Can you haiku?

I interrupt this blog post for a special note:
There are a few people who have left comments that seem to indicate that they are excited to participate in The Challenge of Color blog hop...but if you haven't received a personal reply from me, and especially if you don't see your name in the list here, it is because I do not have your email and you don't have an email in your Blogger profile for me to reply to your comment! Please try emailing again to enjoytheday@tesoritrovati.com or leave your information in a comment. It is not too late to join in! Thank you!
Now...back to the regularly scheduled blog post... 
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weakly purple sore

pheasants resonate meekly

rippling, quibbling pigs

Utter hilarity at the Haiku generator on everypoet.com!

Try it yourself!

We were cleaning out the garage last week. Really we are trying to find places to shove all the things that we moved from our last house to this new one almost a year ago, and have been left cluttering up the garage all this time. We have already filled up one entire trailer of stuff for Goodwill, the back of my van for donations to three schools, and we haven't gone through it all. I still have about a half dozen boxes filled with all manner of things that were in my previous studio {that was about half the size of my new one, so I am not sure where all this excess came from}.

In one of the boxes I came across a project that I saved from 7th grade. My son is now in 7th grade {coincidentally in the same homeroom that I actually taught in!} and this was an English project {which is what I used to teach to 7th graders}.

Keep in mind that this was completed by me around 1980... before scrapbook stores and internet and Cricut machines to help with projects. Just me, some typing and construction paper, magazines and catalogs, and Elmer's glue {I am not even sure that we had glue sticks back in the day!}. And I am pretty sure that this was written in my neatest handwriting using a PaperMate erasable pen because that was the coolest thing ever when I was 12!

I saved it because I loved doing it. And it is so cheesy and funny that I just had to share. It shows me that even back then I really enjoyed putting words together in an elegant {albeit unsophisticated} manner. And I am so glad that my teacher was encouraging to me. Maybe this is why I enjoy poetry so much today and perhaps what contributed to me being a 7th grade English teacher at one time {a long time ago}. A good turn of a phrase has magic and power to me. But I am most happy to see that my evolution as an artist has expanded and developed over the years ;-) Enjoy!



Notice the freehand drawn letters, cut with safety scissors no doubt. I always thought it was so cool to make your 'a' like that. And I am sure that the centers are not cut out because I couldn't figure out how to do that! Oh, and it was joined together with white yarn, the last of which disintegrated when I pulled it out of the box.



The idea was to write 10 haiku poems (strict 5-7-5 in three lines according to Mrs. Davenport) and to find pictures to complement your wordsmithing. Would you believe that I was the teacher's pet? And you can see that even back then I did 'swell work'!



Such a vivid imagination I had!

This arrangement of pictures is so artful. I had so many I had to do a nifty collage effect. I love that I just broke words in half when it suited me. And just who is this Joy character anyway?

I recall that we would get a lot of catalogs around Christmas time from companies like Figi's (that sold cheese packs and nut tins and various tchotchkes). I am positive that is where these cheesy (get it?) pictures came from!

Not quite sure why Mrs. Davenport felt compelled to knock my swell work by pointing out that haiku is only 3 lines. I overran several others and it didn't bother her. And there are 7 syllables in the middle. I mean, c'mon! It is swell work, right?

Ooh! Good color and picture coordination on this one! I remember this one vividly. I think this may have been my fave when I made it.

Or else this one was my fave. I mean what 12 year old girl doesn't love a profusion of rainbows. Apparently the Figi's cheese catalog didn't have any unicorns...

I think that I was really reaching for subject matter by this point and cutting out the pictures in the catalogs and then writing something to match. But it was 'pleasent' enough!

So tell me... do you remember a project from when you were in grade school that made an impact on you? A diorama of the Civil War created entirely out of Legos? Or a school play where you got to dress up in costume?

Tell me about in the form of a haiku (3 lines of 5-7-5 syllables)!

Enjoy the day!