Poetry (part 2)

Haiku is the dark chocolate of poetry, in my mind and I treat it much the same. One haiku a day, every day. On rare occasions, I spend a whole day working haiku.

In the beginning, the English haiku was made up of 3 lines containing 17 syllables, 5-7-5 beats per line. That was how I learned to write haiku. Many websites now define haiku as 10-15 syllables in 3 lines, 2-3-2 beats per line. Other guidelines: reference nature, reference season, use strong sensory images, be in the present

Haiku is spare, almost stark. I like that. It’s strong, clean of excess word, thought or emotion. It reminds me of the book, Not Quite What I Was Planning. Six words that boil down your life to the essence. A haiku boils an experience down in much the same way. Gives you that dark, rich hit of chocolate, full of a moment in nature.

Some think the restrictions of haiku strangles inspiration and creativity. I don’t. I like working with the guidelines, trying to find a way for my writing to bloom in the small confines I’ve been given. It is a challenge that stirs my imagination and fires my mind.

For me the very best time to write haiku is when I’m on vacation. We vacation in the Uintas, surrounded by nature. In a way it is simple note-taking: what I see, hear, feel, touch, smell, sense, but because I limit myself to the haiku form I find I’m more concise, stark. In the evenings I rewrite these sparse note-taking haiku to fit more perfectly into haiku form.

When I return home, I have a wonderful detailed description of my vacation, I have drafts of great haiku and more importantly, I have a starting point for longer poems or essays or details for novels or stories. Something about the form has boiled the experience into something dark and rich and addictive.

Give haiku a try. If for nothing more than a change.