Haiku? Gesundheit!

I am a poet. I write dozens of poems a year, many of them clustered in August (for August Poetry Postcard Festival) and many clustered in the spring (for the Austin Poetry Society's annual contests). I've written sonnets, free verse, rhyme, and even a prize-winning villanelle and pantoum. But there is one form that I just don't understand.

I speak of the humble haiku. Haiku seem, on the surface to be super easy: three lines, 5-7-5 syllables. Some nature and a season. How hard could that be?

I like brevity. In fact, I have a whole collection of poems I'm working on that are seven lines or less. And I love to write about nature. So you'd think I'd be a natural at haiku. I certainly have tried. Faithfully. Every single year. Some of them I was quite proud of.

Bluebonnets growing
Alongside a picket fence:
Ancient settlers here.
(1993)

I mean, come on, poetry gods! There's 5-7-5. Nature. Implied season (because any self-respecting Texan knows bluebonnets are extremely rigidly seasonal). There's even one of those pivot things, sort of. But, no. No matter how many times I rewrite it, no matter where I send it...nope.

Despite dozens of efforts at haiku, I've had exactly two successes. In 2013, I won the adult category in the "Stand Up for Safe Families" child abuse prevention contest with the poem "After."

After

Screaming comes the flood,
He flings boulders from the cliff
Heedless of destruction.

Trapped in the log dam
Child of the river trembles
Hopeless of escape.

His wrath all but spent
Dark river slinks to the sea
Past debris unseen.

In emerging day
River's child finds wobbling legs
To seek out the light.


Now, this one makes no sense. It's not a haiku but a longish poem written in three-line stanzas. There's no pivot. No season. Not all of the lines are 5-7-5. Sure, there's some angry nature, but it's very clearly metaphorical nature, which, I am told, makes it a senryu. And yet, I got to tell my survivor story into a microphone at Lady Bird Lake and walk away with a very nice gift bag.

Then there's this one, which won 3rd place in the 2016 Austin Poetry Society awards.

No moon burns tonight

Stars smolder in dark blankets:

Tomorrow you leave.

So, we do have a rigid 5-7-5 pattern and some nature, plus, at least arguably, a pivot. No season. Just oodles and oodles of emo. Is it a haiku? A senryu? A senku? A haiyu? Free verse that's just pretending?

Clearly, there's something more to the humble haiku.

So, I attended the October meeting of the Austin Poetry Society, hoping for enlightenment from the guest speaker, Agnes Eva Savich, who has had hundreds of haiku published.

Agnes read dozens of her published haiku. And pointing out how many of them didn't follow 'the rules'...but somehow still worked. It turns out that 5-7-5 isn't required, unless it is. A seasonal reference and nature are generally required...unless they're not. A grouping of two lines and one line works, and a grouping of one line and two lines works, but three individual lines or a grouping of three lines does not...unless it does.

Agnes passed around dozens of haiku publications and I leafed through them, looking for clues. Some I liked. Many I just didn't get. Few of them followed all of 'the rules.' And then, at last, I got enlightenment. Not about the nature of haiku. I'm still completely flummoxed by that. No, I got enlightenment on why haiku give me a headache.

Eleanor and Bruce, 2009
He is a sequin-caped firefighting hunter under the authoritarian rule of a princess fairy,
and he is clearly questioning his life choices.

It's because I have children. And I have played with these children. If you haven't had the privilege of playing games with small children, this is how it goes:

Eleanor: ...so you have to touch the ball to your forehead and then run to the wall and drop it in the trashcan six times but you can't step on even numbered boards.

Me: okaaay?!#? 

I touch the ball to my forehead, run to wall, drop it in trashcan six times without stepping on even numbered boards.

Eleanor: I win!

Me: What? 

Eleanor: You swung your left arm.

Me: Was that a rule????

Eleanor: Yes. So I win.

Me: That's not fair. You swung your left arm, too.

Eleanor, patiently: Yes, but I'm the arm swinger. It's okay. You can't swing your arm except if you're on the right side and you're the arm swinger, which I am. So I win.

Me: But last time you were on the left side and you also swung your arm and you still won.

Eleanor, with an exasperated sigh: Look, Mom. On even numbered games the sides switch. Aren't you even listening?

And this is my experience with the haiku. It is exactly like listening to a seven-year-old explain a made up game with more rules and sub-clauses than the average iPhone privacy agreement. They are beautiful. They are creative. And I absolutely don't get them.

That's okay, because the poetry world is a wild, wide exciting place, full of strange and wonderful landscapes. It's big enough for form and free verse, for epics and haiku. I can visit Haiku Land and appreciate the scenery...and then go back to my familiar homeland and write poetry that makes me happy--or at the least, doesn't give me headaches.

Word.

What's in a name? Probably way too much.

No, it wasn't in relation to his markings. Clearly, he's
more of a colon cat, at least on this side. The other flank
is a period. If you must know, staff were confused by
the style guide rules on bulleted lists and asked for
clarification, which I provided via a series of statements
about my cat, in list form. It was highly educational;
everyone now knows when to use semi-colons and also
that Bob enjoys parkour.

So, yesterday one of my staff complimented me on Bob's name during a conversation on semi-colons.

Naming a cat is hard to get wrong, no matter how wrong you get it. They are ridiculous creatures, and can withstand names like Mr. Sparkles and Stalin with equal adorableness.

My first cat was named after the hero of my favorite novel at the time, A Tale of Two Cities. Sydney was noble, courageous, and loyal, sacrificing his own life for love in the most selfless manner possible. I am, of course, speaking of Syndey Carton the character. Sydney the cat was none of those things.

You, sir, can put your own
neck under the guillotine.
After you put out some kibble.

Sydney the cat was an arrogant warlord. He attacked toes with ferocity and, while neutered, took an unhealthily aggressive sexual interest in our other male cat, Pericles. He expressed his loyalty by running away for three months in protest of my marriage. (To be fair, he was probably right about that.) And unlike that other Sydney, he lived to the ripe old age of 21.

In short, Sydney Catton did not remotely live up to his namesake--but in an odd way, he did live up to his name. He just looked like a Sydney--fluffy, elegant fur, stylish, debonair. Even when viciously sinking his teeth into your hand.

Oddly enough, his name in the animal shelter was Romeo, which given his behaviors, is a little creepy. Sydney was a much better choice.

I have wide, staring eyes.
It is possible I have hypnotized myself with them.

 Pericles was another aspirationally named cat. My ex was taking a class called "Greek Political Thought," in which he learned about Pericles, the hero of the Peloponnesian Wars. Human Pericles was a wise statesman and eloquent leader, clear thinking and strategic. Why we thought that a runty little stray tabby cat would be an ancient hero is a bit of a mystery.

Pericles was the sweetest cat you could imagine. Gentle, docile, completely incapable of leading an army of Greeks to victory, his preferred military strategy was hiding, followed closely by sleeping. When he ruptured his eardrum, the vet asked me accusingly why I hadn't noticed any changes in behavior. I told her this cat had no behaviors. He sat. He slept. He may have sat and slept in different places in the days leading up to the rupture. Or not. It really was hard to tell. When we got the parakeets, he would just sit and stare at them. You could practically see the steam coming out of his ears as his lone brain cell tried to figure them out. It was like he knew he was supposed to do something with them, but he never could remember what, and eventually he'd just turn around and walk away and go find somewhere to sit and/or sleep. He was a good cat and a good friend, and while he was in no way a charismatic Greek statesman, his gentle ways made me look at the concept of wisdom in a whole new light. There is a wisdom to patience and serenity, even to sitting and staring. In his 18 years, Pericles came to suit him.

With Daisy, the kids were finally old enough to insist on naming the new pet. I was not excited by the idea. Eleanor was obsessed with a series of books by Erin Hunter called "Warriors." It was about the epic battles of feral cat colonies. The cats in these books were named things like Sandypaws and Riverstar and Firestar. Bruce was into Nintendo, and I was also not keen on having a cat named Princess Peach or Kirby.  Betty, of course, was Betty, and was at the time naming her Barbies unpronounceable names like Denathalia and Kynessiahlala, and if I let her name the cat, none of us (including Betty) would have remembered the name five minutes later.

One of her favorite places to be is hugging my thigh.
So weird. So clingy.

So, much like the character in any story who gets to make a wish to a genie, I thought it over very carefully and posed several conditions that I thought were loophole free, thus proving that I failed to learn the important life lessons from Aladdin. (1) The name must be normal and pronounceable and spellable. (2) The name must not be a video game or book based name. They looked at me solemnly, nodded, and (the lying little liars) agreed. Eleanor thought a minute (she's the instigator) and said, "How about Daisy?" Bruce nodded. Betty ran around picking up random objects out of the front yard and said nothing recognizable.

I never read enough Warriors books to determine whether Daisy resembles her Eleanor-namesake. She's not a perky little animated princess in need of rescue, for sure. She is 16 lbs of pure muscle, a solid fighter when needed (Mom calls her Soldier Girl) and more than capable of keeping Bob in his place. She is by no means a delicate flower, but in an odd way, she is prim, respectable, and a rule follower, so the old fashioned name really suits her. Unlike Pericles, she knew exactly what you're supposed to do with birds, but she never did it because it was Against the Rules. She's the sort of cat you say "Yes, ma'am" to. 

So--Bob. The Pawsitive Karma folks named him Tut because of his natural eyeliner. Actually, that name would have suited him. He's a spoiled rotten little prince who wants to lord it over the household. All powerful in his own home, he demands meals on his own schedule, refuses to eat pure kibble, breaks things just for fun, and generally throws tantrums until he gets his way. There is nothing ordinary about him, from his long white fur to his weird eye-shaped spots.

Yep, that's him. Bob. Prince of Darkness. Mr. Sparkles. El Bob. Captain BadCatt. Mr. Fluffy Butt. Bibbity. Bubba. Fluffernutter. Furry Demon. 
When he's in trouble: Robert.

Betty was all in favor of keeping his name as Tut, but she was outvoted. Eleanor had long since moved on from Warriors and was now deeply into the Percy Jackson series. In this series, Percy convinces a titan who has stepped into the River Lethe that his name is Bob and that he's a nice titan, so Bob and Percy become friends. Later on, Bob adopts a stray zombie saber tooth kitten and names him Little Bob. In this sense, the name fits perfectly, because Bob is very mouthy. He gnaws on his hairbrush, Bruce's music stand, a letter opener, my scooter handlebars, Daisy, and pretty much all of the family. He's also prone to random fits of frantic activity and is really quite athletic. He'll run up the side of a wall or touch all four paws on a door in passing, and he used to do some amazing back flips and 360s. I've always thought he was a world-famous South American soccer player in a former life. His footwork with Christmas ornaments is impressive.

Dignity. Elegance.
And super clean privates.

But for all that, he is a Bob. It's somehow adorable that this would-be tyrant (who hides under the bed if a strange child comes to play and who escapes every day but never makes it past the front doorstep before running back inside) has a simple, human name. It helps us remind him that he's no king (although we still do his bidding).

While none of our cat names have turned out the way we intended, in every case the cat in question has made the name their own. Cats may have no use for literature or video games or ancient history, but they prove that with enough dignity, you can carry any name well--as long as you're cute and fluffy.