Haiku
Posted May 1, 2017, 5:03 AM UTC
27
let's talk about the formatting of this piece. There are two other ways that jump out me as ways this could be written:
honeycomb; diamond dust through soft throats
or
honeycomb;
diamond dust
through soft throats
your particular choice is interesting formally and, suggests obliquely, the travel of the diamond dust through the throat, but I worry it affects the rhythm of the piece a bit too much. Currently, i believe that just breaking it at the semi-colon will give it that tasty haiku flavor everyone loves, without slathering on too much sauce.
now here is a bit of an idea that could change the potential meaning of the work, but I think will stregthen some of the bonds you seem to want in the work (with a bit of a stranger enjambment choice).
honeycomb; diamond
dust pushed through soft throats
I think pushed increases the violence you want implied while more directly engaging with the vomit.
2
Thanks for this. I really want to preserve the passivity of a single line; I would like the violence fully below the surface. I think the preposition and ho eycomb should probably go. Perhaps
wintergully diamond dust down a soft throat
2
I want you to keep honeycomb (its softer, more colorful, and engages with the geometry) but changing it to down does a lot to help the piece. I don't see how keeping it as a single line increases passivity though (it makes me read it faster, which makes the entire thing feel hurried to me).
2
Thanks again. As a final attempt I'll bug you with
honeycomb diamond dust down soft throats
I articulated my hope for a single line badly. What I find important is the sense of being uninterrupted: that we have as little as possible between the two parts. (Probably I can't golf it down to one space and preserve the grammar, so I've attempted a slight visual separation here.)
1
I like it! play around with three or four spaces and i think you have this one down
2
sugar on the way in, glitter on the way out? its made of wax. i know that's pedantic but it's far from scratchy. eh and a girls best friend. too sweet to be violent for me. too pretty. maybe saw dust would be better. or maybe ground glass. maybe the honeycomb is the wrong bit. maybe we want.. a fishbone?
1
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Thanks for taking a stab at this, always great to hear from you. I was thinking of diamond dust more as a either a mean of assassination (you mix it with water and it lacerates the esophagus and stomach) or as a coating for drills (when mixed with oil), though admittedly those probably are not anyone's first associations with diamond dust.
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