House of Haiku

Hey there, Mystical. Here's my two cents on your two awesome haikus.

First of all, excellent first attempt. Let's look at the first one.

Sun:

This is a strong first draft, and I love the first two lines, especially "pulsing with eternal heat". Not only does that communicate a vital piece of information, and establish the picture, but it also gives your readers a /motion/ for them to focus on. Lots of writers provide still images, but you provide live ones. I love this about you as a writer--another reason why I enjoy your poems so much. Anyhow. As for the third line, were you trying to go for a satirical angle here? Because this is quite anticlimactic. You have two beautiful, expertly crafted, evocative lines, and then you feed us this generic, boring one: "it lights up the earth". We're aware of that. As readers of a haiku, we're looking for a new perspective of something (normally in nature) that we're familiar with, whether it be a tree or dirt or the sun. With this last line, you had so many possibilities. And yet you went for this one. I have to say, I'm a bit disappointed in the end. But the rest is excellent.

Snowflakes:

Same thing here, first of all. "Like a birthday cake" is a nice simile, but it really doesn't have any place here. I like when haikus have stand-alone images and don't rely on comparison to other objects. But no matter. Let's talk about the first line. Now, this is missing something that was in your first haiku. And that's /movement/. Remember how impressed I was with your first verb, "pulsing"? Well, I was less-than-impressed with this one. This is a nice image, but the most exciting, evocative part of a snowflake's journey is not when it's on the ground. It's when it's falling through there air... and you failed to establish that picture.

Both:

This was a nice first attempt, believe me, but I have one piece of advice for you: learn from this. Read it over, talk to people, study the art of the haiku, and practice writing them. Don't expect to be perfect immediately. Don't even expect to be good immediately. This was a better first attempt than many, many others I've seen, but it felt empty. Keep writing.

IronSpark

Hello. Elysium here with a review.

I think these poems need some work. Yes, they are haikus and some haikus can be a bit difficult to write. Your first two line in each haiku contains 6 syllables when they are supposed to contain 5 syllables. Grave mistake. Definitely fix it immediately.

I should also say that there really don't detail. It's very blunt and I just honestly don't like it in particular.

In your second haiku, I need to mention that in the 3rd line as you said, "Like a birthday cake." You were trying to connect it with the 2nd line, "They frost the Earth we live on." Cake doesn't make sense, but frosting does. I would recommend you use that instead.

As for your first haiku, in the 3rd line, "It lights up the Earth." It doesn't only light up the Earth, it lights up other parts of the universe.

I would honestly consider restarting this poem. Good luck and always write.

-Elysium

Hey! Scribble here for a review.

So first I'm gonna say that these are really good! Your writing is really mature and you have used a decent vocabulary. No grammatical mistakes, no repeated words etc. It is simple but effective (could be slightly longer though) in communicating the different environments.

Now, traditional haikus go by a 5-7-5 syllable pattern, however it is not essential to adhere to this, and it is your work so you may do what you like with it. But i'm just somebody who likes a certain conformity with some things, like when i read a poem it must rhyme in some way.

You have correctly shown us the habits of nature you describe instead of telling us. I particularly liked the frosting the earth like a birthday cake, good imagery. One thing I would say though is that maybe you should extend them a little, so as to get more sensory imagery in there, make them a bit more interesting. They are good, but definitely could be longer and possibly have some juxtaposition in there, as haikus often include this.

Apart from those few little bits, you've done well. You certainly have a mature and interesting writing style that I enjoy. As these are your first haikus, I am impressed. Some advice would be to stay away from adverbs (which you've done pretty well so far) as they are just empty syllables. Also, in order to keep inspired, use situations and feelings that are currently around you. Go a bit contemporary, don't just keep to weather related stuff, I think you'll excel if you change it up a bit.

Keep writing

- Scribble