Haibun is a Japanese form of journaling popular with poets from Basho to Jack Kerouac. Each journal entry is followed by a 5-7-5 haiku poem, which summarizes or crystalizes the moment.
Haibun can also be applied to scrapbooks. I created a scrapbook for my son's high school senior prom. Besides photos from before, during and after the prom, I included ticket stubs, names of friends who rode in the 20-person limo they all pitched in to rent, and a matchbook from the hotel where the prom was held.
My son had the usual adolescent stops and starts while planning for the prom. He looked dashing when he tried on his tuxedo rental, but the sleeves hovered two inches above his wrists. Within a day the tailor lengthened them and all seemed well, when my son received a call that his date had taken ill and couldn't go to the prom. He nearly resigned himself to attending "stag," when our pretty next door neighbor girl agreed -- the night before prom -- to be my son's date. She was a sophomore from another high school, but her mother was pleased to let her go if I would pick up the couple right after the prom. The girl had school the next day! She already owned a gorgeous blue semi-formal dress which just so happened to match the blue-ribboned corsage my son had ordered for the one at home with a fever. If his former date could only see how lovely the neighbor girl looked next to my son, her temperature would really boil!
Photos in place, I wrote this haiku in the corner of the last page of the prom scrapbook:
Girl next door said yes,
She wore blue in the limo,
You both danced all night.
[haibun][5-7-5 haiku][senior prom] ◦
No comments:
Post a Comment