Haiku By Thai English Majors

Recently I taught four of my six classes about poetry. Although there are one or two exceptional students in each class, for the most part the language level of English majors at this university is pretty abysmal. With this in mind, I taught them about the Haiku style of poetry. Haiku doesn’t require any rhyming or rhythm, it has only 3 rules:  three lines, seventeen syllables total, with five syllables in the first line, seven in the second line, and five in the third line.

Traditionally, Haiku was written by Japanese poets about nature. So we started the exercise by making some word “banks.” We made one word bank of one-syllable words, trying to include connective words, pronouns, nouns, verbs and adjectives. I had them brainstorm and shout out words, but tried to keep the subject matter nature-based. Then we made another word-bank of two-syllable words. I gave them the structure to use. Then I left them to it.

I got really encouraged and excited whenever I looked up from my work and saw them all deep in concentration, looking off into space thoughtfully, mouthing words to themselves and counting syllables on fingers.  Then they started coming up to me and showing their poems to me to check if they’d gotten it right.  This enthusiasm was unprecedented.

Here are some of my favorites:

 

Sheep sleep under a tree

That sheep eat grass every day

In night they live field

 

I love my mother

And I love my old brother

I love family

 

A girl likes to swim

On a beautiful Sunday

She loves it so much

 

Frog eats the insect

It say “ob-ob” and jumping

Say loud when raining

 

I go to the sea

I swim with my family

And happy on sand

 

A frog have a green

I like it when swimming

It live in river

 

I go to Cha-Am

I swim with my grandmother

We are very fun

 

I love is snow

It’s cool I say “Ah ya ya”

Good luck snowing

 

It is a haiku

My teacher is beautiful

My nickname is Jane

 

I can go my home

I meet father and mother

I meet they so mush (yes, she did write “mush.”)

 

Haiku love river

Haiku have 4 leg live June

Haiku have big eye

 

My father handsome

My mother beautifully

I like badminton

The Fire

(A Short Quick Journey Back To Junior High.)

June 17, 2010

So I was pulling some random books off the shelves in my office today (all which belong to and have been abandoned by my boss), thinking I might be able to mine some good ideas out of them.  One was a textbook that looked similar to what I used in junior high school, entitled Prentice Hall Literature.  

I sat at my desk and opened it.  The slightly mildewy smell that old books have wafted up into my face, and I looked on the inside cover.  Sure enough, there was the old familiar box where all the kids that used that book year after year would write their names in it and the year they used it and the condition it was in when they got it.  

I remember as a girl, we would swoon with delight if we happened to get a book that had been used by a hunky upperclassman, as if it held some part of him inside.  But I digress.

This book is the property of Curundu Junior High School, the stamp clearly states.  It was first issued to Mina Parada in the year 1992-93, the year I finished high school, and it was new.

Ahhh…the joy of a new textbook!  Being the very first student to use it, and the wonderful smell, and the way the book cover crackles the first couple dozen times you open and close it!  But again, I digress.

I felt like a kid again.  The inside cover was delightfully messy and marked up with various pens and pencils – scribbles, notes, something naughty that was furiously scribbled over, a phone number, and a curious little note in all lower case, wobbly, boy’s handwriting, in red pencil, that says “in case of a fire turn to p. 185.”

Feeling deliciously curious like Alice, and mildly amused, I turned to page 185.  The red pencil said, “Turn to page 231.”  I did it.  Next note said “hurry, p. 399.”  Excitement was mounting.  I turned to page 399.  The note crammed in under the page’s text said, of course, “stupid ass I said in case of a fire.”  

Junior High School humor, it never changes.  That was fun.  It made my day.

Jack’s Voice of God

Sometimes, even though I have no idea what this really means, I think I hear the voice of God. Yesterday, while riding my motorbike to work, he said to me, “What the hell happened to your writing? Pull your head out of your ass and get to work.”

 It took me by surprise. I hadn’t heard that voice in quite a while. In this case, the voice of God was that of a large, moody 42-year-old black man from Indiana. It was unmistakably my old friend Jack. Jack was killed in 2004 in a car accident. He was one of my most trusted friends (and I his), my musical mentor, my motivator, and often my harshest critic. He’d tell it like it is. He wouldn’t waste time putting things gently, he’d just say what he thought you needed to hear…especially if you didn’t want to hear it.

“Just DO what the fuck you SAY you’re gonna do,” was one of my favorites. Another was, “YOU are your worst enemy.” And, “What’s your six-month-plan, Carrie?”

Yesterday I heard his voice telling me I’d wasted enough time focusing on other people besides myself, and this book was not going to get written by anyone but me. Why did I think of God, even though I clearly recognized Jack’s voice? Did I need to feel that the command came from such a lofty place that I dare not disobey? That statement alone shows how hokey my very concept of the word God can still be sometimes. But my response was to think of Jack being channeled through the very ruler of the heavens, straight into my noodle.

It seemed appropriate enough. I trust Jack. I’m not sure if I trust God. I don’t know God well enough yet.

This morning I opened my e-mail and there is a message from Libby, my friend and fellow Jack-disciple. Yesterday was the 6 year anniversary of the accident. Of course I’d completely forgotten. She sends a reminder to all his closest friends every year. If I were at home I would meet her in the stunning Lakewood Cemetery, she’d bring purple flowers, I’d scrub the headstone with my various cleaning supplies, she’d say a few words, I’d do a headstand, and then we’d hop in our cars and go to the nearby (and now demolished) Uptown Grill for a huge breakfast and a Bloody Mary.

But this year I am here, where there are no cemeteries, no Uptown Grills, and certainly no Bloody Marys. Instead, I was clearly reminded of Jack, six years to the day after he left us, by Jack himself, making me think he is the voice of God, which probably made him smile.