A haiku or two... by Sue Purkiss

My day job, if you like, is writing full-length novels for children. But sometimes, I like to stretch my writing muscles (or perhaps more accurately, procrastinate) and write something much shorter: a short story, perhaps, or - even shorter - a back-of-a-postcard story*, or - a haiku.

The version of the haiku form that I use is very simple. It's a tiny poem, three lines long, consisting of 17 syllables. So the first line is 5, the second is 7, and the third, 5. Naturally, being so short, it focuses on something quite fleeting: a thought, an object, a flower. But that doesn't stop you making some sort of statement - or dropping a stone in the water, and seeing where the ripples spread.

The watery image happens to be appropriate, because the haikus I've been writing recently were composed on board a ship - albeit a stationary one: the SS Great Britain, Isambard Kingdom Brunel's beautiful iron ship, now moored in Bristol harbour, where she was originally built.

I volunteer on the ship once a week. It's a very popular attraction, but there are times, particularly on weekdays in winter, when there aren't many people about. On one of these occasions, I had the ship pretty much to myself. It's an immersive experience: there are soundscapes, so as you walk through steerage, you hear snatches of conversation, a baby crying, someone singing. As you pass the galley, the smell of baking bread wafts out, and in the background, you hear the sound of the engines as the ship - the largest in its day, and the first to be built of iron - makes its way through the sea. It's quite dark down below, though there are cleverly constructed skylights which allow some natural light to percolate down, and there are softly glowing bulkhead lights. It's not difficult to imagine that you're on the ship as she sails to New York or Melbourne, Australia, but late on a winter afternoon, with no-one else around, it can be a little spooky.

I always carry a little notebook around, to jot down anything new that I find out: but on this particular afternoon, as I wandered round, feeling a little like a ghost myself, I used it to make up a few haikus. Here are some of them - the photos are an attempt to illustrate them, but they don't quite do the job - for instance, the first one doesn't really show the lovely curve of the hull. But anyway:

Bright flags fluttering

The restless heave of the sea

Her hull's sweet smooth curve.

The ship's restless ghosts

Whispering, sighing,sleeping.

Lives lived and lives lost.

Metal like torn lace

Eaten by the sea, which once

It sought to master.

I suspect that the original Japanese form is much more complex than the version I use - but I find it a really satisfying thing to do. Unlike writing a novel, it doesn't take months or years - and it does make you focus on the moment you're in. It's so easy not to do that.

* For more about postcard stories, see here. 

And this is a short novel I wrote some years ago, which is set on the ship.