> on the trees    yellow ribbons
>     curious        a child touches them   Terrie

> the yellow ribbons   round the tree
>                     attract   a curious child     John


Well I don't know about 'as usual' Terrie - in fact ' in another place'
I've in fact just finished posting a comment to the contrary over your
'galaxy of freckles'. Coming back to this poem, and again, with the benefit
of seeing my own comments from an 'external' perspective I think your are
correct in ommitting an article before 'yellow ribbons'. Which yields, in
my version:

        yellow ribbons   round the tree
                      attract   a curious child

There's a degree of tautology here - attract/curious - which brings nothing
to the poem, also this draft loses the vital tactile 'touch' of your
original. Where I think my draft still might score is on the more natural
syntactic link between lines one and two, and in the more dramatic closure
of the last element.

But in fact it may be that there'a an weakness inherent in what both of us
are working at. Narrative!! If ever the 'show don't tell' adage was true
it's for forms a short as these. Perhaps if we can get on the inside of the
poem?

        yellow ribbons   round the tree
                     so soft   to her curious touch

That kind of thing.


All good wishes, John



Subject: Re: commentary and a zip in response to "Knocking at the Gate "


Thank you, John.  As usual, I like your revision better than my original.

When I write these, besides the attention to the form (2 lines, 15
syllables, the caesura, etc.), I go with that proverbial feeling of when it
"feels" right.  When I can't get it to "feel" right, I go for the "almost
feels right" and submit to the list!  <G>
Terrie


>
> ------------------------------------------------------
>
> Hi Terrie, well 'shasei' is essentially about 'rightness' about it being
> 'as is', 'of the essence' etc. Contrast - conflated, assumed, extracted,
> created, imagined etc. It's certainly true that the best haiku have that
> feeling of 'just so' - or so my Japanese friends tell me - and that this
is
> a visceral rather than an analytical response. If a zip is an English
haiku
> form then it must have all of these attributes.
>
> In fact I share with Frank some slight doubts about that last element
which
> seems to weaken towards its ending. There;s a very delicate balance in
this
> poem. As well as the sound pattern how do you see the semantic dynamics
of
> following:
>
>