Can I just reprint my comment from Tinywords (I discovered that site long after you published there).
Wow, I really admire this. What a fresh and original take on the traditional kigo of a butterfly in haiku. The poet has turned inward, and the poem she is preparing to write takes shape, mysteriously, marvelously, until like a chrysalis she brings forth her poem. For me the inks are the coloured inks of a woodblock print butterfly. But so mysterious is this process, and so beautiful the product, that the awestruck poet almost cannot recognize herself as responsible. It is the ink that has rendered itself into the words, into the image, through a process, a life-force, almost separate from herself. And the result is stunning.
What I also particularly like is the remarkable invocation of a sensual experience that for me captures something like what I imagine is the prickly and painful experience of a transforming caterpillar. The current cultural fad for tattoos, which several readers have alluded, involves repeatedly injecting ink under the skin through needles. My own skin crawls at the thought of those needles, and so like a caterpillar I writhe until the poem takes it beautiful final shape.
5 comments:
ah! You created the artist, who's the artist now? :)
good question, Lorraine, and more than one answer :-)
butterfly tattoo
her mother's friends
think she's flighty
Can I just reprint my comment from Tinywords (I discovered that site long after you published there).
Wow, I really admire this.
What a fresh and original take on the traditional kigo of a butterfly in haiku. The poet has turned inward, and the poem she is preparing to write takes shape, mysteriously, marvelously, until like a chrysalis she brings forth her poem. For me the inks are the coloured inks of a woodblock print butterfly. But so mysterious is this process, and so beautiful the product, that the awestruck poet almost cannot recognize herself as responsible. It is the ink that has rendered itself into the words, into the image, through a process, a life-force, almost separate from herself. And the result is stunning.
What I also particularly like is the remarkable invocation of a sensual experience that for me captures something like what I imagine is the prickly and painful experience of a transforming caterpillar. The current cultural fad for tattoos, which several readers have alluded, involves repeatedly injecting ink under the skin through needles. My own skin crawls at the thought of those needles, and so like a caterpillar I writhe until the poem takes it beautiful final shape.
nice wordplay and the ambiguity as to who is the woman sporting the tattoo... thanks, Bill
what to say, Strider? this is a great comment and i love to see it here just as i did over at tinywords...
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