Category: Haibun. An essay or story incorporating both prose and haiku or senryu (the haiku of human affairs).
Author's Insistence: Haiku is not the 5-7-5 version you learned in 3rd grade. It can be 5-7-5 in syllable and line structure, but it is inaccurate to suppose it MUST be. It is usually three lines: short-long-short, but even that is not set in stone. Please, don't get me started on this issue in the world of Haiku! Far more important than syllable count is that haiku needs to be a bite-sized moment in nature or a thought or an experience, incorporating a contrast or change between one line and the other two. And for just a moment, the reader enters the consciousness of the writer to see beauty or irony or whatever it was the writer saw --SJ
I am a Once Upon A Time storyteller of folktales from Long Ago and Far Away and sometimes from as close as my own imagination. Schools, libraries, hospitals, festivals, farmer's markets, ferry boats, churches, bars, city streets, private homes - I've set up shop just about everywhere.
venues -
the storyteller's body
a stage
I have been a storyteller since I was a child,telling stories to younger children. I probably have a hundred tales collected in my head. One of these days I'll catalog them. Meanwhile, the right story always seems to march front and center for the right audience. I do not know how I know what the right story is. Sometimes, I plan a certain one for a certain occasion - but when I'm looking at the audience, another story tumbles out. I just go with it.
My dream once was to be an itinerant storyteller. Now, I wait to be asked.
an invitation
to do what I love best -
my answer yes
I've had some challenging audiences. Older elementary ages for instance, or middle school. They think they're too sophisticated for stories. I don't argue with them or try to persuade them. I just begin with the magic words and enjoy seeing faces change as the story chips away at their cool veneer. Sometimes I bring a puppet 'helper' and, invariably, a young cynic reacts with derision.
your puppet's not a real rabbit-
that's true
but it is a real puppet
Another challenge was an audience of blind children. I worried because my performance 'style' depends heavily on the visual. Facial expressions, hand gestures, body movements - how could a story be good without? What happened illustrates the importance of marching into the lion's den occasionally. One becomes creative, quickly. I added sound effects and participatory actions and made up a song, to my stock Halloween story about a character named Li'l Ogre. I still believe it's the best I've ever told a story and now I tell that version of it to everyone.
Take a deep breath -
just like that, YES, to help
Li'l Ogre run away
Recently, I hooked up telling stories to the homeless. It started after I donated food to a new Tent City in the neighborhood. I noticed they didn't have much for desserts. Well, no one can live by nutrition alone! I bought hot chocolate packs and mini-marshmallows - which must, in winter, be accompanied by a story. I was then asked whether I could tell stories at a shelter too.
small hand at my sleeve -
can the story star a girl
named Akisha?
Viktor chimes in -
an advocate for a Viktor
to be hero
Each child should have their own personal stories in my opinion. Adults too, need stories linking them to the same foibles and problems and triumphs and insights as the rest of humanity has possessed down the ages.
folk tales
a haiku moment
throughout each story
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