Daily Haiku / Senryu : Interest

much to do, to blog
renaissance interests, darn!
can only be one

          haiku by M. Nakazato LaFreniere

So much of the advice to beginning bloggers start with “pick a subject”, “specialize”, “write about one topic your audience wants to know about”. And of course while you do that, you’re supposed to write briefly, concisely, and clearly.  Absolutely no rambling!

One subject?  Briefly?  Who are they kidding?  My mind, my interests wander everywhere.  I read broadly.  With web articles or blogs, you can follow the reference links down the rabbit hole; deepening your knowledge as you dive down.  Like a butterfly, I flit from informational nugget to nugget.  All the pretty little facts, data and speculations attracting me for a moment.  How does one choose?  They are all so pretty!

So it surprised me when I started writing haiku.  I am more inclined to write science fiction and fantasy, having reams of paragraphs floating around of different chapters I have written.  A chapter fills my head and I scribble it down — maybe a few chapters of different scenes that pop in but never a full book bridging the chapters and following a cohesive plot line.  I think I just love listening in on the conversations of characters.  Ah well.  Consistency is not my middle name.

And since my writing has always been haphazard, flowing heavily at times and then drying up leaving nothing behind, it’s been a bit of a shock that I write daily haiku or senryu.  Daily!

The haiku or senryu starts my days now like a cup of coffee.  I get itchy if I can’t get to writing it first because I have an errand.  Sometimes I follow a word in the haiku / senryu, finding a news article or a topic, delving into the search terms, discovering more, backtracking reference links and writing an essay.  Suddenly I’m writing … nonfiction.  Huh.

My little poems can stand alone and I do think most people never read the essays that accompany them, especially the long rambles.  Some people do, suprising me with a percipient comment. (Hey, I know I should have used “perceptive” but I like the sound of “percipient”.  It kind of rolls off the tongue.)

Most times, I don’t hold the subject in my head long.  Like the poems, it’s a daily knowledge that fills my mind while I read up on it, using google to find answers to questions that pop up in my reading but forgetting it all tomorrow.  My mind is a sieve these days; facts, data and hypotheses drip through the holes quickly.  A blog is like a camera — a quick snapshot of a thought before it disappears.

So I write about planets that never swiped the earth, babies babbling 6000 phenomes, the value of daydreams or nothing at all, just the senryu that day. Having a roaming renaissance mind, brevity and specialization does not define my blog despite my good intentions of following the expert advice on what makes a great blog with loads of followers: Stay on Topic; Keep it Concise.

I like other ramblers too.  Their blogs tickle my mind.  Raise your hands if you like reading other ramblers?  We renaissance minds need to stick together! Start a union!

Ah well, at least my daily haiku and senryu are brief, have one topic and are concise.  One out of 3 ain’t bad. These poems the duct tape holding my blog together.

References:

Interest
Daily Prompts
The Daily Post

Original Painting: A Self-portrait at the Clavichord with a Servant by Lavinia Fontana, 1577, oil on canvas, 270 × 240 mm (10.63 × 9.45 in) currently at Accademia di San Luca, public domain image via Wikimedia Commons

Some books of interest from Amazon:  Simonetta was the model for the Venus.  Renaissance Recipes caught my eye.  Took me awhile to find a review on it : “This book is a good introduction to Renaissance Italian food. It includes recipes that are simple to prepare, along with paintings and historical background. I received it as a gift, and it’s a beautiful book to look at as well as fun to cook from.” by Modernizing Markham in her Cooking Resources for the Confused post.


Lavinia Fontana: A Painter and Her Patrons in Sixteenth-century Bologna by Yale University Press

Invisible Women. Forgotten Artists of Florence (English and Italian Edition)

Simonetta

Renaissance Recipes (Painters & Food)

Yay! I got my second “buy” as an Amazon affilate, again about $3. They bought the Firefly graphic novel, Serenity: No Power in the ‘Verse (Serenity: Firefly Class 03-K64) and another item.  Must have been from my Leaf post. I’m happy.  I’ll usually get a percentage if someone buys something by clicking a link — for books it’s 4.5%. Amazon required disclosure notice: “We are a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for us to earn fees by linking to Amazon.com and affiliated sites.”