The Haiku Foundation Forums

Alan's remark about "maybe GOD..." reminds me of an old Hebrew saying..."Why did GOD create man?  A. Because GOD loves stories!"....   And perhaps that's why we're created in the image of GOD?  This is getting very interesting!   ;)

The hawthorn haiku was not especially great...it was affixed to the photo of the hawthorn tree itself...the idea that the tree itself was a hymn to its own existence and the centuries of meaning that had accumulated around the image brought some fresh insights about Christmas.  Like a haiku the photo itself creates the point of contemplation ... words fail...the image fails...but if the connection arises in a viewer or a reader's mind that can be felt as essential it doesn't matter. 

It has been my experience with haiku that intersect with religious tradition that often the connection is not recognized unless one uses images that have been so worn by religious use that they are virtually useless in haiku.   I find that writing haiku for any "purpose" ends in failure... But that does not exclude in the contemplation of every day simple images... an awareness of the mystery beyond what may be so familiar.   It's important not to apply concepts to what we present...but to be able to present the fleeting moment of the experience.   
    I recently came across a hawthorn tree and this Christmas had a grand time using it in haiku - often to the people in my Church who were not familiar with the many concepts that tree has inspired in the past...but the ones who "got it" seemed to be caregivers for family members enduring cancer treatments.

Lynne, Do you choose your images or do they choose you?  I find that usually I'm not even thinking of haiku but my mind is on something entirely different, or on a drawing I'm doing etc.  when something else will catch my attention and draw me to it... These are the haiku that really seem to resonate with others too.   If I sit down to write haiku, it all comes out more or less like diary entries! of interest only to me.   
   Perhaps that is why I'm not as proficient as many others?  It is probably due to the fact that my life has other avenues of expression and importance that take me in other directions as well.   

Your concept regarding the avoidance of "cliche" has been exceedingly profitable to me in my writing as it begs you to go deeper...to think on different levels and to follow something that's unique and hiding just beyond consciousness.   

I read an interesting comment today: "There are physical laws that give form. But most of what you are has nothing to do with form.  Thus, the laws do not apply."   As far as I'm concerned haiku both is and is beyond poetry... but the essense of haiku is the revelation of some truth or essence that has it's own form...a form that can't be compromise without doing harm to that truth or essence.   Poetry and haiku both are often beyond form or definition.