heeding haiku with Chèvrefeuille November 25th 2015,”baransu”

Dear friends of MLMM,

Welcome at a new episode of Heeding Haiku With Chèvrefeuille. Last week we had a challenge to write/compose a haibun, so this week it is time for haiku … and this week I have chosen to share a haiku writing technique which I tried to create myself … baransu (Japanese for balance).

I dared to create this haiku writing technique earlier this year (March 2015) and I published on the WWW and enclosed it in an e-book I created. Let me first give you all a short explanation of this new haiku writing technique baransu.

Haiku has three lines as you all know and maybe we can bring balance in those lines, by association. I will give an example (by the way the following haiku are just for explaining Baransu).

Example 1:

‘a walk through the city’ … in this line we can see already a few possible things to associate on e.g. “walk” and “city“. I have chosen to use “walk” to associate on, and came to this 2^nd line:
‘step by step I discover’ … in this line the possible associations can be on “step” and “discover“. I have chosen to use “discover” and came to this third line:
‘a newly built world’

Let me bring the three lines to each other than the following haiku will be formed:

a walk through the city
step by step I discover
a newly built world

© Chèvrefeuille

The above haiku is, in my opinion, Baransu, in balance. That balance I have reached through associating on the different images in every line of the above haiku.

Example 2:

Let me try to create another ‘baransu‘-haiku, but now I will use a famous haiku by Basho … and yes … there it is again “the frog pond”:

the old pond
a frog jumps into it
sound of water

© Basho (Tr. Chèvrefeuille)

I will start by re-producing the first line here: “the old pond”. What are the possibilities to associate on? I think “old” and “pond” will do. “Old” has to do with ‘classic‘, ‘yesterday‘, ‘age‘, ‘a long time ago’. Which one can I use? I think I will try ‘yesterday‘ to start creating the second line of this “baransu“-haiku. Here is the 2nd line:

‘yesterday … Irises bloomed’ … hm nice line, but what to use to associate on? In this line I can associate on ‘yesterday‘. ‘Irises‘, and ‘bloomed‘. ‘Yesterday‘ has to do with “time”; ‘Irises‘ are purple mostly and ‘bloomed‘ can mean ‘blossoming‘ or ‘decay‘. I will use ‘Irises‘ to associate on and then this line ‘pops-up’, the third line, ‘only a faint purple’.

Now I will bring the three lines together:

the old pond
yesterday … Irises bloomed
only a faint purple

© Chèvrefeuille

What do you think? Are these lines ‘baransu‘, in balance? I think so, but that’s just my humble opinion.

Well … I hope I have challenged you all to try this new haiku writing technique. Here is another “baransu”-haiku to close this episode:

mountain stream
salmon swims to the well in thin air
rebirth of summer

© Chèvrefeuille

Can you find “my path of associations?”

When you have written your haiku, please TAG Heeding Haiku with Chèvrefeuille and Mindlovemisery’s Menagerie. Then add your link to the Mister Linky widget below.