Haiku for people who don’t understand Japanese but like to write in English

INTRODUCTION

Let me lay my cards on the table right now! This is not an academic essay about haiku and neither is it an informed history. It will not explore the correct way to write haiku according to any set school of writing. It is not even really about how to write haiku at all. I am not going to teach you anything new, though on the way you may discover something new for yourself.

I am writing for those who like to write in English simply because that is the language I know best. There are things that work in English that may not work quite the same way as in say French or Russian, or Welsh. But I use the word English very loosely. Canadians, Americans, Australians, the Scots, speakers of pigeon or South African English all share something of the same language, though sometimes we may well wonder at each other's choice of words!

In these pages I want simply to share with you how I experience haiku so that for a while you can see haiku through my imagination. In your looking through my eyes you should find that you begin to see more clearly through your own and in so doing, find out how you can write haiku that works for you. For as you can only become a good cook by doing cooking, I believe you only become a good haiku poet by doing haiku. On the way, the cook has to learn what tastes good or bad. And so it is with the poet.

It may be that some of what you read will irritate or annoy you! You may well find you want to argue the rights and wrongs of what I write. That is well and good. In arguing you will find out what you really believe to be true and what works for you. But always remember this is how it is for me, right now. This is my experience. These are my eyes. You are free to borrow them but not to poke them out! You want to tell me that is a cop out? Perhaps it is! But I promise you no less and no more than this: in reading these articles, you will see haiku through my eyes. If you don’t like it, go look through someone else’s; or even your own!

If you are still with me, here is your first task (no reading the next session till you have spent a bit of time on this!)

Grab a notebook and write down your answer to this question. In your opinion, what is Haiku?

Now, don’t you start complaining that the question isn’t grammatical! It is no worse than the statement that theologians make (or used to), that God is. Not God is anything but simply that God is. So back to the question. What is Haiku? And no looking for definitions on the Internet or in a textbook. I want your personal answer in that notebook, not someone else’s. Oh – and no need to tell me what you write, though of course my curiosity would be appeased if you cared to do so. So, back to that notebook…

What is Haiku?

07/06/2004

Posted on 07/06/2004
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