The Librarian’s Cache – How to Haiku
The Haiku Foundation’s website and Digital Library have excellent resources, guides, manuals, etc. on the art of writing haiku. I am sure I have missed some of these so please let me know of others that should be added to the list.
Be sure to check out Julie Bloss Kelsey’s New to Haiku feature which is “a space specially designed for those of you just starting out on the journey of haiku.” Some recent articles include:
Advice for Beginners – M. Shane Pruett, A Brief Introduction to Scifaiku and The Elements and Craft of Haiku – Terri L. French.
Guides in the Digital Library that discuss various aspects of composing haiku include:
How to Haiku – An introduction to the writing of haiku by Jim Kacian, one of the premier practitioners of the art writing in English today.
Haiku Techniques – Jane Reichhold offers a clear summary, with examples, of several well recognized haiku techniques.
The Haiku Life – A description of tools and techniques for editing haiku learned from 4 years as Frogpond co-editors.
Essays on haiku composition include:
Dagosan’s Haiku Primer – In this short essay, David Giacalone raises the question of haiku definitions and discusses various problems it raises. He ends by advocating George Swede’s approach to definition and giving a short list of things haiku poets ought to bear in mind when composing.
The Disjunctive Dragonfly: A Study of Disjunctive Methodology in Contemporary English Haiku – A groundbreaking essay on modern English haiku by Richard Gilbert.
Haiku Toolbox: Synesthesia – In this essay, Paul Miller offers an indepth discussion of the technique of synesthesia in haiku..
Jewel in the Crown: How Form Deepens Meaning in English-Language Haiku – In this essay, Patricia Machmiller surveys various strategies for arranging haiku lines to increase their impact.
Master Basho’s Spirit – “The following lesson introduces haiku from scratch, and by the end of it pupils are in a position to write good haiku of their own.”
A Primer of Organic Form – “Organic form is an oxymoron — form implies a repeatable technique, and organic suggests shape devised for a specific instance. This brief booklet is a primer of how to marry the two together: how to use pace to control a verbal experience to achieve a desired result. Organic shape is the last (largely) unexplored means of presenting haiku, and a challenge to the poet as viewer as well as writer.”
The Sword of Cliché: Choosing a Topic – David Grayson in this brief essay discusses factors that are important to consider in choosing a topic to write about.
