Saturday, August 27, 2011

Haiku generator

Some people are born mad, some have madness thrust upon them.

I don’t know if I qualify for either of these categories, because I consider myself one of the most level-headed persons this side of the Indian Ocean; but obviously everybody doesn’t think so. I found out today that in Truth game, which is played on Facebook, as many as two people have answered in the positive when asked, “Is Sanjuktaa crazier than Ron Artest?”(and also, “do you think Sanjuktaa swears like a sailor?”). Now I couldn’t find out the identity of these persons , not having enough coins to unlock that, but I have some strong suspicions and one day, after I manage to gather enough coins, I am going to find you out! I also am pretty sure that the reason why they think like they do, lies in the fact that I love poetry!

And what I am going to write about today won't help matters any and would only reinforce their beliefs even more.Be that as it may...

Now, yesterday, the prompt by Terri Hale French at NaHaiwriMo was an evil one.We were asked to go to the Haiku Generator (a java script application) and write our own version or interpretation based upon whatever gibberish it threw at us.

Sample this, for example:

Crows drift feebly, friends

Darkening, rumbling dwarfs ride

Pigs wailing sailors

We were supposed to write a haiku on this! I almost fainted when I saw this!

And surprisingly, some people made quite a good job of it. For example, read this one by Cara Holman:

Marveling pebble

Clamoring, squelching mists slump

Forlornly, calm, pure


Cara’s version:


misty morning

the crunch of gravel

beneath my feet



And this one by Stevie Strang


insipid careworn

…massive immortals lying

corruption beckons


Stevie Strang's version:


one more chance

to get it right

election day

By then, I had started feeling I was in danger of losing my sanity. But luckily, this random one was thrown my way:

Knives mystify, knives

Snooze messily, orange moving

Gnarled, scornful, flustered


Based on this, I wrote:

the setting sun

halved

by the gnarled oak

Emboldened by this success, I went on to try a few more and the results began to get more and more startling. But believe me, you won’t want to know that!

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

That was a daunting exercise, Sanjuktaa! And while I would love to claim credit for "chrysalis moon", that was actually Claire Everett's. :) Mine read: "misty morning / the crunch of gravel / beneath my feet". Today's prompt was a whole lot easier!

yozh said...

Wow. I love your haiku. I would never have gotten anything half that good out of that gobbledygook...

sanjuktaa said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
sanjuktaa said...

Thanks, Melissa. I think you'd have done a much better job!

sanjuktaa said...

Oops, Cara, I'm truly sorry! Must have happened while copy-pasting from Facebook.This is what happens if you're blogging while half-asleep :-( Have corrected the mistake. My apologies once again! I had really liked yours!

Anonymous said...

Sanjuktaa-- I know the feeling! Sometimes on long blog posts with multiple hyperlinks, I can't keep them all straight. Still, what did we do before computers?

Aankhi said...

Pretty damn good!