Rodney King passed away on June 17,
2012. Most people know the first part of the story, only some
people know the second part. Rodney was the accidental spark of the
Los Angeles Riots that began after the police officers who were
photographed beating him were acquited. The second part of the
story is one that is well known to some of the people in Los Angeles
although many other people in Los Angeles deny that the situation is
real.
That story is that the Los Angeles
Police have a long history of illegal violence against blacks in this
city, which has always been condoned and covered up. So much so,
that there was a joke that they could catch a black man being beaten
by police on video, put that video on television, and still nothing
would be done to stop the violence. When that exact thing happened,
a beating was captured on video, and the police were of course
released, that is when the riots began.
A Haiku is a form of formal japanese
poetry that various Westerners love to write and read, and which
really can not be translated into English, even though we pretend not
to know that. There are a variety of formal structures, but the
major ones are three line poems with 5, 7 and 5 syllables for each
line. But there are variations on this theme, including the
variation used below of 7, 9, 5 syllables. There are many other
characteristics of a Haiku, again with variations, which include such
things as a single syllable at the end of one of the three lines
which is what is called "a cutting word", it may divide the
Haiku into two distinct emotions, or it may give the Haiku a
distinguished ending.
The biggest problem about writing a
Haiku in English, and why it really doesn't work, is because in
Japanese a syllable generally has less information than in English.
So 17 (or 21) syllables can express one set of idea or ideas in Japanese,
but a different set in English.
The following was written by accident
in four emails with a friend, Bob Lambert, when he was Sr. VP of New
Technology at Disney. When the email exchange was over, I happened
to notice that it fit the 7 - 9 - 5 structure, and I think it works
pretty well as a Haiku so here it is.
Can't we all just get along?
Where is that Rodney fellow
these days?
In jail, I think. Oh.
Friendly advice: hopefully you got Bob's approval to use his name. If not, I kindly recommend removing his name until you do. :)
ReplyDeleteNothing wrong or bad has been said here but great controversy and volatility are just next door to these topics.
ReplyDeleteDear Anonymous
Indeed I did get his permission in advance. Otherwise, I leave things ... well... anonymous. In this case the reason for mentioning him is, of course, that he my "co author".
Funny that you would think I would use someone's name and publish the contents of emails without asking.
But dont worry, its all handled !
However, now that you mention it, I should probably mention that while the Haiku is "ours", e.g. co-written with Bob, everything else here is my opinion and not his. Do not know what he thinks about any of these issues, only that he did not mind me publishing our little accidental poem.
ReplyDelete