on New Orleans’ ancient nature and how it survives catastrophes like Katrina. Even though Katrina killed many, still, that smell of rotting flesh is still alive, still walking through the old Market.
You really need to get out of that Coffee shop and get a breath of fresh air. Alas it is the smell of rotting flesh that inspires you.