Composing haiku while walking...

Discuss your favorite wilderness related books. Share your favorite poetry, quotes and folktales. Here's your chance to showcase your creative side!
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aaron_in_sf
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Composing haiku while walking...

Post by aaron_in_sf »

I have for some years now taken to composing haiku while hiking. I find it a good mental exercise, to see if I can encapsulate observations or experiences in such a constrained form. That they are short enough to hold entirely in even my mediocre memory is a boon; and I can recall them or reconstruct them in the evening to jot them down without much trouble. The rhythm of foot-fall seems well suited to working out the scansion and meter.

This is my favorite so far this year, a response to the for-me comparatively brutal climb up to Upper Kern Basin, coming up the trench:

O trail, bid me climb!
Gladly I shall give each foot
Some hunger for sublime

I am thinking it might be backpacking mantra.
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rlown
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Re: Composing haiku while walking...

Post by rlown »

It is 5-7-5.. Close. Try Tanka.

Ah, the Sierra
First day hike always sucks big
Gateway to splendor
Shawn
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Re: Composing haiku while walking...

Post by Shawn »

First day hike always sucks big

:)
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rlown
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Re: Composing haiku while walking...

Post by rlown »

My friend and I used to trade an Haiku everyday about working in R&D. We had a list. Sadly, they got deleted when we exited the company. 3 years of Haiku add up..

It is fun though..
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Jimr
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Re: Composing haiku while walking...

Post by Jimr »

Did you reimburse the company for all of the R&D you spent on Haiku? :D
If you don't know where you're going, then any path will get you there.
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rlown
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Re: Composing haiku while walking...

Post by rlown »

nope! different time back in the mid 80's. We actually were allowed to have fun. Even off-sites at Tahoe and Monterey. Heck, I even had a trip purely for pleasure to treat some Customer Engineers and their wives to 5 star meals for their contributions.
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rlown
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Re: Composing haiku while walking...

Post by rlown »

Sierra on Fire
No reason to go there now
Swimming with Simba
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oldhikerQ
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Re: Composing haiku while walking...

Post by oldhikerQ »

shoulder straps creaking
stepping deliberately
mountain trails unfold
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I — I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.
Robert Frost
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oldhikerQ
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Re: Composing haiku while walking...

Post by oldhikerQ »

another vote for "First day hike always sucks big"
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I — I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.
Robert Frost
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sekihiker
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Re: Composing haiku while walking...

Post by sekihiker »

Writing haiku kept me busy during a storm in the Little Five Lakes basin in 1990.
http://www.sierrahiker.com/FiveLakes1990/index.html
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