Day 12 – Haibun

From smog filled cities to fresh salty air. A friendly place where everyone knows your name.

Tranquil pockets of landscaped gardens. A harbour of fishing boats bobbing and ringing.

Beach huts align the prom

Metal structures tower at the docks

Outskirts of rolling fields

Despite its impact on England’s trade, many don’t even know its name. The largest container port to feed the needs of the island.

With forests and wildlife and natural habitats. With a fort and seafront with amusements and bright lights.

*****

Day 12’s challenge

For Day 12, the challenge was to write “a haibun that takes in the natural landscape of the place you live. It may be the high sierra, dusty plains, lush rainforest, or a suburbia of tiny, identical houses – but wherever you live, here’s your chance to bring it to life through the charming mix-and-match methodology of haibun.”

Well, today’s challenge feels very advance to me. I’ve never attempted a Haiku, let alone a Haibun. After reading the challenge, I realised I needed to do research whilst eating my breakfast – thank you for smartphones!

Haibun

A Haibun is a style of poetry that combines prose with a Haiku poem. It often has a pattern, i.e. Prose, Haiku, Prose…

This then led me to ask the following two questions:

1. What is prose? Prose often uses the colourful language poetry is famous for. It’s beautiful, descriptive, deep and it will create visions and emotions in the reader. It doesn’t usually rhyme.
2. What is Haiku? Haiku is a style of poetry that is structured by syllables (number of sounds in a word). The structure has three lines. The first line will have five syllables, the second line will have seven syllables and the third line will have five syllables. It doesn’t usually rhyme.

Well, this style of poetry is outside my comfort zone completely! Firstly, I’ve never written this style and secondly, I like my poems to rhyme – he he.

But, I set myself this goal to do the NaPoWriMo challenge and I am not a quitter (without a fight), so here is my poem about my hometown.

I reached out to the local community for a photo I could use on my blog and Katherine Bozier kindly offered me a selection of pictures she has taken. A testimony to the culture, kindness and support of our town.

Here are some pics from my Instagram:

https://instagram.com/p/BfWhDJ8h1Np/

https://instagram.com/p/Bess-ujh1lp/

https://instagram.com/p/BSrAqVHBpja/

https://instagram.com/p/BIw6a14h96Y/

Growing up here, I thought the town was dull without much to do but I heard an advert for one of the caravan parks and was shocked at the end when I realised where it had described. As a mother, I now see the vastness of what this town has to offer – it’s a hidden gem.