A Riot of Souls

Two more for Poetry Month Scouting: for the Haiku Anew and Interrogator badges.

First, the Haiku: I selected a haiku from a collection titled Haiku Mind: 108 Poems to Cultivate Awareness and Open Your Heart by Patricia Donegan. It's a source I dip into every so often, haiku being a sort of stout ale best appreciated in sips.  I entered the haiku text (by Hekigodo Kawahigashi) into the recommended on-line discombobulator, which rearranges letters as well as words. It seemed to come up with extra words, so I picked the ones that seemed to work the best. I titled the collection of five haiku Moonlit Riot. The instructions say to create a poem that “fits the haiku structure while still making sense.” At first, I assumed "haiku structure" meant the common 5-7-5 syllabic construction (first line 5 syllables, and so on).  In reading other examples, I don't think many other participants have felt bound to this restriction; I think the editors really meant "a poem of three short lines."

This proved to be an interesting exercise, one I might repeat. I think I'd loosen the bonds a bit more, though.

You Who Question Souls was my response to the Interrogator prompt. I still had Leonard Cohen on my mind (he has yet another live album coming out in May), so I pulled out my copy of Book of Mercy. My goal was to gather about two pages worth of questions from the book.  These questions were rearranged into a new poem. I'm rather pleased with the end result; with the exception of a couple of lines, one might not guess the source was a modern collection of psalms.