WRITING HAIKU

A WRITING BLOG About Playing Around with a Story Line in Different Literary Genres and Different Literary Categories

Writing Leap #29

Writing Haiku

Hi Writers,

Haiku is magic.  An ancient form of Japanese poetry it lasers into the heart of an experience in seventeen syllables arranged in three lines in a 5-7-5 order.   Some Haiku poets in English take liberties with this structure.   Not Billy Collins, former U.S. Poet Laureate.  “I want the indifference and the inflexibiliy of a seventeen-syllable limit to balance my self-expressive yearnings.”  Here is Billy Collins.

The dog stops to sniff

                                                              the poems of others

                                                              before she recites her own

Dag Hammarskjold ignores tradition.

In the castle’s shadow

                                                             the flowers closed

                                                             long before evening

Either way writing the haiku is the ultimate practice in taking a huge, multilayered feeling or observation and finding the simple, deep heartbeat.  

So go ahead writers!  Poets, fiction writers, non-fiction writers.  Practicing Haiku is a magic little secret to writing what you mean.  It will spill over and clarify your writing voice in all genres.   I promise.  Try it over and over until your poem gives you the innermost seed that evokes so much more.  The form itself edits the writing.

Haiku often has references to the natural world juxtaposed with other thoughts.  The story line is:  Observing Nature

Here is my attempt.  Very non-traditional.

Rosy wedding sunset

illuminating the love in his song

for his son and new bride.

I heard the music of his soul.

(The additional fourth line may eliminate my poem as Haiku.  Not sure.)

Happy Haiku everyone,

LINKING THE ARTS

A Wonderful Book

Haiku in English: The First Hundred Years.  Edited by J. Kacian, P. Rowland, A. Burns, 2013.

With his delightful touch Billy Collins’ introduction opens up the world of Haiku.

A Lovely Word  

Essence

as in the very marrow of things.

Paintings by Georges Rouault,  French Expressionist 1871-1958

Maxim Bugzester, Polish/Viennese Expressionist  1908-1978,  said of Rouault, “He was able to paint the picture of a rose with three brush strokes.”