Color Coded

Thinking about how to describe the indescribable

Hello, Haiku Poets!

Have you ever been baffled by someone else’s perception of color? I’m fascinated with the use of color in poetry and comics. Here are three haiku comics I’ve made this past year that are part of what will someday be a larger series exploring color:

ocean’s mysteries
forever out of our grasp
we still plunge deeper¹

to be in her path
when her passion blazed was like
standing on the sun

I see stories in
abstract blobs of purple paint
smeared on the canvas²

Color Coded

One of my favorite things about humans is that we can’t agree on what color things are. Each of us has our own unique way to perceive and describe color. I love starting arguments with my children about whether something is a shade of blue, purple, or green. (I am truly an agent of chaos.)

But for the writer, this presents a problem. How do you describe something that everyone perceives differently?

You could just use a color word like blue, and let the reader make their own inferences.

to you, I am the sea
mercurial tides, blue waves
something to gawk at³

I am trapped between
eternal depths of the sea
infinite blue sky⁴

You could get more specific and use a color word like azure or cobalt. This still allows your reader to make their own inferences, for better or worse.

seagulls soar over
the sparkling azure ocean
searching for next meal⁵

daring cobalt sky
I can do anything, but
can’t do everything⁶

A third option is to use a metaphor. You could describe something as being a sapphire. This leads to more specificity, while also still allowing for different perceptions without ruining the effect of the language.

*idea of working
insults perfect sapphire sky
offends summer sun⁷

Lastly, you could simply write about something that is culturally known to be blue (whether or not it is actually blue,) by writing about the sea or the sky.

I stare at the sea
it doesn’t want or need me
it never stares back⁸

There is a school of thought that metaphors, whether explicit or implicit, have no place in haiku. I think that’s rubbish. Perhaps it’s just my neurodivergent brain, but I often find metaphors are the clearest way to describe an observation.

Haiku Prompt

This discussion of ways to describe colors brings us to this week’s haiku prompt. Write a haiku, or series haiku, that evokes a color. Please share your poems in the comments! Feel free to use either the 5-7-5 or free verse formats.

You can find other haiku prompts under the Haiku Prompts section of the Weirdo Poetry Substack page.

Be the poetry you want to see in the world!

Cheers,

Jason

1

This haiku comic was originally published in the book, Wild Divinity.

2

This haiku comic was originally published in this newsletter back in May of this year.

3

A different version of this haiku comic was originally published in Wild Divinity.

4

A different version of this haiku comic originally appeared in Weirdoku #1: A Disciple of the Sea.

5

A different version of this haiku comic originally appeared in Weirdoku #1: A Disciple of the Sea.

6

This haiku comic was published earlier in this newsletter as part of my 21-comic super-post called, A Totally Inadequate Guide to Adulting.

7

A different version of this comic was published in this newsletter earlier this summer.

8

I have made and published more versions of this haiku comic than anything else, and I still am not satisfied with it. You can find a version of this haiku comic in my first-ever illustrated haiku zine, Surreal Haiku #1: I Stare at the Sea, in the book, Wild Divinity, and multiple places in this newsletter, most recently in early May in a post about how the ocean is a common theme in my haiku.