Here’s a poem for you. It was first published in The Haibun Journal in April 2025. I could say it’s a comment on art and the people who think that four minutes and thirty three seconds of silence is music. If I had a Masters Degree, as many poets seem to have, I could probably get away with that.
But I don’t. I have a City & Guilds in Poultry Production, so I settled for writing a piece about being desperate for inspiration. I’m told that writing poems about writing poetry is almost guaranteed to get you turned down because editors see so much of it, so I got lucky here. Well, I got lucky the third time I submitted it, which would make a good case study on persistence.
Originally it was a tanka prose but it became a haibun, removing the tanka and using a haiku that I’d previously had rejected when it was sent to a haiku magazine. “Three Minutes Thirty Three” was originally “Six Minutes Sixteen”, I added the bit about alliteration making it poetry and substituted “watching birds” for “watching daytime TV”. Whether those qualify as improvements I’m sure. There are probably a couple of tweaks I would make if I ever get round to that poetry book, but otherwise I’m happy with it, which is not something I say about all my published poems.
Anyway, this is the finished version. For now . . .
Two Hours Twenty Two
An hour and forty eight minutes pass before I dredge inspiration from the depths. I know this because I set a timer to put myself under pressure to produce. If John Cage can do 4′ 33”, I thought, I can do Two Hours Twenty Two. It’s not accurate, but it is alliterative, which makes it poetry. If I’d set off with Cage’s piece in mind, I would have settled for Three Minutes Thirty Three and passed the rest of the morning drinking tea and watching birds feed in the garden.
a blackcap
sings from tangled thorns
—the stalking cat
That is a perfectly beautiful haibun in its own right, Simon, stating what was on your mind. I liked it.
Thank you Lavinia. 🙂
💕
🙂
What fun. Congratulations on perseverance rewarded
🙂
I think you should write an explanation that explains what a haiku, a tanka and a haibun are. ‘cos I don’t know.
Perhaps this might help’
https://quercuscommunity.com/2024/09/01/an-answer-to-a-haibun-question/
Thank you, it does help. But it would be easier sitting down with a glass of whisky and having you explain it all over about three times.
It’s dull enough the first time – we’d be snoozing by the third one, even without the the whisky. 🙂
The stalking cat is ever present in life, so I am glad to find it in poetry too.
That is good to hear. We recorded our first cat in the garden this week, so it is appropriate.
Oh, yes! The stalking cat. Great ending.
It became more relevant with the cat visiting this week. 🙂