alone in the library
I open
to autumn

Published by

Kath Abela Wilson

Kath Abela Wilson listens poetically to science lectures as she sketches and writes her way around the world with her Caltech mathematics professor/musician husband. Kath, a member of HSA and Southern CA Haiku Study Group, is creator and organizer of Poets on Site, a Pasadena, California-based multi-media poetry performance group. You can hear her and her band of poets read mostly short poems here: http://www.pacificasiamuseum.org/_digital_lounge/audio_tours.aspx

19 thoughts on “”

  7. A splendid poem – hard to find a more suitable one for begining an Autumn-Winter issue. “I open to autumn”… the book, my thoughts, my memories, the window of my heart, another stage of my life.
    I'm not sure about the need of dividing the poem into three lines. Maybe two lines would fit better.

    Thank you

    Dana-Maria

    Reply

  9. thank you all for feeling this moment with me… I was surprised, and felt an added layer of meaning in my own poem when it was placed as the opening of this new autumn~spun web of tiny words….dana marie, thank you especially for the list of openings… yes. And I had considered two lines, I wonder …

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  10. I thank you, Kathabela, for sharing your poem and my thanks to Dylan, for his choice.
    I wonder why I meet so few poems written in two-lines form. They are not an experiment, an innovation; on the contrary:
    ?Everybody in the world knows that haiku fall into 5/7/5 (and of course this leads to the preference for a three-line translation), but in terms of the actual effect of the originals, this can be very misleading. In fact, very few haiku (or hokku) fall straightforwardly into a three-phrase pattern, and indeed haiku poets tend to dislike this pattern. This is related to the fact that, because Japanese is not a stress language, a 5/7/5 pattern cannot actually cut across or be independent of the syntax in the way that, say, a iambic rhythm can in English. (?) In Japanese poetry, therefore, the flow of the syntax plays a different and much more dominant role in determining the rhythm of the verse. In this hokku, as so often, what we actually have within the 5/7/5 pattern is a 12/5 pattern, and a moment's reflection will show that many famous haiku are either 12/5 or 5/12.? ? prof Adrian Pinnigton ( Waseda University),on PMJS forum, speaking about a Buson?s hokku

    Thank you

    Dana-Maria

    Reply

  12. In this case, I like the poem on three lines because the break after “open” leaves the reader with open expectations as to what will follow.

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  13. In my opinion, the break after “open” is not only important, but the key of the poem. A “long/ short” arrangement would make the poem more fluent, harmonious:

    alone in the library I open
    to autumn

    Dana-Maria

    Reply

  14. I don't see a problem with the 3 lines, in fact, when compared to the two-line version I feel it is better the way it has been presented.
    alone in the library
    (creates the scene, the quiet, the scent of books, allows the reader to decide the time of day)
    I open
    (a mysterious line urging us to read the conclusion – open is a wonderful word here for what does one open oneself to?)
    to autumn
    (brilliant conclusion that includes a play on the fact we're in a library and may be reading an encyclopaedia; a gardening book; a photo book of a foreign country, etc).
    Three lines it is, and three lines it should be IMHO.

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  16. Thank all of you for this wonderful discussion, and the last four of you Dana, Larylee, Cindy, and Sara (!) for your beautiful exposition, just as I was feeling it. It is wonderful to have such a dialogue!

    Reply

  17. Thank all of you for this wonderful discussion, and the last four of you Dana, Larylee, Cindy, and Sara (!) for your beautiful exposition, just as I was feeling it. It is wonderful to have such a dialogue!

    Reply

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