Hey great news, as I've found two local venues to commit to at least one and hopefully four Hand-to-Hand Haiku tournaments/Rojonekku Workingman readings for this year of our existence 2013, though we sort of already existed before the odometer started rolling. And both venues will be hosting their first events this month!
On Friday, April 19, around 7:00 pm or so, at Green Willow Farm, a few miles east of Charlottesville on Milton Road, we'll be holding a Hand-to-Hand Haiku tournament/Rojonekku reading on the theme of Family Traditions. Basically the theme is just a suggestion; if you come with haiku in hand they can be about whatever feels right (or wrong) to you. Thanks to Patty at Green Willow Farm, we seem committed to four events this year, roughly every two months or so, and we hope to set it off with a nice one this month. There's a $3 suggested donation, to benefit Green Willow Farm, and there will be some light refreshments (probably cornbread and beer) available, and 1000 Feathers tracts for the taking. Contact rojonekku at gmail dot com for more info, or comment below. Parking here is a little limited, so directions will not be made super-public, but I encourage you to come in packs of eager jibber-jabberers of short poems. I'll be sharing some material, including from upcoming print projects, and hosting the festivities like Mr. Rourke at Fantasy Island, so bring the midgets (meaning kids are cool).
Then on Saturday, April 27, at 7:00 pm, at Blue Padma Yoga in Scottsville, at the corner of Valley and Main, by all the restaurants, we'll be hosting the first public Hand-to-Hand Haiku tournament in my hometown, with the theme of Embracing the Spirit of the River. There will be a $3 suggested donation at this event as well, benefitting Blue Padma (I don't believe in money). I will be reading a slightly cleansed version of my tale of the Great Willie Young & the River People, as well as haiku from my forthcoming 1000 Feathers collection called Beerbox Haiku, and have 1000 Feathers tracts available as well. I hope to have four events at Blue Padma this year, and am very excited to make my chaotic beauty more known to my local community in our quiet little river town. Again, if you are interested in competing or attending or whatever, contact rojonekku at gmail dot com. Light refreshments will be available (cornbread and maybe beer) and you will be expected to take your shoes off so as to not muss up the yoga floor, so wear some chill ass socks.
Below is an in-depth explanation of how the Hand-to-Hand Haiku Tournament works, and what to expect, as a participant, judge, or innocent bystander. And it should be assumed that my fool ass will try to keep things lively. I look forward to seeing old and new faces, connecting different circles together, and spreading the joy of fighting a boring ass world with some live ass word play!
Hand-to-hand haiku is an actual thing that has existed in
various forms as an offshoot of poetry slams for over a decade, but I am
bringing it to the here and now wherever my chaos tornado spins because it is a
thing I wish was happening all the time on every street corner around barrel
and pallet fires so that I could take part. So I guess I will emcee the affair
and create its existence locally.
WHAT HAND-TO-HAND HAIKU ENTAILS
A hand-to-hand haiku battle works as a single-elimination
tournament, meaning eight people start out in one-on-one matches, where one
winner advances to the next round, with eight going down to four, then four
down to two, and so on. Thus, there will be four first round battles, two
semifinal battles between first round winners, then a final showdown between
the two semifinal winners. For our purposes, the first round will be a best of
5, semifinals will be a best of 7, and the finals will be a best of 11.
What does that “best of” mean, and how does that work? Well,
that’s easy. There will be three judges pre-selected for the evening’s festivities.
They will have two flags (different ones obviously, we’ll assume red and blue
for ease of explanation). In each match-up, one competitor will have a red
flag, and the other a blue flag. Red flag reads a haiku first, then blue, then
after a brief moment of thought, the three judges, who hold both flags, raise
the flag of who won that round, in their on-the-spot opinion. Whichever flag a
majority of judges raises is considered the winner of that round, meaning if
two out of three judges say blue, then blue wins the first round, and is up 1
to 0. Loser of any round reads first the next round, so red would read a second
haiku, followed by blue, followed by judges’ decision, and so on, until one of
the first round competitors wins 3 rounds. At most this would need 5 rounds to
decide, thus it is called a best-of-5. The same process is repeated, but with
more rounds, for the semifinals and finals.
This means for all people reading haiku, you may need up to
23 different haiku, in the off-chance the first round, the semifinals, and
finals all go to their maximum amount of rounds, and that you advance
accordingly. Thus, I say you need a minimum of 23 haiku, although if you are
eliminated early or win rounds quickly, most likely very few of you will
actually use 23 haiku, perhaps even using as few as 3. No worries; save what
you wrote for the next one.
Here is the thing though: you select which haiku you read
for each round, rather than reading them in a set order, so to have a larger,
more varied arsenal of haiku gives yourself the freedom to choose ones that
might fit your opponent or the moment more easily, to tap into the flow of the
evening, or which one you would assume might strike a favorable mood with the
judges. I look at it as each haiku is an arrow, and the more arrows you have in
hand, the more likely you are able to find a sharp one. So come equipped as you
see fit.
On a personal aside, as a man who has literally written
several thousand haiku over the past decade, a method I use is writing them one
per index card. This is a good method for a hand-to-hand haiku battle, as you
can have your handful of index cards, mark out ones you use, and shuffle them
around and use them accordingly. Just a tip; you can use it or ignore it as you
see fit.
WHAT ABOUT HAIKU?
Ah yes, the terribly pretentious question us westerners are
forced to ask ourselves with regards to a Japanese literary tradition based on
a language of characters while we speak syllables. Haiku traditionally was tied
to the seasons, and the most common western translation has been a three-line
poem of five syllables, seven syllables, and five syllables, which is often
times seen as the truest replication of the Japanese poem. For the sake of our
Hand-to-Hand Haiku purposes, to keep everybody on even ground, we are going to
go with this. Now somebody may say, “Wait, counting syllables goes against what
haiku actually is, Raven Mack!” Well, let me tell you, I know this form on a
deep and personal level, and could tell you that haiku is not even a poetic
form on its own, but is part of a larger group form of poetry called renga
where the first part was called hokku and became the title of famous renga
poems, thus it became its own thing as literary time passed. So haiku is not
even technically what the hell it is supposed to be. So for all haiku
traditionalists insulted at counting syllables, once you are holding mass
parties where groups of people compose poems as a group with 100 verses per
poem, you can hold your complaints to yourself. We cannot accept part of a
tradition but pretend the rest doesn’t exist and call ourselves traditionalists.
I mean, we could, and in fact that’s what most people do, but I’m not
supporting that.
So for our sake, our haiku will be three-line poems,
preferably of 5-syllables, 7-syllables, and 5-syllables. I will not count them
though, and if you feel overly confined by this structure (form is good for you
though), you can stretch the definition of haiku to mean a short poem of
17-syllables (or less).
Also, traditionally, these have been tied to the seasons, or
nature, but I regard the act of haiku as more a meditation or habit of
observation, which means all the fucked up parts of the world made by man are
as natural as nature, and more than perfect for haiku. You can go traditional
or you can go with observing the world around you or you can go experimental.
Whatever’s clever.
And obviously, you should write your own haiku. If you have
competed before in a different Rojonekku Hand-to-Hand tournament, you're
expected to come with fresh material. Obviously there is no haiku police who
will count syllables or be like, "Didn't she read that one before?"
We, as the viewing community, will police ourselves, so if you are in the crowd
at an event and it seems someone's gone long on syllables or repeating
themselves, I encourage you to chatter amongst yourselves about it to create
that uncomfortable buzz thing that happens in public events. If the competitor
repeats these shady activities, hopefully the buzz will turn to outright booing
and jeering. In fact, unlike your standard poetry reading, I encourage the
crowd to make noise and respond. This is not to be a silent awe affair.
BUT HOW WILL THESE BE JUDGED?
A valid question, as none of us wants to be judged, and yet
judges will be involved. Honestly, there is no right or wrong way to pick a
winner, and this method will always be subjective. Always. But I am going to
have three judges, and attempt to curate each of them from a different angle of
cultural sensibilities. Judges’ decisions will be final, and also subjective,
so never take it personally. This is meant to be fun, and will be fun, so
nobody needs to get all, “Damn, why wasn’t my eternal creativity of poetic
greatness not properly recognized in this damn hand-to-hand haiku thing? This
is bullshit!”
Judges: You will judge as you feel appropriate. Like I
mentioned above, I’ll pick you because I'm thinking you'll observe from a
certain perspective, but I might be completely off on judging your personality,
so feel free to toss that aside completely and just go with your heart. In
fact, the whole point of haiku is to go with your heart, and this whole
nonsense endeavor of a tournament is meant to motivate people to go with what’s
in their heart, not worry and become anxious.
SO WHAT DO WE WIN?
Winner of the night’s tournament will receive the accolades
of an adoring attending public, and I'm sure I'll find something from the Bird
Tribe compound to show my gratitude to you as well. But don't expect anything
in particular, or at all, because one never can predict what I'll do.
Speaking of which, as part of hosting the festivities, I'll
share some of my own writing, or unique perspective, or perhaps just talk about
what I've been cooking up in the kitchen. The entire motivation behind
Rojonekku WFA (Word Fighting Arts) is to battle the complacency of routine life
with words, and this means not just books or printed matter but stories and
jokes and strange tales from stranger places and just everything and anything
to be honest.
So that is how the Hand-to-Hand Haiku Tournament works. If
you are interested in participating - which I hope you will be - contact me at rojonekku
at gmail dot com. Even though this is a slam poetry tradition, my goal with
this is to bring different styles of poets from different backgrounds into a
mutually accepted format, and interact. Then we cross-pollinate each other, and
everything will taste better.
