I wrote 3 haiku last night in Bananagram letters. They were each inspired by a page in the book Rumi's Reflection Journal. This raises a question for me.
If my haiku is inspired by an idea from elsewhere, do I have to give credit? I know the answer is probably yes. Somehow I rationalize that I get the credit for the poem because I've done the feat of fitting the idea I read into haiku form.
I had a bit of a wake up call recently when I casually asked a dear friend of mine if I needed to give him credit for the haiku I made out of his longer poem. He felt strongly, I felt, that I needed to give him credit. So what I did is put it on hold. I've been doing that with a lot of poems that I write based on other books, like ones that were done based on The Pull of the Stars, or adapted from The Gentle Weapon or from Tehillim.
One of the most commented on and liked poems in my published haiku book is an idea based on a statement of the Chofetz Chayim (as reported by Irving Bunim and then adapted by Charles Wengrov in Ethics From Sinai). I read this idea forty plus years ago and was touched by it. Other than the book I got it from I have never heard or seen anyone share this idea. So I felt that the haiku based on it is mine. And yet. I feel some (not enough to do any thing about it yet) guilt over not giving credit to where the idea behind the haiku originated.
Without any further ado (if you want more ado, you'll have to go elsewhere -which is me adapting an old Robert Klein line) here are the three poems I composed last night,. These haiku are adapted from a journal that adapted the words from an adapted translation of Rumi:
G-d made opposites
so that we can learn to fly
with two wings not one
(Inspired by Rumi's Reflection Journal, page336: "G-d turns you from one feeling to another and teaches by means of opposites so that you will have two wings to fly, not one.")
----------------------------------------
When fires flicker
all over the world, light them
with your inner spark
(Inspired by Rumi's Reflection Journal, page 191: "Do not worry if all the candles in the world flicker and die. We have the spark that starts the fire.")
----------------------------------------
We fly in the sky
and in order to stay high
we must find our wings
(Inspired by Rumi's Reflection Journal, page 250: "The sky where we live is no place to lose your wings, so LOVE LOVE LOVE."
No comments:
Post a Comment