I was introduced to the Korean sijo in a recent poetry class I took. The teacher mentioned it along with haiku and invited us to explore one of the forms. Since I spent some time last year writing haiku and creating watercolors to accompany text, I was intrigued to delve into this new form I was hearing about for the first time.
What is sijo? The Poetry Foundation provides a place to start:
A Korean verse form related to haiku and tanka and comprised of three lines of 14-16 syllables each, for a total of 44-46 syllables. Each line contains a pause near the middle, similar to a caesura, though the break need not be metrical. The first half of the line contains six to nine syllables; the second half should contain no fewer than five.
While the form is not as well-known as haiku, a little more research found some treasured classics translated into the English. This one by Yun Seon Do (1587 – 1671) particularly caught my attention.
You ask how many friends I have? Water and stone, bamboo and pine,
The moon rising over the eastern hill is a joyful comrade.
Besides these five companions, what other pleasure should I ask?
There are regular writing contests for haiku and groups that meet in both the United States and Japan writing and sharing haiku. There is not as much activity happening with sijo although I did discover that the Sejong Cultural Society has a writing competition. The Sejong Cultural Society’s purpose is to “advance awareness and understanding of Korea’s cultural heritage among people in the United States by reaching out to the younger generation through contemporary creative and fine arts.”
In the past few weeks I have written several sijo. I liked the fact that sijo were often shared as songs, sometimes with drum accompaniment. Soon I was thinking of simple choreography that might fit one of the poems I had written. Why not explore writing sijo and creating dance movements to accompany the words? I had fun doing just that.
This sijo is for the winter solstice.
December darkness descends: fewer hours of sunlight.
Energy emerges from friendships — reach out to each other —
Recognize your inner light: open your heart with joyful love!
And here is a link where you can see the movement. I invite you to do the simple movement with me. https://vimeo.com/895910726
When I shared my sijo and movement with the poetry class, one of the members asked if she might share it with her church group. I was very touched by the request, and that was part of my motivation for figuring out how to video it to share with others.
When I was working with haiku, I created over thirty haiku with watercolor illustration and selected some to share online in this blog. https://mostlydance.com/2023/03/24/an-experiment-writing-haiku-with-accompanying-watercolor/ While I haven’t decided yet whether to create a series of sijo with accompanying movement, I am intrigued by the idea.
In Costa Rica, being so close to the equator, we only experience a small change in the balance of light and dark each day. This particular year I am feeling the darkness more. Let’s light candles and call forth our inner light to remind ourselves that each day after the winter solstice there will be a bit more light.
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