The Haiku Foundation Forums

Hi, Sergio  Thanks for sharing your fine poem.  I worked as a registered nurse for many years, and I've had patients who could certainly identify with its themes and ideas.  Thanks also for your kind words about my humble poem.  The idea of writing poetry in honor of significant occaisons and events interests me.  I have wondered about using a haiku as my epitaph, also.  Rebecca Drouilhet

Hi, Julie  My husband and I have entered about 4 or 5 contests, and entering was worth it as a learning experience. For example, we entered the Robert Speiss Memorial contest that invited writers to draw inspiration from one of Robert Speiss's speculations about haiku.  In the speculation chosen, Speiss advised writers to appeal to the senses and listed four of them.  We wrote haiku designed to stimulate all four senses named!  They were dreadful, but we did learn something by reading the winning entries.  Contests are fun, and they teach you about creative approaches and currently accepted standards.  My husband entered the British Snapshot Press calender competition, and his entry was chosen as one to be published in their 2013 calender.  I entered the Vancouver Cherry Blossom Festival Haiku International and won a Sakura award in the United States division.  We are relative newcomers when it comes to writing haiku, and our experiences prove that you can break in and become a winner even if you haven't been writing for years and years.  We and our local writing group also sponsored a haiku contest in our town.  I would strongly urge you to enter contests and submit your work to journals. Having your work affirmed by others can be a very positive experience.  Rebecca Drouilhet

Hi, Alan  Thanks for your kind comments about my poem.  I've enjoyed all the poems presented here, but Don Baird's 'teetering grass' haiku stayed in my mind all day.  Such marvelous work!  Rebecca Drouilhet

under the clouds of imaginary numbers
fighting silently
against a monster

I like this one better although initially it was because of how I related it to my personal experience.  I had always been abysmal in mathematics, but several years ago I took a course in college algebra and surprised myself by making an  A.  I remember being fascinated by imaginary numbers and fighting the monster of fear of mathematics.  But to me, the poem spoke of a battle between good and evil.  Now that I have read the explaination about the reports of radioactivity, I still feel some of that sense even though the explaination casts a vastly different light on the poem.  I like Ban'ya's poem better because it speaks to me on an intuitive level.  Rebecca Drouilhet

I'm late coming to this link, but I've enjoyed it immensely.  Thanks to all of you for your wonderful thoughts and poems.  Like Chase, I bought a book of Japanese Death Poems, and I very much enjoyed reading it. @ Chase—your poem is marvelous, but don't ever take that road. My husband's cousin, a gifted cardiovascular surgeon took his own life a few years ago. For others, the grief never ends.  I don't know if the poem I wrote could be considered a death poem, but I wrote it when I was battling breast cancer and entered it in the Vancouver Cherry Blossom Festival Haiku International.  To my surprise it won a Sakura award.  I didn't think it had a chance when I read after I'd submitted that the theme of the contest was the joy of sharing cherry blossoms.  My poem explores themes of fragility and impermanence, and after I wrote it I thought it might make a good death poem.  The poem is:

brief lives
today the cherry blossoms
seem more permanent

Thanks again to all who contributed to this interesting discussion.  Rebecca Drouilhet

Hello Chibi  I'm not sure if I fully understand your distinction between personal and private, but I will share with you some thoughts I've had about the subject.  I have lived for many years in an area that has a plethora of ghosts from the past.  Sometimes I move away from here, but I always come back.  Last year I took my grandchildren to visit the graves of their great-great-great-great grandparents. I wonder how many children get to do that?  When I write, I'm not sure how to share things that are highly local—especially those things that have deep roots in collective consciousness and perhaps collective guilt.  For example, there is a graveyard in this coastal area that is called by the inelegant name of Rotten Bayou Cemetery. The locals here report many supernatural experiences at Rotten Bayou.  The ghosts they report seeing are often described as having hideous small pox scars.  This is an area that had a large Native American population, many of whom died of smallpox.  Many of the residents here are of mixed Native American and European ancestory.  Recently, I wrote a haiku about Rotten Bayou Cemetery, but I didn't name the place in my poem or try to explain the complex hold it has on residents here who remain haunted by its specters after all these years.  I suppose I could write a haibun and take readers in that way, but I do wonder if outsiders would understand the nature of many of the private secrets I know about this place.  I am somewhat reluctant to erase the lines between personal and private for reasons even I don't understand. Yet I think many fine writers do have the gift of removing those barriers and sharing their local cultures and customs.  I'm not sure about my own reluctance, but your discussion topic does make me question things again.

Hi there  I've hand copied over four thousand haiku in a personal journals I keep for my own use only.  I've read many times that number.  I order anthologies with haiku and related forms and essays from Red Moon Press, books by Brooks Books many of which feature a single excellent poet.  I read essays about haiku on-line when I can find them.  I ordered Cage of Fireflies from Swallow Press after reading an essay by Lucien Stryk (hope I've spelled his name correctly)that featured work from the book available on-line.  I never grow tired of haiku, and I'm always looking for new material to read. Last winter I spent my clothing budget on books of haiku!

Hello Alan,  Thanks for providing the information you shared about authorial comment.  My understanding of this is deepening, but I think I might still need some suggestions in the advanced mentoring section if I slip into this again.  It might take a little practice before I instantly recognize it.  I found your comments very clear and helpful, however.  Thanks for taking the time to help me clarify this.  Rebecca Drouilhet

Hello John,  Thanks for the link that showed the correct pronounciation for the term senryu.  As the writers who are most interested in haiku and related forms, my husband and I often pass along information to the other members of our local writer's group as well as give talks during library programs here.  I wanted to be sure and pronounce the term correctly since I have (somewhat by default) wound up teaching others in my town about these genres.  Your input about authorial comment was also welcome.  I hope to become more aware of when I'm doing this, but realistically it may take me a few tries.  Still, you shed light on this for me.  Thanks.  Rebecca Drouilhet.

Hi everyone,  I'm a newbie who has been writing some form of haiku for many years, but only in the last year and a half have I attempted to follow the experts advice.  I have a few questions about glossary terms.  First, I've been prounouncing senryu as send-you or sen-rey you.  Is this correct?  As I've worked in the advanced mentoring section, I have twice gotten the criticism that my poems are guilty of authorial comment.  Could you describe this and give an example or two to help further clarify this for me.  Another commentor said the ku in my poem showed closeness.  I think I understand what she meant, but I've read four how-to books about haiku that never mentioned this.  Maybe a glossary definition would help others.  Thanks for your time.  Rebecca Drouilhet

Hello Gabi,  I enjoyed your quote.  I knew the haiku could have a social component, but I didn't realize that they were also season greeting.  It makes sense as your post reveals it.  Thanks so much for your input.  Rebecca Drouilhet

Alan, Only after I had time to consider it did I realize how rich your post had been.  In order to be alive, haiku must be practiced and read by living people.  Only as your life work tumbles through time will it be known by the people involved how it interfaces with them in their lives and literary work and the social fabric in general.  And, from what you wrote it certainly seems that there will be many lives affected.

Don, I followed your link, and I found the information in it powerful.  Some time ago my husband and I read a brief line that said some people (in Japan) even blamed haiku for WWII.  At the time, we found that a peculiar statement.  I had no inkling that such fierce battles had been waged over haiku, and I suppose over the idealogical and historical territory that different perspectives represented.  It's hard to believe people died for their art.  Alan's comments about the Japanese women also resonate.

John,  In our writers' group, we often get blank stares after we finish reading our haiku.  Someone will usually ask, "So, is that it?"  Still the group is proud to have us as members, and they often vocalize to us that they consider us their resident haiku experts.  This is commical to us, but here we are trying to become a little more expert.  I was also interested in your take on haiku and short poetry in general.  To me, haiku has special properties because, brief as they are haiku have both words and the spaces that allow for contemplation.  I admit I haven't read a lot of short poetry except haiku, but I do find interesting essays about incorporating haiku into the bulk of poetry. A dozen years ago, I took several literature classes at a local university.  None of them taught any haiku.  Why not?

Alan,  I enjoyed your response to my topic.  Just to clarify, when I said gaming I meant playing games.  When I read about haikai no renga, it sounds like a poetry game at a party or social function.  I find it interesting that you provided haiku for the deaf using sign language.  When I addressed the topic of the purposes and work of haiku, I was thinking about the words of a female Native American elder from the far north who I encountered on line while researching a report.  The talk turned to the many troublesome problems in modern day society, and the elder said, "The artists will save us." When I read haiku from around the world, I am frequently made aware of issues that would otherwise elude me.  I might become aware of religious persecution or the effects of war on certain populations about whom I was barely aware.  Sometimes I learn about endangered animals or the destruction of human and animal habitats.  While haiku poets aren't newscasters, the fact that they record small moments means that they sometimes bring you in with them to the places they live and the things they experience.  Sometimes haiku are playful or tongue-in-cheek, but while artists and poets are doing what they do intentionally, might they also provide the function of turning the lights on for the rest of us simply by sharing their art and their perspectives.  I don't think every haiku you read needs to have some sort of social cause to espouse, and yet in my reading I do encounter subjects that expand my awareness of things.  What I wonder is why society keeps poets around? And, I especially wonder what makes the tiny haiku so appealing to so many people around the globe? Rebecca Drouilhet

I've enjoyed reading the discussions and ideas spawned by this topic.  I'm not sure if my own experiences regarding this are what you were looking for when you introduced the topic, but I find that when it comes to reading haiku, I am very interactive.  One of the things I enjoy most about haiku is the intuitive sizzle and the intellectual leap that I experience when I enter a well-crafted haiku.  I appreciate those poets who allow me interpretive space while at the same time giving me enough information to enter the poem.  Some haiku I enter easily, but in other poems I find myself locked outside the poem.  There may be a variety of reasons for this.  Haiku poets today are writing from specific locales all over the globe, and they come from a dizzying array of cultures and educational backgrounds.  When Elizabeth Searle Lamb wrote a haiku about the scrub jay, it had no meaning from me since I had never seen one.  However, when I found a photo of the bird on the internet, I was able to enter the haiku and experience its brilliant plumage along with the poet.  I also found the nightingals's song by typing in nightingale audio.  One poet wrote about a flightless parrot from his home country of New Zealand.  The bird was booming its mating call even as it headed toward the brink of extinction. Only by learning of the bird's native name and habitat did I realize the significance of the poet's work in alerting the rest of us to an endangered species. When I enter a haiku actively, I may use a variety of tools to do so.  When I encounter unfamiliar plants, animals, cultural practices or art works, I use my computer to help transport me into the poems.  As I do so, my world grows larger and more complex just as it does in those haiku I can easily enter.  Still, I have to admit that were it not for newly acquired tools and culture (such as this discussion forum), my ability to interact with haiku would not be as rich or as vibrant.  This causes me to wonder if I am not part woman and part machine as I interact with haiku for I bring not only my own intellect and consciousness to the process of haiku, but also the intellctual wealth and consciousness of many others who contribute to my understanding and enjoyment. 

I find your choice of topic very interesting, and I have enjoyed reading the comments of those who have responded to it.  Without actually intending to do so, I find myself living the way of haiku in a way.  As I go through my day, I'm relaxed yet alert to special moments that seems to have an expanded sense of time, something that arrests my attention or sometimes something that transports me to another place or time.  These everyday experiences are one source of inspiration for me, but there are several others.  I keep haiku journals.  In them, I record haiku available to me on the internet, comments from essays about haiku and my own responses to work I'm encountering.  I also collect haiku philosophies when I find the work of poets who express what they believe to be the heart or the essence of haiku.  I love reading haiku.  Often, I draw inspiration from my favorite haiku poets and their poems.  This week, I am reading the international saijiki by the late William Higginson, Haiku World.  As I read his season words and phases for summer, I'm combining my own experiences with his seasonal references to make new poems.  Sometimes I find EL haiku can become flat or formulaic.  When I need to recharge my creative batteries, I turn to Japanese translations for energy and creative spirit. I recently encountered work by the Gendai poets, and I've been experimenting with using fantastic images in some of my haiku.  I've been reading haiku for quite sometime, but writing for only the last few years.  When it comes to looking for inspiration, I'm still on a journey.  The latest leg of my journey has lead me here.  Thanks for sharing your valuable experiences and insights. Rebecca Drouilhet