Hello! You mention in your pinned post that using your writing in some artwork (with credit) is okay, but I wanted to double check in this instance. A while ago, I created a graphic for a class using a quote from your old slug post, and I would like to post it on my website as part of my portfolio (and potentially on my social media as well). I do not intend to sell prints of it, only to post it as an example of my art/design work. Would that be alright by you? Thank you for your time!
Hello!
Including it in your portfolio is absolutely alright, of course. :]
As for reposting it on social networking platforms: the one thing I’d ask is that you include a linkback to my tumblr somewhere in the caption, if possible. ^^
(Bit of an aside, but your graphic came out lovely! Very nice work.)
& Thank you for taking the time to check with me before posting anywhere. It really means a lot. :]
hello miss lianna! happy holidays :) just wanted to pop in here and tell you i deeply adore your writing and it has served as snippets of joy in my otherwise fast-paced high school student life! i especially love your haikus! but i want to ask if haikus in general have a structure to them (like 5-7-5 syllables,) or if it's alright to go beyond them? i started writing them everyday as a challenge but i also want to learn more, if that's alright. i noticed your writing doesn't really follow a strict structure which is why i like them so much
Hi darling <333 Happy holidays to you, too. ^^
To answer your question: in English, haiku is generally understood as a poetic form characterized by its specific 5-7-5 syllabic structure, yes. But this is not the case in Japanese.
There is a certain expectation of symmetry when it comes to the length of the lines—traditionally, haiku follow an A-B-A format, with the first and third lines having the same number of characters—but this expectation is not necessarily a requirement. Nor is it a requirement that the poem come out to 15 characters exactly (or 15 syllables, for the foreign speaker.)
Take this famous and much-parodied poem of Bashō’s, for example:
古池や
蛙飛び込む
水の音
furuike ya
kawazu tobikomu
mizu no oto
Three lines, arranged 3-5-3, totaling 11 characters.
This length was perhaps the most common. The A-B-A format was likewise already considered traditional, but deviations were by no means rare, even then.
Another example, also by Bashō:
五月雨の
降のこしてや
光堂
samidare no
funokoshite ya
Hikari-do
Three lines, arranged 4-6-2, totaling 12 characters.
Really, while the length of a haiku should be brief, as far as the lines are concerned any distribution is possible. A-A-A, A-A-B, A-B-A, A-B-B...contemporary writers depart from three-line arrangements altogether, on occasion.
See, in English ‘poetic form’ tends to imply a certain structural rigidity. Only, while it isn’t wrong to define it as such, it is perhaps more apt to think of haiku as a species of poetry, the way a novel is a species of prose. The shape of the poem is secondary to its contents.
The essence of haiku is a reverence for the natural world and for the mundanities of everyday life. The practice is an attempt at capturing glimpses of this brief, extraordinary beauty which surrounds us.
Traditionally, a haiku will use kigo—words and phrases which are specific to certain seasons of the old Japanese calendar. The thought process behind each writer’s choice of kigo is complex, of course, as they can and do double as symbols, but their first and most practical function is to anchor the poem in time.
Taking Bashō again as an example, the kigo in the haiku I quoted above are ‘frog’ (蛙 kawazu) and ‘May rain’ (五月雨 samidare). Thus we know that the first one is a Spring scene—frogs are an all-spring word—and the second one of Early Summer. Indeed, another way to translate samidare is ‘early summer rain’.
As haiku moved into its modern period and began to expand and transform, the usage of kigo became less of a requirement. They are still considered a major trait of the form, though. And this despite the fact that they aren’t exclusive to haiku, but rather characteristic of the entire spectrum of Japanese poetry.
Personally, I’m rather fond of them. (Huge understatement.) Romania’s seasons are different from Japan’s, so I’ve had a lot of fun over the years, coming up with seasonal words of my own...
...I went on for very long there, didn’t I. ^^;
TL;DR—it’s 100% fine to structure your haiku as you see fit; line breakage is decided by cadence, more than anything. 9~21 syllables is a nice range. :]
(If you decide to submit your haiku somewhere, though, read the guidelines carefully beforehand. Unfortunately many editors only accept poems which follow the 5-7-5 format, as that is, by and large, what a haiku is understood in English as.)
my younger sister died by suicide the week before her fifteenth birthday. as a twenty-five year old, your poem (fifteen speaks to twenty five) resonnated with me deeply. i've been re-reading it in the hours since i came across it, and i guess i just wanted to say thank you for writing it <3 it's a really beautiful piece and it feels very stark and powerful.
(also - and this is absolutely not a condemnation of you in any way - but my family try to say 'died by suicide' rather than 'committed suicide', as the only other time you would use the word 'committed' is in the context of a crime, which implies the person in question is a criminal rather than someone who was hurting.)
Firstly—all my love to your little sister. Whether it was peace or oblivion she sought, I hope she has found it.
Secondly: I will try to be as clear as possible with my words, so by the end this post might be rather lengthy. Apologies. Know that none of it is a rebuke, only a response to the latter half of your message.
Using the word ‘committed’ was a deliberate, conscious choice. Not because I was trying to apply, or rather imply, any kind of moral connotation to the act of suicide, but because I wanted to provide you—General ‘You’, Reader-You—with the context in which the poem was written. This context being, as I was celebrating my twenty-fifth birthday, my thoughts kept returning to a decade ago, when I nearly killed myself not even halfway through October.
I believed this information essential; as it is both sensitive and extremely private, however, I wanted to be succinct when providing it.
You, general, reader ‘you’, needed to know that the poem is a conversation between myself at fifteen and myself at twenty-five: you also needed to know that I almost killed myself before I could grow to be either of them. You needed to know these two things, no less, no more.
I chose the word “committed” because it was, to me, a diplomatic enough compromise between the blunt impact of I nearly killed myself and a phrase I personally loathe, I nearly took my own life. A diplomatic enough compromise which nonetheless preserved some of that sense of violence the word ‘kill’ has.
Because it is a violent act: the word itself is a Modern Latin construct meaning self-murder, one which the poem tells you (general, reader ‘you’) I am incredibly glad I did not go through with. Frankly it never occurred to me that someone would assume I might be moralizing the act.
Granted, how an individual understands and uses language is deeply personal; you yourself are likely aware of this fact, given your conscious, careful phrasing of the subject. And I recognize the kindness behind your intention in sending this ask, recognize that you likely only meant I could / should be a little more careful with my phrasing in the interest of exercising compassion.
But that’s precisely the crux of what frustrates me.
“[...] the only other time you would use the word 'committed' is in the context of a crime, which implies the person in question is a criminal rather than someone who was hurting.”
This is a statement of generalization. One you are making to the very person who was discussing, however briefly, however veiled by the medium of poetry, her own history with suicidality.
You did not verbally condemn me for my phrasing, yes. Nonetheless, consciously or unconsciously, you did assume something about my stance on the morality of the matter. Not that almost dying myself of suicide, as you put it, precludes by default the belief that suicide is a ‘sin’ or otherwise somehow immoral, of course—and that’s the point.
You do not know me. I am a stranger whose poem you read and rather liked, and that poem, in isolation nothing more than a bizarre fragment of conversation, is all the information you have about me. You can infer from the text that I likely believe in God and that this God of mine probably roots in some flavour of Christianity, but that’s about it. Keeping the caption so short, I thought at most people would believe me pretentious. But moralizing?
Frankly speaking, the biases you assume implicit to the word are in this instance yours and yours alone. Not only because committed is perhaps more often used adjectivally, in its sense of “devoted to”, but because I was speaking strictly about myself, about my own acts and my own person. Even if I had been moralizing the act—isn’t this a little too presumptuous of you?
What right do you, a stranger, have to advise me? The very fact that you attempt to do so makes me assume that whether or not you are aware of it, you already believe your own moral position to be superior.
Again, I am giving you the benefit of the doubt by also assuming that you came to me in good faith. If true, I appreciate the kindness of your intentions; but you do not know me.
You know nothing of me as a person, of my social and religious background, of the web of circumstances which shaped me and affected me so profoundly so as to put me in that precarious a state of mind at the age of fourteen. You are a stranger, so you also have no way of knowing, for example, that as someone who has struggled with suicidal ideation since childhood, I actually abhor this sort of distant, passive verbiage. No way of knowing that to me all it does is reframe suicide as a sort of tragic accident. What kind of raw nerve that is for me.
And this is not a rebuke; it’s far from any actual anger, really. It’s simply a statement of fact. You do not know any of this and it is only natural that you don’t, because these are interior, intimate details, the sorts of things only my best friends are privy to.
How you and your family, as the bereaved party, choose to approach and discuss suicide is strictly your business. I do not know how long it has been since your sister’s death, but I do know that the loss of a loved one, regardless of the circumstances in which it happened, is something we carry with us our whole life. I wish you all the best in navigating and managing your grief.
But you must understand that I myself represent the party which almost bereaved the person dearest to me, my mother. And it is from this position that I kindly ask you to perhaps think twice when you next find yourself reaching out to a stranger on the internet about such a charged topic.
hello💗 love your writing and your blog, you’re so so talented
AND I just wanted to ask if you have any good court drama recs lmao
💕
Thank you! And oh yes 👀
At the time of those tags I was knee-deep in the waters of Chinese web novels (recs from that journey are The Rebirth of an Ill-Fated Consort, Eight Treasures Trousseau, Like Pearl and Jade; Your Mileage May Vary, however, since I like slow-paced things) but I also have some drama-proper recs, namely:
Magnificent Century (Turkish production, follows the ascent of Suleyman the Magnificent’s wife in the harem; liberties are taken, but it’s actually not that unfaithful to the truth, and Meryem Uzerli is...honestly a revelation)
Nirvana in Fire. Honestly I cannot recommend this one enough. It’s just so—so!!
Bossam: Steal the Fate is partly this. Other Korean recs include The Crowned Clown and Mr. Queen, and I heartily recommend watching them in that order, actually, because you will need the levity Mr. Queen has, particularly early on, to cope.
From the web novels (additional rec: The Remarried Empress. This is a Korean work, and is currently being serialized as a webtoon, also, with very pretty art) I went on to reading Katie Quinn’s series of books set in Rome, which were...sadly only decent, so not a particularly strong rec, just a mention. Instead I’ll rec Megan Whalen Turner’s sequels to The Thief, which turn into this: they are The Queen of Attolia; The King of Attolia; A Conspiracy of Kings & Thick as Thieves.
Also, last year Jacqueline Carey utterly rewired my brain, particularly with Phedre’s trilogy (Kushiel’s Dart, Kushiel’s Chosen, Kushiel’s Avatar) but while court drama features in these, it’s not the point, exactly.
Hopefully this is a wide enough net of things for you to find something you enjoy within it ^^
hi i stumbled across ur blog while looking for poetry 😅 and saw ur questions. if i may... God is completely sufficient in Himself, completely wise and all-knowing... the ultimate end for everything is his glory, he doesn't ever need anything. He's unchangeable and completely perfect the way he is, which is why he can be such a rock for us volatile, ever-changing creatures. there is a free booklet by RC Sproul called "What can we know about God?" which might interest you :) its part of a series called Crucial Questions
No, actually, you may not.
I’m only making this public so it may serve as a statement. Please do not attempt to preach or proselytize to me. I am a Romanian Orthodox Christian by baptism; I have my own complex relationship with God. This is where I post my poetry and because it is my poetry, it does at times contain traces of that complex relationship. Such poems are not invitations. I am not looking for advice, especially from American Christians of any denomination.
Have you ever written anything about incorruptibility? I cannot imagine having your body intact and soft, even in death. As if you truly were in a slumber forever.
Not really? I write about saints, sure, but I am really attached to the idea of rotting, so that has never been the focus. (One of the many “cultural” exports of the US to EE is a change in funerary customs, which I am most unhappy with. There is this obsession with embalming and attempting to preserve the appearance of the body, which to me feels like trying to mimic incorruptibility, or achieve immortality through stasis. It unsettles me, as it is very antithetical to the organic relationship we, and I moreso, have with death.)
Though I suppose I could explore it in a poem. You can’t go five miles in Romania without stumbling onto some holy remains, and I have seen the reliquary of St. Filoftea.
