I Like To Say "Peace"

I like to say

"peace" now and then

as how space might be

between stumbling

and rising up again

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Cecilia

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Cecilia, a person I've never corresponded with before, sent me this poem today. At first in a slightly different form but now in tanka form.

It is one of the joys of the 'blogging' world that new connections between people, between works and across cultures naturally arise. Cecilia and I share with you some of our short correspondance about the above poem and how it became tanka with this post.

Along with her poem Cecilia sent me a link to her space: clearcandy daily. I enjoyed the entries here very much - go take a look!

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Little Onion

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Dear Cecilia,

Thank you for sharing your poem with me:

I like to say "peace" now and then
as how space might be between,
stumbling and rising up again.

I looked at some of your haiku on your blog and they are more haiku like than the above poem (which i like). For me this poem is more tanka-like than haiku and i'd suggest a reaarangement of the line breaks perhaps to see what it looks like as tanka:

I like to say
"peace" now and then
as how space might be
between stumbling
and rising up again

and now i'm reading again and finding the room for a cut a kireji after line 2 perhaps let me see...

I like to say
"peace" now and then
the space
between stumbling
and rising up again

What do you think of the two tanka-like versions? Is one better than the other - or maybe you hate both :-)

A more haiku-like or senryu-like version might be:

I like to say "peace"
the space between stumbling
and rising up again

But maybe it loses something in the shortening

I hope that you don't mind my exploring your verse in this way.

I like to say "peace" now and then too,

"Peace"

Little Onion

Dear Little Onion :),

I appreciate your reply very much. Let me tell you that I have no background or any training with poetry/haiku writing. So your replycomes as a HUGE welcome to me. I would like to learnmore and objective criticism like you did would certainly veer me into the right steps towards presenting good forms of writings. I like the (first) tanka version of the update youmade on my poem. The shortened, second version, does lose part of the meaning.

Thank you once again.

Honored,

Cecilia