Joanna Ashwell
Taking Sides
Are you milk first or tea first? Cats or dogs? If you were a colour, what would it be? Party or log fire? Books or noise? A songbird or a drumbeat? A hand or a push? Diamond or glass? Do you ever count the stars? Do you wonder about clouds? What’s in there? Right or wrong. Truth or dare. Love or love. Some questions push too far.
distant stranger loosening the light from sky
About the Author
Joanna Ashwell is a writer in North-East England. Her books include Between Moonlight (haiku, Hub Editions, 2006), Every Star (tanka, 2023, Kindle DIrect Publishing), and two cherita collections, River Lanterns and Moonset Song (both available through Amazon). She has won The British Haiku Society Award, among other honors, and is on the selection team for the Canadian tanka journal Gusts.
I am new to this form. But I am trying to learn. My first question about haibun was definitional of course. What is it? A bit of prose followed by haiku? I think I have some idea about haiku. I can’t define it, but I know one when I come across it. The trouble lies in the prose. What defines haiku prose? I have now read several expert opinions on this. I am not exactly in the dark. But I am not in the light either. Which is a good feeling actually. Ambiguity, that haiku lovers LOVE, not love. The editor suggested an acid test for the haiku in a haibun. What happens if the haiku is removed. Following his advice, I removed your haiku and went back to the prose. And read it again, again and … Quite a plateful of questions. I enjoyed your X and not X choices. The latter in particular. Party or log fire? Took me a while to appreciate the opposites. I think I saw them and liked them a lot. A hand or a push? Lovely. Diamond or glass? Good, yes, but not quite as good as LOVE or love. I said WOW when I read that. And then I saw “too far”. I stood there scratching my head. Hadn’t the prose said it all? Perhaps not. I daresay, I saw the merit of the haiku now. The poet knew how far away the answers were, but maybe the distant one knew them all. Even though he/she/it was a stranger. A stranger (oh my G … I mean … Stranger!) holding the light. I liked the link. But I don’t see the shift yet.
Put differently, distant stranger YOU (as in JA) is hopefully teaching me haibun writing.
All the best.