2011 was not a banner year as far as my poetry writing is concerned. I had lines, stanzas, and verses floating through my head at different times, but I didn’t allow myself the time needed to develop them into complete poems. Prose writing took front seat in 2011; poetry a back seat.

All I wrote were three haiku, and one light verse poem for the workplace. The haiku, while short, are not necessarily easy. It’s more than just three lines of a certain syllable count. I follow the Lee Gura model for making a Japanese poetry form work in English. It includes: seasonal reference; nature reference; two images both linked and cut by syntax. I add one other rule. I try to make the middle line ambiguous, thus having it go with either the first or second image. This is a complicating factor, but I enjoy it.

The light verse I wrote was requested by my company, a CEI version of “Twas the Night Before Christmas”. I did that just last week. That was a no-brainer, and barely worthy of being considered a poem.

The other thing I did this year that was poetry related was take part in several discussion threads at Absolute Write. I critiqued a few poems there, but not many. The discussions dealt with “Is Poetry Dead” and “Perfect Iambic Pentameter”, things like that. It’s a good way to maintain my interest in poetry while not actually writing poetry.

Given my busyness with other writing, and the health problems I went through in 2011, I’m happy with that poetic output. Maybe 2012 will see more.