Gothic mushroom shaped candles. Danny picked one up, grinning. Sam would have love these on her alters. Very Sam, very Gotham.
It a bit bittersweet, now that he could think of her without being paralyzed by crushing grief. Her and Tucker both. Danny turned, keeping an eye on Tim as he glared into the case of used cameras.
Danny walked over and tried not to feel guilty about practically mooching off of a child. Even if the money he was using was actually the Drakes’.
“Like anything you see?”
Tim shook his head. Danny pondered over what little he knew of photography- all of which he learned from documentaries that were more focused on nature.
“I think there might be a camera store a couple of blocks down. We could get the ones that takes photos of animals, like the really big ones that takes photos of wildlife?”
“I guess. I mean, I don’t need it since we can…” Tim glanced around suspiciously. Danny willed his mouth to not smile at Tim’s antics. “Fly close,” the kid finished in a whisper.
“Okay, but what about when I’m not there?”
Tim hunched up on himself and Danny despaired inwardly. Uh oh, what did he say now?”
“Are you going somewhere?” Tim quietly asked, sounding hurt and upset.
“No,” Danny soothed, patting Tim on the head. I mean, what if I’m busy with stuff but you want to go take pictures without me?”
“You said to go get you whenever I wanna go out to take pictures.”
“Okay, yeah, I- well, we might as well get you a quality camera, right? To take really really good pictures of the… local wildlife. Like… the birds and the bats, and all that.” Danny winked exaggeratedly.
Tim blinked and giggled when he got the joke. “Okay, as long as you’re staying!”
Danny grinned, fangs and all. “Of course.”
——
At the end of their shopping spree, generously provided and sponsored by the Drake family and their heavy black card, Danny got a phone and Tim got a wild life camera that was a whopping $4,000 but was compact enough to not look absolutely ridiculous.
“It’s heavy!” Tim whined, as he grinned like a loon.
“It’s quality,” Danny plopped the shopping bags on the island in one of the giant kitchens Drake manor had. “I’ll make dinner. You figure out those settings and you can tell me about it when we eat.”
“Okay!” Tim hummed excited, quick fingers and laser focus already aimed at his new device.
Danny picked up his new phone and dialed a number he knew by heart. As it rung, Danny held it up to his ear and began prepping the ingredients. At least
“Hello?” His sister’s cautious voice came through the phone. Danny’s shoulders relaxed.
“Heya, Jazz.” He could see Tim’s ears all but perk up in order to eavesdrop. His mouth quirked up in amusement and Danny turned away. He probably shouldn’t be encouraging that kind of behavior… but it was funny.
“Danny! Are you okay? I- I heard that they chased after you and I was worried sick! Are you safe? Any injuries? Do I need to pick you up?”
“I’m good. Promise. Not bleeding out or dying. It’s actually pretty nice right now,” Danny paused before turning back a little more so he could watch Tim’s reaction peripherally. “Hey, listen, can I adopt a little brother?”
He watched Tim sit up straighter eyed flickering up to him and back down again, a secretly pleased look on his face as he figured out that Danny was in fact talking about him.
“Danny, what the hell?” Jazz huffed, audibly relieved to know that Danny wasn’t on his merry way to becoming a full on ghost. “Who, why, and what kind of trouble did you get into now?”
“Hey, this was me getting out of trouble. Those people don’t even know where I escaped to. Tim helped me out a lot,” Danny said in the tone that meant ‘and there’s more to it but I can’t tell you right now.’
“His name’s Tim?”
“Yeah, you wanna say hi?”
Tim looked terrified as he heard Danny’s side of the conversation. Danny could relate.
“Alright. But you’re explaining everything later, got it?”
“Sure thing, boss.”
Danny turned to Tim, abandoning the peas he was shelling and rinsing off his hand to hold the phone.
“Tim, my sister, Jazz, wants to say hi. Are you cool with that?”
“Uhm! Yeah! Yeah, sure.” Tim, honest to ancients, squeaked. Danny’s enhanced hearing could pick up Jazz’s already melting heart. He taped a button.
“Jazz, you’re on speaker.”
“Hey, Tim. I’m Jazz. Thanks for taking care of my little brother!”
“Uh, hi, Jazz! I’m Timothy Drake! And, uh, you’re welcome! Anytime!”
Tim glanced at Danny for reassurance, relaxing a bit when the halfa threw him a double thumbs up.
Jazz went quiet.
“Jazz, you good?” Danny asked.
“We’re adopting him. Danny, you better make sure knows about everyone. Hi, Tim, I’m Jazz, your new big sister.”
“Uh- I have parents.”
“That can be fixed,” Jazz casually brushed off. Tim looked like a deer in headlights, so Danny took his sister off speaker and went back to cooking. He made sure to smile at Tim.
“Don’t worry, we won’t adopt you if you don’t want to. But it wasn’t a joke, we’re very serious.”
“I’ll think about it?”
Danny shrugged. “Good enough for me.”
“So, where are you?” Jazz asked him, rustling coming through on the phone.
“Gotham.”
“You are so fucking lucky I love you, dumbass. I’ll be there tomorrow at noon.”
“Playing hooky, are you?”
“Fuck off, little brother, before I show Tim your toddler pictures.”
“Thanks, Jazz.”
“Bye, Danny. Don’t get killed again when I’m not there, got it?”
“Sure, sure.”
Danny smiled and returned to his agenda of stuffing as many vegetables into one meal as he can. At least the food isn’t trying to tear out his face.
——
Robin hasn’t heard the eerie giggles around lately, but he’s been practicing his own. It’s weird though, because there’s always a glint of something in the corner of his eyes.
“Robin, muggers.”
“On it, B. Shall we, Batgirl?”
“Let’s go, Boy Wonder.”
1K notes
·
View notes
None Of You Know What Haiku Are
I'm going to preface this by saying that i am not an expert in ANY form of poetry, just an enthusiast. Also, this post is... really long. Too long? Definitely too long. Whoops! I love poetry.
If you ask most English-speaking people (or haiku-bot) what a haiku is, they would probably say that it's a form of poetry that has 3 lines, with 5, and then 7, and then 5 syllables in them. That's certainly what I was taught in school when we did our scant poetry unit, but since... idk elementary school when I learned that, I've learned that that's actually a pretty inaccurate definition of haiku. And I think that inaccurate definition is a big part of why most people (myself included until relatively recently!) think that haiku are kind of... dumb? unimpressive? simple and boring? I mean, if you can just put any words with the right number of syllables into 3 lines, what makes it special?
Well, let me get into why the 5-7-5 understanding of haiku is wrong, and also what makes haiku so special (with examples)!
First of all, Japanese doesn't have syllables! There's a few different names for what phonetic units actually make up the language- In Japanese, they're called "On" (音), which translates to "sound", although English-language linguists often call it a "mora" (μ), which (quoting from Wikipedia here) "is a basic timing unit in the phonology of some spoken languages, equal to or shorter than a syllable." (x) "Oh" is one syllable, and also one mora, whereas "Oi" has one syllable, but two moras. "Ba" has one mora, "Baa" has two moras, etc. In English, we would say that a haiku is made up of three lines, with 5-7-5 syllables in them, 17 syllables total. In Japanese, that would be 17 sounds.
For an example of the difference, the word "haiku", in English, has 2 syllables (hai-ku), but in Japanese, はいく has 3 sounds (ha-i-ku). "Christmas" has 2 syllables, but in Japanese, "クリスマス" (ku-ri-su-ma-su) is 5 sounds! that's a while line on its own! Sometimes the syllables are the same as the sounds ("sushi" is two syllables, and すし is two sounds), but sometimes they're very different.
In addition, words in Japanese are frequently longer than their English equivalents. For example, the word "cuckoo" in Japanese is "ほととぎす" (hototogisu).
Now, I'm sure you're all very impressed at how I can use an English to Japanese dictionary (thank you, my mother is proud), but what does any of this matter? So two languages are different. How does that impact our understanding of haiku?
Well, if you think about the fact that Japanese words are frequently longer than English words, AND that Japanese counts sounds and not syllables, you can see how, "based purely on a 17-syllable counting method, a poet writing in English could easily slip in enough words for two haiku in Japanese” (quote from Grit, Grace, and Gold: Haiku Celebrating the Sports of Summer by Kit Pancoast Nagamura). If you're writing a poem using 17 English syllables, you are writing significantly more content than is in an authentic Japanese haiku.
(Also not all Japanese haiku are 17 sounds at all. It's really more of a guideline.)
Focusing on the 5-7-5 form leads to ignoring other strategies/common conventions of haiku, which personally, I think are more interesting! Two of the big ones are kigo, a season word, and kireji, a cutting word.
Kigo are words/phrases/images associated with a particular season, like snow for winter, or cherry blossoms for spring. In Japan, they actually publish reference books of kigo called saijiki, which is basically like a dictionary or almanac of kigo, describing the meaning, providing a list of related words, and some haiku that use that kigo. Using a a particular kigo both grounds the haiku in a particular time, but also alludes to other haiku that have used the same one.
Kireji is a thing that doesn't easily translate to English, but it's almost like a spoken piece of punctuation, separating the haiku into two parts/images that resonate with and add depth to each other. Some examples of kireji would be "ya", "keri", and "kana." Here's kireji in action in one of the most famous haiku:
古池や 蛙飛び込む 水の音
(Furu ike ya kawazu tobikomu mizu no oto)
(The old pond —
A frog jumps in
The sound of the water.)
You can see the kireji at the end of the first line- 古池や literally translates to "old pond ya". The "ya" doesn't have linguistic meaning, but it denotes the separation between the two focuses of the haiku. First, we are picturing a pond. It's old, mature. The water is still. And then there's a frog! It's spring and he's fresh and new to the world! He jumps into the pond and goes "splash"! Wowie! When I say "cutting word", instead of say, a knife cutting, I like to imagine a film cut. The camera shows the pond, and then it cuts to the frog who jumps in.
English doesn't really have a version of this, at least not one that's spoken, but in English language haiku, people will frequently use a dash or an ellipses to fill the same role.
Format aside, there are also some conventions of the actual content, too. They frequently focus on nature, and are generally use direct language without metaphor. They use concrete images without judgement or analysis, inviting the reader to step into their shoes and imagine how they'd feel in the situation. It's not about describing how you feel, so much as it's about describing what made you feel.
Now, let's put it all together, looking at a haiku written Yosa Buson around 1760 (translated by Harold G. Henderson)
The piercing chill I feel:
my dead wife's comb, in our bedroom,
under my heel
We've got our kigo with "the piercing chill." We read that, and we imagine it's probably winter. It's cold, and the kind of cold wind that cuts through you. There's our kireji- this translation uses a colon to differentiate our two images: the piercing chill, and the poet stepping on his dead wife's comb. There's no descriptions of what the poet is feeling, but you can imagine stepping into his shoes. You can imagine the pain he's experiencing in that moment on your own.
"But tumblr user corvidcall!" I hear you say, "All the examples you've used so far are Japanese haiku that have been translated! Are you implying that it's impossible for a good haiku to be written in English?" NO!!!!! I love English haiku! Here's a good example, which won first place in the 2000 Henderson haiku contest, sponsored by the Haiku Society of America:
meteor shower . . .
a gentle wave
wets our sandals
When you read this one, can you imagine being in the poet's place? Do you feel the surprise as the tide comes in? Do you feel the summer-ness of the moment? Haiku are about describing things with the senses, and how you take in the world around you. In a way, it's like the poet is only setting a scene, which you inhabit and fill with meaning based on your own experiences. You and I are imagining different beaches, different waves, different people that make up the "our" it mentioned.
"Do I HAVE to include all these things when I write haiku? If I include all these things, does that mean my haiku will be good?" I mean, I don't know. What colors make up a good painting? What scenes make up a good play? It's a creative medium, and nobody can really tell you you can't experiment with form. Certainly not me! But I think it's important to know what the conventions of the form are, so you can appreciate good examples of it, and so you can know what you're actually experimenting with. And I mean... I'm not the poetry cops. But if you're not interested in engaging with the actual conventions and limitations of the form, then why are you even using that form?
I'll leave you with one more English language haiku, which is probably my favorite haiku ever. It was written by Tom Bierovic, and won first place at the 2021 Haiku Society of America Haiku Awards
a year at most . . .
we pretend to watch
the hummingbirds
Sources: (x) (x) (x) (x) (x) (x)
Further reading:
Forms in English Haiku by Keiko Imaoka
Haiku: A Whole Lot More Than 5-7-5 by Jack
How to Write a Bad Haiku by KrisL
Haiku Are Not a Joke: A Plea from a Poet Who Has Had It Up to Here by Sandra Simpson
Haiku Checklist by Katherine Raine
10K notes
·
View notes