Well, I tried my best to come up with a clever one-liner for my blog title. But this was the best I could do this time around… Of Campus Tours, Cookouts & Clever One-Liners; kind of a one line summary of the week.
What about your week? Do let me know how you would sum it up in one line?
Poetic Sundays
The Monoku
Today I bring you the monoku; for two reasons. One, National Haiku Poetry Day is later this week; and two, I am strapped for time, overdue on this post and hopefully I can write a single line poem as an example!
What is the Poetic Form?
The monoku is a haiku with a twist: it is made up of a single line.
Unlike the traditional haiku, which is made up of three lines with a total of seventeen syllables, monoku features a single line consisting of seventeen syllables or fewer. Like the haiku, it has little or no punctuation. The first word in the monoku is not capitalized (unless it is a proper word). And a pause or caesura may be included as appropriate for the poem, dictated by sense or the rhythm of speech (like in the haiku).
The Monoku’s Characteristics
So the monoku’s elements are that it is:
- a single line of poetry
- syllabic: seventeen syllables or less
- a form that allows the poet to leave the interpretation of the poem up to the reader, based on which the poem may contain quite a few meanings
- void of punctuation and capitalization (or contains very little of both)
h/t, References, Further Reading
My Example
those patches of concrete among the vibrant greens
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Yet Another Wonderful Week On My Blog
This week’s posts…
- 51 Great Ideas to Inspire and to Ignite Poetic Imaginations
- The Harlem Renaissance: Its Poets and Poems
- 21 Great Gifts For the Poetry Lover In Your Life
- 14 Fascinating Facts About Poets and Poetry
- Enheduanna is Truly Eternally Epic
- Diacope Or At the Risk of Repeating Myself
- Sunday Scribblings #67: Yet Another Wonderful Week Goes By
On the Home Front
This past week did turn out a little busier and different. For one, both my teens had to stop by at school a couple of times.
My high school freshman (ninth grader) had a campus tour of her high-school – a long overdue one, of course. They usually have these campus tours at the end of the summer vacations before their freshman year begins. But with all that was happening, there was no need for one, until now; both my high-schoolers will be returning to school the following week (after spring break) in a hybrid mode. This is optional/by choice; and this time, it did happen to be my choice. I know it will be good for them to spend class-time at school, even if in a restricted and limited environment. Otherwise, the only “classmate” they see is me!
And my senior had to pick up his graduation gown and cap!! Oh my.. how fast time flies indeed.
The weekend, or rather Saturday, was busy as well, which delayed my posts even more than usual! While my younger one went for a socially distanced overnight cooking campout with her scout troop, the rest of us took an almost day long trip to explore the UC Davis campus. It was surprisingly huge and beautiful. Considering all the images we had of a dry, hot place, the campus is green, so full of trees and little gardens and huge parks. Plus well, the rest of the campus itself – the buildings etc – is also wonderful. We loved the ease of navigation and accessibility both within the campus and around it.
While my son is yet to make a decision about where he will be heading to college, the self-guided campus tours are both fun and informative; and we have a couple more to complete over the next weekend or so.
What about you? Have you been on any campus tours? Just for fun, or with a purpose? Maybe it was not a school or college but an office campus or some thing else. Do let me know your experience with campus tours.
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On My Blog and Home Front
Will continue with my A to Z challenge posts; a little bit of poetic potpourri and a little bit of books. And it is spring break week for my teens so we will hopefully work on our garden as a family project over the week!
This Week’s Celebrations
The Literary and Close-to-it Celebrations
- The Birthdays: Beverly Cleary and Tom Clancy share an April 12th birthday, while the 13th of April is both Thomas Jefferson and Samuel Beckett’s birthday. April 15th birthdays include those of Henry James and Jeffrey Archer, while the 16th of April happens to be the birthday of the author of the Boxcar series, Gertrude Chandler Warner.
- National Scrabble Day is on the 13th of April
- April 17th is National Haiku Poetry Day
- And the 18th of April celebrates writers of a specific type; it is National Columnists’ Day
Foodie Celebrations
- April 12th is National Grilled Cheese Sandwich Day
- The 13th of April is National Peach Cobbler Day while the 14th is National Pecan Day
- National Banana Day is on April 15th
- The 16th of April is National Eggs Benedict Day
- Followed by National Cheeseball Day on the 17th
- And I do love these anytime, but the 18th of April happens to be National Animal Crackers Day
The Other Celebrations
- The 12th of April has two important celebrations; one is the International Day for Human Space Flight while the second is the International Day for Street Children
- April 14th is National Dolphin Day. Who doesn’t love dolphins? They are playful, adorable, and simply wonderful to watch anytime.
- The 14th of April also happens to be National Reach as High as You Can Day as well as Look Up at the Sky Day, and National Gardening Day
- And with it being about dolphins, reaching as high as you can, and spending time outdoors as you garden and look up at the sky, it will be easy to have many moments of laughter. For April 14th also is International Moment of Laughter Day
- April 15th is National Take a Wild Guess Day. So go ahead and take a wild guess as to what other National/International days this date celebrates??
- Well, a couple of them (answer to the question above) are World Art Day and National Rubber Eraser Day
- National Orchid Day is on the 16th of April, as is World Voice Day
- April 18th is International Day for Monuments and Sites and International Amateur Radio Day (I recall there were a few moments of my teen years when all I wanted to do was learn how to HAM!)
Wrapping up my Sunday Scribblings
So dear reader, this was it for my Sunday Scribblings. As always, appreciate and totally welcome your thoughts, comments, and suggestions. And which of these days in this wonderful week do you plan to celebrate?
Linking this to the Sunday Post over at the Caffeinated Reviewer and the Sunday Salon
I like the idea of a monoku. It’s a haiku, but it’s even simpler. A great place to start.
I bet the campus tour was fun. I always thought University of California would be a great place to go to school. If I were going now, I wonder where I would apply.
I wish I had done a better job of preparing for April as Poetry Month, but it snuck up on me, and I am not reading as much poetry as I wish I was.
I like the “summary” title 😊
Oh my! You have a soon-to-be grad?! Crazy! It gives me a little anxiety thinking about the day when my girls are graduating!
I’ve never heard of a Monoku before! Thanks for sharing!!
Having a single line of poetry is so interesting.
I am going to see if my middle child can write a monoku.
I have been on campus tours back when I went to college, but they are also fun when you are on vacation. We went on a tour of Harvard and learned a lot about its rich history and saw some cool stuff too!
Love that you included National Days! We celebrate them in our family, too!
I love poetry and used to write it quite often. I’ve never heard of monoku though.
I like the idea of a campus tour. It’s been more than a decade since I last visited my high school campus.
We didn’t celebrate anything ‘national’ this week, but my daughters third birthday was Wednesday. Even though it wasn’t big to the world, it was everything to us.
Of course!! Happy Belated birthday to Mila…
It’s my first time of reading about Monoku. Thanks for sharing.