I can't believe this hasn't been done before, but I searched the archives, & it hasn't.
In case you had the chicken pox when they covered this in primary school, a haiku is a poem composed of three unrhymed lines of five, seven & five syllables. On a previous thread, I submitted a lame-o haiku off the top of my head, without clicking on it, I believe it was:
This pint is so sweet
Jigs that make your heart flutter
A warm glow, clocks stop
Whereupon, Trevor said something like, well you can't top that. I disagree. I think there are legions of haiku about sessions out there waiting to be released from the confines of cranial cavities all over the globe. But then again, I've had a few drinks. *hic*
It must have been the measles or one of the days I was sent down the pit as I've never heard of this before. Or maybe, they just didn't tell us about it. Anyway, here goes.
Nothing new to post
So today, I'm just lurking
In expectancy.
sts, since I started this thread, I just wanted to point out the number of syllables per line is 5, 7, 5. Yours goes 9, 14, 9. Is this some square root variation or do you just not like prime numbers? It's a wonderful sentiment though. So far, I think Zina has that zen-like quality in her haiku, really lovely poems, Andee & GW, everyone really....
Emily, I would like to let you know I thought up haikus during my entire commute to work, and was scribbling away on scraps of paper on the subway. I'd forgotten how much fun it is. It's addicting.
I would like to nominate this thread for longest unhijacked of 2003, and I would like to propose that in future anyone who wishes to start a serious thread, where we really need to keep to the subject, should do it in Haiku format. All replies to be in Haiku.
pitnekit - there's a kind of 'Desgarrada' goes on in the Carribean, as well; a kind of slagging thru singing, strictly to each other's faces, back-and-forth in a circle. It gets quite vigorous and personal, but with the emphasis on hilarity, rather than rank cruelty, I think ...
Okay, I re-worked the last one a bit...got rid of the second seasonal word. Have I got the right tree, I wonder? And the last line is probably still too obvious...
Plum trees in the snow,
buds swelling on bare branches.
Silent fiddle waits.
An alternative version of the third line of my Latin haiku would be
"bibet fidicen!". This reversal of the words emphasises the drinking aspect and implies something more along the lines of "the guitarist gets really p**sed".
"Fidicen" is a generic Latin word for a player of stringed instruments such as the lyre, harp and lute, so "guitarist" fits well. There doesn't seem to be a specific classical Latin word for fiddle player - the instrument hadn't yet been invented! - but perhaps "fidicen" could be used.
Latin seems to be a good language for haiku. It is very compact and a lot can be packed into very few words. Also it doesn't have the definite and indefinite articles ("the", "a"), you don't use "I", "you", "he", "she", "we", "they", all of which use up precious syllable count in a haiku, and you can play around with the word order to get finer shades of meaning.
Anyone now like to do a ITM-related haiku in Klingon? A translation must be provided of course!
Plum trees in the snow
Swelling buds on bare branches
F-holes dark, silent
'F-holes' aren't as lyrical, but I love the image. BTW, NWG, seriously not trying to nitpick, but I'm brushing up on my Irish since I'm heading for Gweedore next week, & I believe 'ainm' is 2 syllables, as it has a 'hidden vowel' between the n & m. I could be very wrong though!
Well, see, I think that for the Japanese it's the plum that is evocative of life that waits to blossom forth out of winter, but I can't remember which tree it is -- whichever one it is blooms before it puts out the leaves, and it's branches are very twisted and dark, so the tree looks dead in the snow, yet blooms unexpectedly before any other flowers do.
So the last line should put forth the idea that the fiddle looks dead and lifeless, waiting for me to pick it up and let it blossom forth music. Unfortunately, it's far too obvious the way it is, and I can't figure out a good way to get the idea over that isn't just as obvious...
"Snow" is the winter seasonal word, and I can't remember if it's better to have a second seasonal word or whether it's not, and whether "buds" or "swelling" would constitute a second seasonal word for spring, because that contradicts the use of "snow"...
Aargh...I have to get back to getting the house together...we just discovered that the cat has been throwing up behind the television where we couldn't see it...yipes...
emily_az - oh, yes, I've seen the 'hidden vowle' in action in Irish words; all I can say in defence of the way I used 'Gan Ainm', is that the Irish people I know, some of whom do speak Irish, say it as two syllables in total, when speaking English. Whether that changes to three when they're using the expression in an Irish sentence, I don't know. And I was using it in an English context. But it's easily dealt with, either way:
'Gan Ainm' on flute,
backers do their thing; outside,
forty shades of mud.
The instruments don't have to match, as the full haiku is the three lines:
pitnekit - further to your hijack (!), I was referring to a book called 'Seriously Funny' by Howard Jacobson. In the chapter 'The Priceless Gift', he talks about what I was referring to - Extempo War - this is a sort of competitive form of calypso which he filmed in Trinidad. It's based on Picong, an abuse ritual which is said to date from the arrival of French settlers in the Carribean. (Picong = piquant? and se piquer? i.e. to prick oneself, but also to pride oneself) I quote: "The story goes that the wealthiest of the French settlers had a slave by the name of Gros Jean who, having discovered a capacity in himself for praise-singing, went on to discover that he could heap insults pretty niftily as well ...
... As an offshoot of the Trinidad Carnival, Extempo War annually takes to the stage, where extemporizers compete, solo for solo, before a panel of judges, the subjects of their riffs being chosen by lot or taken from suggestions shouted out by the audience. But what I saw ... [wasn't staged] ... they kept it up for 3 hours or more, inventing as they went, keeping to the rhyme scheme, keeping to the metre, keeping to the stanza form, some of them rising from the table as the spirit of comic invective moved them, or because the insult thrown at them by the last singer had to be countered right away, others working away at their guitars, threading words and strings in the more familiar calypso mode, not always looking as though they knew how the stanza was going to come out, but always getting their in the end, others again making jazz out of their traducements, coming in on the half-notes, scat-singing, but never watering themselves down.
There must have been eight or ten of them at the table at any one time. Others drifted by, shaped a mortification just the right number of beats to the bar, received one back, and drifted off again ... Truth was not the issue, nor was vehemence; wit was the arbiter of everything. If you were well insulted you took it, you laughed. And found inspiration for your retort in the quality of the opposition."
There's also 'The Dozens' AKA 'The Dirty Dozens', an insult contest which in American black street jargon was previously known as sounding, signifying, toasting, joning ... its origins have been traced to slave culture, African culture, Scots flyting (via the Scots-Irish immigrants of 'backwoods America'); it's credited with having influenced jazz, calypso, rap, and has in turn been influenced by them.
Wow! I really like Haiko but am quite useless at it, so I have read yours and must say that it was fun. I like old weapons like bows and just wanted to thank you as it was really fun to read.
session haiku contest
session haiku contest
I can't believe this hasn't been done before, but I searched the archives, & it hasn't.
In case you had the chicken pox when they covered this in primary school, a haiku is a poem composed of three unrhymed lines of five, seven & five syllables. On a previous thread, I submitted a lame-o haiku off the top of my head, without clicking on it, I believe it was:
This pint is so sweet
Jigs that make your heart flutter
A warm glow, clocks stop
Whereupon, Trevor said something like, well you can't top that. I disagree. I think there are legions of haiku about sessions out there waiting to be released from the confines of cranial cavities all over the globe. But then again, I've had a few drinks. *hic*
# Posted on December 16th 2003 by emily_bmore
Re: session haiku contest
My fiddle is tuned
Now I'll roisin up the bow
A drink would be nice
# Posted on December 16th 2003 by Greenwiggle
Re: session haiku contest
This is fun, haven't done it in years...
From the other bar
Clouds of notes float sweetly by
The session is on
I think Trevor is right though, yours is much nicer!
# Posted on December 16th 2003 by Greenwiggle
Re: session haiku contest
And the tune is gone
I had it just yesterday
Try try try again
# Posted on December 16th 2003 by Zina Lee
Re: session haiku contest
The house is a mess
I really should be painting
but the fiddle calls
# Posted on December 16th 2003 by Zina Lee
Re: session haiku contest
Both ears are bleeding
Please, please stop them from playing
The Rakes of Mallow
# Posted on December 16th 2003 by Greenwiggle
Re: session haiku contest
don't I know this tune?
fingers poised on strings and bow
yes but it's too fast
# Posted on December 16th 2003 by Andee
Re: session haiku contest
I open the door
glasses clinking, smoke wafting
jigs and reels float out
# Posted on December 16th 2003 by Andee
Re: session haiku contest
whistler swirls a reel
box player tap pull and squeeze
What key is this in?
# Posted on December 16th 2003 by Andee
Re: session haiku contest
LOL GW!
the more tunes I learn
the more tunes I need to learn
give us another
# Posted on December 16th 2003 by Zina Lee
Re: session haiku contest
thick globules drip from
the end of my steaming flute
into my friend's pint
# Posted on December 16th 2003 by Ottery
Re: session haiku contest
stop TRYING to play
the fingers know what to do
our brains like a rest
# Posted on December 16th 2003 by golly
Re: session haiku contest
Don't make a Haiku
play for your friends instead
we'll all enjoy the Christmas
# Posted on December 16th 2003 by fiel
Re: session haiku contest
I'll never forget
Seeing one cold winter's night
Miss Tickell's tattoo
# Posted on December 16th 2003 by showaddydadito
Re: session haiku contest
Last Night's Fun...sore head...
When Sick, Is It Tea You Want?
The Cup Of Tea, ahhh...
# Posted on December 16th 2003 by Rudall the time
Re: session haiku contest
Johnny Cunningham
A World Reknown Scots Fiddler
This is a Sad Day
# Posted on December 16th 2003 by Agnes Nutter
Re: session haiku contest
What does your mind feel?
Twenty fiddlers competing
The Hag at the Spinning Wheel!
# Posted on December 17th 2003 by pitnekit
Re: session haiku contest
fiddle in waiting
beautiful tunes begging to be played
bl**dy jam session!
# Posted on December 17th 2003 by Clear Drops
Re: session haiku contest
Nice and settled into the circle
The music is beautiful, the company delightful
Oh damn, gotta go to the men's room.
# Posted on December 17th 2003 by sts
Re: session haiku contest
It must have been the measles or one of the days I was sent down the pit as I've never heard of this before. Or maybe, they just didn't tell us about it. Anyway, here goes.
Nothing new to post
So today, I'm just lurking
In expectancy.
# Posted on December 17th 2003 by Johnny Jay
Re: session haiku contest
Wow, some lovely haiku here!
It's a wonderful sentiment though. So far, I think Zina has that zen-like quality in her haiku, really lovely poems, Andee & GW, everyone really.... 
sts, since I started this thread, I just wanted to point out the number of syllables per line is 5, 7, 5. Yours goes 9, 14, 9. Is this some square root variation or do you just not like prime numbers?
# Posted on December 17th 2003 by emily_bmore
Re: session haiku contest
Gosh, Jan & pitne also need minor rhythmic tutoring....
# Posted on December 17th 2003 by emily_bmore
Re: session haiku contest
Heh. Well, none of these are really very *good* haiku, really, way too...direct, y'know? Let's see, I don't have much time this morning, but...
Plum trees stir in snow,
buds swelling despite winter.
So waits my fiddle.
# Posted on December 17th 2003 by Zina Lee
Yeah yeah yeah
Okay, so that was way too obvious... ;)
# Posted on December 17th 2003 by Zina Lee
Re: session haiku contest
the session dot org
I now have many friends here
hugs and tunes to all
# Posted on December 17th 2003 by Andee
Re: session haiku contest
Another late night
the tunes swirling in my brain
so much more to learn
# Posted on December 17th 2003 by Andee
Re: session haiku contest
gotta go to work
wish I could stay and play more
poetry, tunes, friends
# Posted on December 17th 2003 by Andee
Re: session haiku contest
Soldiers find Saddam
Hiding under Bush's tree
F#ck it, play some tunes
# Posted on December 17th 2003 by jerball
Re: session haiku contest
What is a haiku?
Isn't that the one that goes
deedle deedle dee?
# Posted on December 17th 2003 by Daniel K
Re: session haiku contest
Nineteen twenty four
Gibson snakehead mandolin
sleeping now at home
# Posted on December 17th 2003 by Daniel K
Re: session haiku contest
There is a music house
In the top of a mountain tree
Hey! Fellow musicians don
# Posted on December 17th 2003 by pitnekit
Re: session haiku contest
Um.....
# Posted on December 17th 2003 by emily_bmore
Re: session haiku contest
...Er
# Posted on December 17th 2003 by pitnekit
Re: session haiku contest
I am in touch !
I am in tune !
What is your name?
# Posted on December 17th 2003 by pitnekit
Re: session haiku contest
'Gan Ainm' on fiddle,
backers do their thing; outside,
forty shades of mud.
# Posted on December 17th 2003 by nastyweegirl
Re: session haiku contest
I guess in Portugal they have their own rules for haiku!
PS nice one NWG!
# Posted on December 17th 2003 by emily_bmore
Re: session haiku contest
They have their own rules
for haiku in Portugal
or they are all drunk.
# Posted on December 17th 2003 by Daniel K
Re: session haiku contest
Opus, Bill the Cat
One plays fiddle, one the pipes
Can Milo tell us?
# Posted on December 17th 2003 by emily_bmore
Re: session haiku contest
My concertina
Lies in its dark wooden box
Please squeeze me soon pete
# Posted on December 17th 2003 by Pete Stephenson.
Re: session haiku contest
Badly beaten goat
His a$$ will hit the pavement
We will throw him out
# Posted on December 17th 2003 by jerball
Re: session haiku contest
Doh ray me far so....
Doh ray me so far so good..
So far who me ray ?
# Posted on December 17th 2003 by Pete Stephenson.
Re: session haiku contest
I am a fluter
Loving long, black, shiny wood
Mind in the gutter
# Posted on December 17th 2003 by jerball
Re: session haiku contest
Ah! With comma in place
When Sick is it Tea you Want?
Now it makes some sense
# Posted on December 17th 2003 by Conway
With apologies to Wallace Stevens
Which should I prefer?
Inflection? Innuendo?
Bodhrans? Just after?
--from Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Bodhran
# Posted on December 17th 2003 by cuchulain54
Re: session haiku contest
I meant to comment
On flutes and dribbles and such
Got beaten to it
# Posted on December 17th 2003 by Conway
Re: session haiku contest
Sitting at keyboard
Fingers nimbly typing while
Thinking of big pints
# Posted on December 17th 2003 by jerball
Re: session haiku contest
Haiku's are small poems
Whistles are small instruments
Meditate on that
# Posted on December 17th 2003 by jerball
Re: session haiku contest
What a great topic
Now I'm obsessed with Haiku
I will write some more
# Posted on December 17th 2003 by jerball
Re: session haiku contest
Eleven at night
Too tired to go to bed
Sleep well all of you
# Posted on December 17th 2003 by kuec
Re: session haiku contest
We have our own rules?
But what is this all about?
Haiku? Or IQ?
# Posted on December 17th 2003 by pitnekit
Re: session haiku contest
Do you know this one?
It's called The Gooseberry Bush
Best damn tune there is
Steve
# Posted on December 17th 2003 by SteveKendall
Re: session haiku contest
What have I done wrong?
Rules can always be changed!
Ho dears to play?
# Posted on December 17th 2003 by pitnekit
About haiku
http://www.everypoet.com/haiku/default.htm and http://www.toyomasu.com/haiku/
# Posted on December 17th 2003 by Zina Lee
About haiku
Haiku, by the way, is a particularly appropriate poetry form to use to describe this stuff -- both supremely simple, both endlessly complicated...
# Posted on December 17th 2003 by Zina Lee
Re: session haiku contest
Here in Portugal we have a type of singing called
# Posted on December 17th 2003 by pitnekit
Re: session haiku contest
My humble apologies
From this hot heart
A Latino is a Latino!
# Posted on December 17th 2003 by pitnekit
Re: session haiku contest
Tears, hot, streaming down
Look toward the bare place
Where my pint once stood
# Posted on December 17th 2003 by Greenwiggle
Re: session haiku contest
In my haste to post
My error was plain to see
One syllable short
# Posted on December 17th 2003 by Greenwiggle
Re: session haiku contest
Where has she gone?
She who must not be named here
If she ever was!
# Posted on December 17th 2003 by Greenwiggle
Re: session haiku contest
She might be away
And were can she be?
The wind is too strong
# Posted on December 17th 2003 by pitnekit
Re: session haiku contest
I
# Posted on December 17th 2003 by pitnekit
Re: session haiku contest
Now, the easy reel;
The guitarist plays too fast
Mad mayhem ensues.
# Posted on December 17th 2003 by darinkelly
Re: session haiku contest
Is a jig a jig
With five then seven then five?
No, that's a haiku.
# Posted on December 17th 2003 by emily_bmore
Re: session haiku contest
Let's hear from Danny!
I can't write a good haiku,
But can he in Scots?
Trevor
# Posted on December 17th 2003 by Trevor Jennings
Re: session haiku contest
tibia planget,
virgo tympanum pulsat.
fidicen bibet!
Trevor
# Posted on December 17th 2003 by Trevor Jennings
Re: session haiku contest
which piece of Latin haiku means,
the flute wails,
the girl thumps the bodhr
# Posted on December 17th 2003 by Trevor Jennings
Re: session haiku contest
Japanese haiku!
Cultural incongruence!
surely Limerick?
# Posted on December 17th 2003 by NeilBarr
Re: session haiku contest
There was an old man
from Limerick, who couldn't
count to seventeen
# Posted on December 17th 2003 by NeilBarr
Re: session haiku contest
a dark haired young man
a fiddler, I remember
play one of his tunes
# Posted on December 17th 2003 by Andee
Re: session haiku contest
the reels fly right by
the jigs galloping along
harp fingers burning
# Posted on December 17th 2003 by Andee
Re: session haiku contest
Emily, I would like to let you know I thought up haikus during my entire commute to work, and was scribbling away on scraps of paper on the subway. I'd forgotten how much fun it is. It's addicting.
# Posted on December 17th 2003 by Andee
Re: session haiku contest
Look what's happened here
See what Emily has done!
THE UNHIJACKED THREAD
# Posted on December 17th 2003 by showaddydadito
Re: session haiku contest
I would like to nominate this thread for longest unhijacked of 2003, and I would like to propose that in future anyone who wishes to start a serious thread, where we really need to keep to the subject, should do it in Haiku format. All replies to be in Haiku.
Dave
# Posted on December 17th 2003 by showaddydadito
Re: session haiku contest
Am
# Posted on December 17th 2003 by pitnekit
Re: session haiku contest / haiku hijack
Session etiquette:
what do you think? and punters:
should they be allowed?
Love tunes, the odd pint
"Sure, punters are *welcome" *adj.:
received with gladness.
# Posted on December 17th 2003 by nastyweegirl
Re: session haiku contest
pitnekit - there's a kind of 'Desgarrada' goes on in the Carribean, as well; a kind of slagging thru singing, strictly to each other's faces, back-and-forth in a circle. It gets quite vigorous and personal, but with the emphasis on hilarity, rather than rank cruelty, I think ...
# Posted on December 18th 2003 by nastyweegirl
Re: session haiku contest
She sings as we touch
But you have to know where to
Will she sing for you?
# Posted on December 18th 2003 by mikemcdaid
Re: session haiku contest
Who is T--ya Lee?
T--ya Lee Teraoshi?
Who the ---- is she?
# Posted on December 18th 2003 by Johnny Jay
Re: session haiku contest
You want "The Irish?"
I accept PayPal & cash
Sorry about that
# Posted on December 18th 2003 by emily_bmore
Re: session haiku contest
Five syllables out
Seven syllables are in
That makes seventeen!!
# Posted on December 18th 2003 by mikemcdaid
Re: session haiku contest
Nastyweegril - what is the name for that
# Posted on December 18th 2003 by pitnekit
Re: session haiku contest
Will this do for a scottish one?
hillwalking in Scotland
"Moo",a greeting over fence
I reply "Haiku"
# Posted on December 18th 2003 by izzymac
Desgarrada
I can't remember; it was something I saw on a TV programme about humour and culture. I have the book ... if I remember, I'll look it up
# Posted on December 18th 2003 by nastyweegirl
Re: session haiku contest
Okay, I re-worked the last one a bit...got rid of the second seasonal word. Have I got the right tree, I wonder? And the last line is probably still too obvious...
Plum trees in the snow,
buds swelling on bare branches.
Silent fiddle waits.
# Posted on December 18th 2003 by Zina Lee
Re: session haiku contest
*Spruce* trees, maybe? ...
# Posted on December 18th 2003 by nastyweegirl
Re: session haiku contest
John J -
Scraper asked the same;
questioned suspected muso:
T went belly-up!
# Posted on December 18th 2003 by nastyweegirl
Re: session haiku contest
Fiddle bow quivers,
'Gan Ainm' echoes as fire roars;
outside, 'Jingle Bells!'
# Posted on December 18th 2003 by nastyweegirl
Re: session haiku contest
;oD ;oD
should possibly have read:
Fiddle bow quivers,
'Gan Ainm' echoes as fire roars;
outside, ice shimmers.
# Posted on December 18th 2003 by nastyweegirl
Re: session haiku contest
An alternative version of the third line of my Latin haiku would be
"bibet fidicen!". This reversal of the words emphasises the drinking aspect and implies something more along the lines of "the guitarist gets really p**sed".
"Fidicen" is a generic Latin word for a player of stringed instruments such as the lyre, harp and lute, so "guitarist" fits well. There doesn't seem to be a specific classical Latin word for fiddle player - the instrument hadn't yet been invented! - but perhaps "fidicen" could be used.
Latin seems to be a good language for haiku. It is very compact and a lot can be packed into very few words. Also it doesn't have the definite and indefinite articles ("the", "a"), you don't use "I", "you", "he", "she", "we", "they", all of which use up precious syllable count in a haiku, and you can play around with the word order to get finer shades of meaning.
Anyone now like to do a ITM-related haiku in Klingon? A translation must be provided of course!
Trevor
# Posted on December 18th 2003 by Trevor Jennings
Re: session haiku contest
An old one, but a goodie.
To write a poem
with seventeen syllables
is very diffi
# Posted on December 18th 2003 by NeilBarr
Re: session haiku contest
Zina,
I prefer the plum trees in the snow image.
Perhaps,
Plum trees in the snow
Swelling buds on bare branches
F-holes dark, silent
'F-holes' aren't as lyrical, but I love the image. BTW, NWG, seriously not trying to nitpick, but I'm brushing up on my Irish since I'm heading for Gweedore next week, & I believe 'ainm' is 2 syllables, as it has a 'hidden vowel' between the n & m. I could be very wrong though!
# Posted on December 18th 2003 by emily_bmore
Re: session haiku contest
Well, see, I think that for the Japanese it's the plum that is evocative of life that waits to blossom forth out of winter, but I can't remember which tree it is -- whichever one it is blooms before it puts out the leaves, and it's branches are very twisted and dark, so the tree looks dead in the snow, yet blooms unexpectedly before any other flowers do.
So the last line should put forth the idea that the fiddle looks dead and lifeless, waiting for me to pick it up and let it blossom forth music. Unfortunately, it's far too obvious the way it is, and I can't figure out a good way to get the idea over that isn't just as obvious...
"Snow" is the winter seasonal word, and I can't remember if it's better to have a second seasonal word or whether it's not, and whether "buds" or "swelling" would constitute a second seasonal word for spring, because that contradicts the use of "snow"...
Aargh...I have to get back to getting the house together...we just discovered that the cat has been throwing up behind the television where we couldn't see it...yipes...
# Posted on December 18th 2003 by Zina Lee
Re: session haiku contest
emily_az - oh, yes, I've seen the 'hidden vowle' in action in Irish words; all I can say in defence of the way I used 'Gan Ainm', is that the Irish people I know, some of whom do speak Irish, say it as two syllables in total, when speaking English. Whether that changes to three when they're using the expression in an Irish sentence, I don't know. And I was using it in an English context. But it's easily dealt with, either way:
'Gan Ainm' on flute,
backers do their thing; outside,
forty shades of mud.
The instruments don't have to match, as the full haiku is the three lines:
Fiddle bow quivers,
'Gan Ainm' echoes, fire roars;
outside, ice shimmers.
Bow, quiver: geddit? :oD
Zina - 'spruce' was merely a lame reference to the fiddle belly...
# Posted on December 18th 2003 by nastyweegirl
and, of course, up in the North of England, some of us pronounce the word 'fire' almost as if it had two syllables ...
# Posted on December 18th 2003 by nastyweegirl
fa-ya
# Posted on December 19th 2003 by nastyweegirl
Desgarrada / Extempo War!
pitnekit - further to your hijack (!), I was referring to a book called 'Seriously Funny' by Howard Jacobson. In the chapter 'The Priceless Gift', he talks about what I was referring to - Extempo War - this is a sort of competitive form of calypso which he filmed in Trinidad. It's based on Picong, an abuse ritual which is said to date from the arrival of French settlers in the Carribean. (Picong = piquant? and se piquer? i.e. to prick oneself, but also to pride oneself) I quote: "The story goes that the wealthiest of the French settlers had a slave by the name of Gros Jean who, having discovered a capacity in himself for praise-singing, went on to discover that he could heap insults pretty niftily as well ...
... As an offshoot of the Trinidad Carnival, Extempo War annually takes to the stage, where extemporizers compete, solo for solo, before a panel of judges, the subjects of their riffs being chosen by lot or taken from suggestions shouted out by the audience. But what I saw ... [wasn't staged] ... they kept it up for 3 hours or more, inventing as they went, keeping to the rhyme scheme, keeping to the metre, keeping to the stanza form, some of them rising from the table as the spirit of comic invective moved them, or because the insult thrown at them by the last singer had to be countered right away, others working away at their guitars, threading words and strings in the more familiar calypso mode, not always looking as though they knew how the stanza was going to come out, but always getting their in the end, others again making jazz out of their traducements, coming in on the half-notes, scat-singing, but never watering themselves down.
There must have been eight or ten of them at the table at any one time. Others drifted by, shaped a mortification just the right number of beats to the bar, received one back, and drifted off again ... Truth was not the issue, nor was vehemence; wit was the arbiter of everything. If you were well insulted you took it, you laughed. And found inspiration for your retort in the quality of the opposition."
There's also 'The Dozens' AKA 'The Dirty Dozens', an insult contest which in American black street jargon was previously known as sounding, signifying, toasting, joning ... its origins have been traced to slave culture, African culture, Scots flyting (via the Scots-Irish immigrants of 'backwoods America'); it's credited with having influenced jazz, calypso, rap, and has in turn been influenced by them.
# Posted on December 19th 2003 by nastyweegirl
Re: session haiku contest
Time out from my work
To write some music Haikus
There's so much to say
This is frustrating
I want to accompany
But can't find my pick
I lost my tuner
Has anybody seen it
Black Intellitouch
Can I get you one?
I'm going to the bar now
Have A Drink With Me
The maid behind the bar
Does she come from Mitchelstown
Or from Mount Cisco?
A penny whistle
Twelve guitars and ten bodhrans
Where's the spoons player?
Liz and Yvonne Kane
Letterfrack's fiddling sisters
Fahy tunes galore!
Cape Breton fiddler
Foot stomping to keep the beat
Watch your beer glasses!
The Ship In Full Sail
Sailing into Walpole's Marsh?
Out on the Ocean?
Polkas, polkas, slides
Polkas, polkas, polkas, slides
We're in Knocknagree
Paolo Soprani
Castagnari, Saltarelle
Serenellini
Bonaparte's Retreat
Bonaparte Crossing the Rhine
Crossing the Rockies?
Off to grade math tests
Kids can't count to seventeen
But professor can!
# Posted on December 19th 2003 by GaryAMartin
Re: session haiku contest
NWG, that reminds me of the old joke:
Why were the Three Wise Men covered in soot?
They came from afar.
Lonely winter nights
Dreaming over the ocean
To know fields of green
# Posted on December 19th 2003 by emily_bmore
Re: session haiku contest
the maid behind the
bar is six syllables ... ooops!
couldn't help meself!
:o(
# Posted on December 19th 2003 by nastyweegirl
Re: session haiku contest
Busted!
# Posted on December 19th 2003 by GaryAMartin
Re: session haiku contest
One hundredth haiku
Congratulations poets!
Basho say, Well done.
# Posted on December 19th 2003 by emily_bmore
Re: session haiku contest
Does anyone know the haiku that goes:
diddly diddle
badada badada bom
ya da da dee dee
Dave
# Posted on December 19th 2003 by showaddydadito
Re: session haiku contest
Dave, is that in A
Deedle dee dum dee deedle
Yes I know it well
# Posted on December 21st 2003 by emily_bmore
Re: session haiku contest
Wow! I really like Haiko but am quite useless at it, so I have read yours and must say that it was fun. I like old weapons like bows and just wanted to thank you as it was really fun to read.
____
http://www.mymedievalweapons.com/
# Posted on February 24th 2008 by cup
Re: session haiku contest
I've felled the plum tree:
Wealth beckons, s*d the planet,
I'll make some djembes...
# Posted on February 24th 2008 by nicholas