Frosty poetry

Good Grief (by Andrea Gibson)

Let your
heart break

so your spirit
doesn't.

Andrea Gibson, the poet who got me, properly, into poetry, passed away at the age of 49, just a few weeks ago.

I only now had the chance to sit with that for a moment, but I want to share a very short poem of theirs that I just rediscovered, from their collection You Better Be Lightning:

This, plus certain flexibilities in the Japanese language, leads to the 5-7-5 syllable structure being more and less strict in English than it should be.

Alternate forms that attempt to be "more accurate" to the spirit of haiku include a 2-3-2 count of accented beats, which my poem above attempts.

A note on haiku form: the 5-7-5 syllable structure most of us think of in English haiku is not as "traditional" as it may seem. Without getting too far in the weeds, the "sounds" counted in Japanese are often much shorter than English syllables.

steam rises
over a fresh brew —
winter mornings

#haiku #poem #poetry

rain drums on downed leaves;
a wet breeze introduces
fall in Seattle

#haiku #poem #poetry