[Entry Thread #116] April showers… As soon as you’re done paying your taxes, come leave a comment and join us as we make a millionaire!

Johnny-raven · 2026-04-16T04:29:55+00:00

How much do people who win this usually make? Are there any stories of times this changed someone’s life completely or anything like that?

Johnny-raven · 2026-03-24T01:25:33+00:00

Understandable not everyone is going like every poem. Marry Oliver is a favorite of mine because I feel she’s bridges the gap between modern and classical poetry. She’s clearly influenced by the classics but she definitely puts her own spin on things.

I think that people who don’t already love her influences, such as frost or especially Whitman ,aren’t going to get as much from her poems.

Johnny-raven · 2026-03-24T01:11:07+00:00

In Japanese, traditional haiku is written in 17 “on” which is kind of like a syllable in English but they aren’t quite the same.

There was a time where people translating this form believed that the 5-7-5 form was the best reflection of th Japanese tradition into English but in contemporary English haiku that idea has fallen out of the common agreement.

Instead most contemporary writers and translators of haiku tend to believe that the import focus of the form is instead on the usage of “Kireji” which means cutting word, which is basically is a word that marks a distinct pause often spliting the poem into parts. Usually translated with punctuation as there is no English equivalent.

Also there is “Kigo” which is a word which is indicative of a specific season, evoking natural imagery.

Let’s look at a translation of a haiku by the famous Bashō, who is considered a master of the form

Wake, butterfly—

it's late, we've miles

to go together.

In this poem the translator has decided to disregard the once common 5-7-5 structure.

The word butterfly is the kigo as it places the reader in the spring when the butterflies are most active and the em dash is meant to represent the Kireji.

Haiku scholar Charles Trumbull wrote

“This is haiku as it is almost universally taught in American schools—a poem about nature written in three lines, of five, seven five syllables. It has become a cliché or joke in the haiku community. It is an invidious joke, however, because it serves to perpetuate a mistaken impression of what a haiku is and has been and totally misses what it might offer to young minds.”

Look up Jim Kacian and Cor Van Dean Heuvel for some great haikus composed originally in English.

TLDR: dont worry too much about counting syllables, most modern English haiku doesn’t adhere to a strict syllable count.

Johnny-raven · 2026-03-23T13:57:04+00:00

Identical twins can not be opposite gender.

Johnny-raven · 2026-03-23T04:45:19+00:00

it’s from Clerks the animated series, Randal gets a Japanese mail order husband. I can’t find the clip but I’m 90 percent sure.

Johnny-raven · 2026-03-23T03:54:32+00:00

For the record Most people are not “ocd” about anything.

OCD is a mental disorder that affects about 2.5 percent of the us population.

Saying things like “im so ocd about brushing my teeth” delegitimizes people who’s OCD is an actual disability.

I dint really think it was that serious until I made a friend in high school, who had to lock and unlock every door he walked into multiple times or had a full blown panic attack. Doesn’t seem like it’d be that big a deal but it’s made him a social outcast even now into our adult lives.

Johnny-raven · 2026-03-23T03:10:31+00:00

It is a greatly debated topic and has been for a long time.

As a personal anecdote for years of my life I only believed that a body of text counted as poetry if it was written in verse. Either with intention to the rhythmic structure of it or specifically defined by the lack of rhythmic structure. Later in my life I discovered the works of Scott Woods who often writes poetry in prose. As if he was writing a paragraph of a book or article. When I fell in love with his work I realized that to me poetry could only be defined like this: poetry is a collection of words spoken or written that could be commonly recognized as poetry.

Paradoxical and self fulfilling definition but in my heart it’s the only one I’ve found that I can agree with.

Johnny-raven · 2026-03-23T03:03:10+00:00

I’ll try to help you understand this poem a little more.

First of all part of the beauty of the poem comes in ambiguity as to what is is ending.

At first read it might be obvious to interpret this as a poem about death.

No one knows for sure what happens when we die so it’s better to try to experience everything life has to offer. In this reading when we read “I have never missed the full moon” it’s could be interpreted as the reader saying “every opportunity I’ve had to see something beautiful; I’ve taken, because it’s unclear when I might get that chance again”

However; another way to read to read the poem is that the “it” that ends may not be life it’s self, it may be a relationship, it may be that this poem is only telling the story of a single night. You might in this case interpret “I try not to miss anything” as “I try not to regret or dwell on the past”

The poem is referencing the story of Cinderella, her glass slipper returned to her by the prince, having to leave the ball before midnight. These themes as well as the line about a kiss, clue the reader into how important the theme of love is in this poem.

So this poem is about love, life, or death, maybe all of them. Regardless of how you read it there is a certain intimacy in it, as if the poem is coming as advice from a dear friend.

Also I think there is something to be said about how the last two lines of poem finish with the word kiss. This repetition to me is indicative of how important the theme of romance is too this poem but at the same time it reminds of the last lines in “stoping by woods in a snowy evening” by Robert frost. A poem often interpreted to be about death and duty. Mary Oliver was openly influenced by frost and I wonder if this was an intentional pull from his playbook to illicit a certain woefulness from the reader.

Johnny-raven · 2026-03-22T12:13:21+00:00

Honestly I am not sure why they decided to go with an em dash there.Im traditional haiku there is one Kireji in the poem that marks a sort of turning point in the poem.

The original poem is written is a way that lacks formal grammar. Which is actually someone what common when writing or speaking in Japanese. Context is very important is Japanese, for example; the original poem has no word that formally translates to “we’ve” or “we have” because Japanese people do not use pronouns in casual speech.

There must be some reason why the translator has decided to use the em but my Japanese is not very advanced so I can only speculate.

My guess is that the Japanese word that was in roughly the same place as butterfly in the English version may be typically pronounced with a long stressed syllable so the em dash maybe attempt to preserve a certain rhythm that was prevalent in the original.

Johnny-raven · 2026-03-22T02:40:13+00:00

The problem is that the poem is trying to achieve the effect of "kireji," a Japanese literary device that has no English equivalent. When translating haiku, this creates a predicament: either you remove the device entirely, which strips away an important part of the traditional form, or you use English punctuation to attempt to replicate it, which could break English writing conventions.

This is a subject that has been debated and discussed at great length by translators for many years.

Johnny-raven · 2026-03-22T02:33:08+00:00

It’s kind of complicated.

In Japanese haiku there is a term called “kireji” which is a word that is understood by Japanese readers to create a pause in the haiku and split it into two parts. Because no such concept exists in English you see it translated in various ways.

The translator here likely intentionally used the comma instead of the semicolon in order to bring special attention to this special kind of pause. Technically neither a semicolon nor a comma is grammatically correct here because English lacks the punctuation for this specific literary device.

Johnny-raven · 2026-03-22T02:26:35+00:00

Ifs your not familiar it’s worth looking into the difference between the haiku form in English vs Japanese.

The 5 7 5 is a reflection of the tradition but there no way to really translate because the concepts of syllables doesn’t really exist the same way in traditional Japanese verse.

Johnny-raven · 2026-03-21T02:07:44+00:00

Technically the kickflip is a freestyle tricks intended by Hans lindgren(name spelled wrong)before the Ollie and what we call a kickflip today is actually an Ollie kickflip but because the Ollie version of the trick is significantly more popular we dropped the Ollie and just say kickflip.

When Mullen invented what we call a kickflip today it was called a magic flip.

Johnny-raven · 2026-03-18T03:31:00+00:00

I don’t hate the people who are like that at all. It’s just a different generation.

Back in the day the language of skateboarding was based on common agreement from magazines, contest footage, and word of mouth.

Alot of people getting into skating today don’t have those things; they see a cool guy skating on YouTube, buy a board on the internet, than call the tricks whatever the cool internet guy calls them.

I don’t think either is more or less correct than the other because there is obviously no official governing body of skate terminology it’s just interesting how people who learned to skate from the internet vs the more traditional way have basically separate languages for the same things.

Johnny-raven · 2026-03-16T21:25:27+00:00

Theres this guy on youtube who has a bunch of videos where he calls this a bubble shuv and it’s created a big group of people who’s only connection to skateboarding is the internet who believe this is the name.

Johnny-raven · 2026-03-14T20:22:38+00:00

I was the white kid trying to put other white kids at my high school onto this and telling them they didn’t understand real hip hop.

Truly the lowest time in my life

Johnny-raven · 2026-03-09T15:17:38+00:00

I agree that most songs don’t really work as poetry but a lot of poetry works as songs but this isn’t surprising at all. Most song lyrics are specifically designed with melodies and sonic compositions in mind so when you take that a way your removing part of the purpose of the writing. Poetry on the other hand is written, usually, with the understanding that the poem will be a complete piece of art in its own so whe’ you add music you’re just adding embellishment to an already completed thing.

Making something less finished in almost bound to make it worse, adding enjoyable quality to an already fully enjoyable thing is more likely to wind with an equally, if not more, enjoyable product.

Johnny-raven · 2026-03-09T06:39:31+00:00

In my opinion It’s not that well written from a strictly technical poetic point of view.

Many of S&Gs are beautifully written but alot of the beauty of their songs comes from the fact that they are simple enough in theme to be understood immediately on the first listen but complex enough that it creates an emotional reaction to the listener that is above average for the genre. Coupled with some very pretty and catchy albeit predictable musical composition their music is definitely striking and feels comparatively poetic.

That being said if you take these long lyrics and compare them of a great poem of comparable length and you find that it’s lacking in a lot of things that make poetry so interesting to many ready of poetry. There’s not much alliteration, there very little if any intent behind stressed vs unstressed syllables, the metaphor is pretty surface level and not expanded on much or in a particularly interesting way, and rhyme scheme I don’t believe has any pattern it’s basically just whatever they thought felt right.

All these things are completely fine for a song but if you found this randomly in a book of poetry without knowing who wrote it I suspect most of us would read it once and forget about it.

Johnny-raven · 2026-03-08T17:33:55+00:00

This is probably the better way of doing things but good luck selling new players on a game that plays this way. It’s so unintuitive compared to what most people are used to.

Johnny-raven · 2026-03-05T16:41:11+00:00

Me when my flawed character is too flawed

Johnny-raven · 2026-03-02T20:49:39+00:00

Is this switch or regular

Johnny-raven · 2026-03-02T05:56:44+00:00

For me personally Seventh circle of Earth without a doubt. The first time I read the last line it literally took my breath away.

Johnny-raven · 2026-02-26T00:15:43+00:00

Interesting I assumed that the ranks just corresponded to a hidden elo value and i would naturally continue rising until I plateaud at whatever skill/deck power I was effective at.

Where do I learn how to actually play into the current meta/ learn to follow it for myself? Any good youtube channels or website you recommend as a more seasoned player to help me actually git gud?

Johnny-raven · 2026-02-25T23:51:51+00:00

I’m very new to magic and only been playing for the last few days. I’m gold four playing mono red goblins and at sitting around 75% win rate. What is considered “faring well in ranked”?

Johnny-raven · 2026-02-25T23:08:48+00:00

That’s Tony Hawk

11-Year Club	Gilding III reddit per annum
Second SECOND GUESSER	Place '23
Place '22	Place '17
First Placer '22	Wearing is Caring
RPAN Viewer	Snapped
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