The Librarian’s Cache – Haiku as Therapy
Below are selections from the Digital Library that discuss haiku’s potential to promote psychological growth and understanding and improve mental health.
The Role of Haiku in Poetry Therapy by George Swede – The Role of Haiku In Poetry Therapy is a chapter in George Swede’s collection of essays, The Modern English Haiku (Columbine Editions, 1981).
Journal of Dementia Care Articles – Two articles on haiku as a therapeutic tool by Canadian health care professional and poet Philomene Kocher
“Their Capacity to Delight:” Knowing Persons with Dementia through Haiku – Poetry and music have both been shown to help build bridges to the minds of those with dementia. This essay explores using haiku to nurture the capacities of those with dementia.
Field: A Haiku Circle – Don Eulert, one of the founding editors of English-language haiku’’s first journal, American Haiku, teaches psychology to aspiring doctors using haiku . Field includes 365 haiku, written one per day over the period of a year, with an introductory essay by the author and a brief bio of the author.
English Language Death Awareness Haiku – In this discursive meditation on death and haiku about mortality, psychologist and haiku poet Robert Epstein discusses various ways to approach the idea and experience of death in haiku.
Also, the theme of the forthcoming 2022 issue of Juxta will focus on haiku and its relationship with wellness.
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Thank you for these resources. I am a haijin and a Writing for Well-being Practitioner and I appreciate that haiku/senryu can be very useful for our own well being and that of others. My personal journal tends to look something like a rambling haibun… the haiku being the ‘insightful’ moments. I will pass this link on to some of my colleagues.