The Poets Corner
A few days ago a friend asked me what are the three top things I would say to someone who wants to learn to write haiku. This happens to be a topic I have been thinking about recently, so I dove right in with responses.
First, I said, forget about the form of 3 lines with five syllables, seven syllables, and five syllables.
She was shocked! Really? How come?
The number of syllables per line — 5, 7, 5 — is appropriate to the structure of Japanese language. English is in a different language family. The language is structured differently. So, do something short, quick, and compact, but you do not need to count syllables.
Next, close all the haiku books you have or change your computer screen so you are not looking at haiku. It is something inside yourself you will be writing about, not something someone else has done.
Third, get rid of pronouns such as “I,” “me,” “myself.” What you will be writing about is setting a scene for your reader to experience something. Instead of references to what you, the poet, have experienced, keep two things from Japanese haiku tradition. One of them is to be sure to include a season word in each poem.
Season word?
I don’t mean you need to include the words spring, summer, fall, or winter, but include something that evokes a season for a reader. At this time of year, you might mention plum blossoms, or here in California, quince blossoms. Something that blooms in the season related to your poem. Sierra snowstorm. Sharing citrus fruit. Green hillsides. California poppies.
And one last part of that third step about "what to keep and what to get rid of” — include some kind of twist in the third line, something unexpected.
As an example, I used Allen Ginsberg’s translation of Basho’s frog poem — one of Basho’s most well known haiku.
Ginsberg:
The old pond
A frog jumped in,
Kerplunk!
For my money, that translation is the best!
Here’s Alan Watts’ version:
The old pond,
A frog jumps in:
Plop!
Falls flat next to Ginsberg, in my opinion.
Former U.S. Poet Laureate, Robert Hass, translated the poem this way:
The old pond --
a frog jumps in,
sound of water.
Then the friend who asked the question told me she wants to write a haiku for her sister’s birthday. Her sister is 80 this year. The sister who wants to write a haiku is sending the birthday girl 10 roses for each of eight months. She is now on month two, so she has a while to work on it.
It is no easy matter. Sometimes I just give up on haiku and write “short poems.” Alameda poet laureate, Mary Rudge, took me to task for calling the book I edited Tarot Haiku, since few of the poems in that collection stick to traditional haiku form. Mary wouldn’t even go for the term “American Haiku,” though it has been around at least since Jack Kerouac was writing in the 1950s.
Here are two of Kerouac’s short poems that capture the haiku spirit.
frozen
in the birdbath
A leaf
Missing a kick
at the icebox door
It closed anyway.
For me, there is no topic that this style of poetry cannot address. In the Japanese originals, there are descriptive categories — comic short poems, for example, are not in the same category as “haiku,” so, from that perspective, the two Kerouac poems above would be in different categories.
Then there was Jean Fisk’s wonderful evening of painting and poetry together inspired by Japanese poetic form. With examples from her students as background, Jean encouraged us to write on drawings and small paintings — ours of someone else’s. I wrote a poem on a sketch by Semion Mirkin. I liked the drawing (moonlight and cattails). I liked my poem.
From the perspective of what Jean was teaching us, however, my poem did not fly. It included the word “I.” It wouldn’t do. Jean was firm. My poem had too much “I”. Jean had pointed out the all too common problem of too much poet intruding in the poem.
I still like the poem I wrote that night and I still like Semion’s drawing — and I’m still learning from that evening.
Tanya Joyce
Painter, Poet, Pinole Artisan
[email protected]
www.tanyajoyce.com
A few days ago a friend asked me what are the three top things I would say to someone who wants to learn to write haiku. This happens to be a topic I have been thinking about recently, so I dove right in with responses.
First, I said, forget about the form of 3 lines with five syllables, seven syllables, and five syllables.
She was shocked! Really? How come?
The number of syllables per line — 5, 7, 5 — is appropriate to the structure of Japanese language. English is in a different language family. The language is structured differently. So, do something short, quick, and compact, but you do not need to count syllables.
Next, close all the haiku books you have or change your computer screen so you are not looking at haiku. It is something inside yourself you will be writing about, not something someone else has done.
Third, get rid of pronouns such as “I,” “me,” “myself.” What you will be writing about is setting a scene for your reader to experience something. Instead of references to what you, the poet, have experienced, keep two things from Japanese haiku tradition. One of them is to be sure to include a season word in each poem.
Season word?
I don’t mean you need to include the words spring, summer, fall, or winter, but include something that evokes a season for a reader. At this time of year, you might mention plum blossoms, or here in California, quince blossoms. Something that blooms in the season related to your poem. Sierra snowstorm. Sharing citrus fruit. Green hillsides. California poppies.
And one last part of that third step about "what to keep and what to get rid of” — include some kind of twist in the third line, something unexpected.
As an example, I used Allen Ginsberg’s translation of Basho’s frog poem — one of Basho’s most well known haiku.
Ginsberg:
The old pond
A frog jumped in,
Kerplunk!
For my money, that translation is the best!
Here’s Alan Watts’ version:
The old pond,
A frog jumps in:
Plop!
Falls flat next to Ginsberg, in my opinion.
Former U.S. Poet Laureate, Robert Hass, translated the poem this way:
The old pond --
a frog jumps in,
sound of water.
Then the friend who asked the question told me she wants to write a haiku for her sister’s birthday. Her sister is 80 this year. The sister who wants to write a haiku is sending the birthday girl 10 roses for each of eight months. She is now on month two, so she has a while to work on it.
It is no easy matter. Sometimes I just give up on haiku and write “short poems.” Alameda poet laureate, Mary Rudge, took me to task for calling the book I edited Tarot Haiku, since few of the poems in that collection stick to traditional haiku form. Mary wouldn’t even go for the term “American Haiku,” though it has been around at least since Jack Kerouac was writing in the 1950s.
Here are two of Kerouac’s short poems that capture the haiku spirit.
frozen
in the birdbath
A leaf
Missing a kick
at the icebox door
It closed anyway.
For me, there is no topic that this style of poetry cannot address. In the Japanese originals, there are descriptive categories — comic short poems, for example, are not in the same category as “haiku,” so, from that perspective, the two Kerouac poems above would be in different categories.
Then there was Jean Fisk’s wonderful evening of painting and poetry together inspired by Japanese poetic form. With examples from her students as background, Jean encouraged us to write on drawings and small paintings — ours of someone else’s. I wrote a poem on a sketch by Semion Mirkin. I liked the drawing (moonlight and cattails). I liked my poem.
From the perspective of what Jean was teaching us, however, my poem did not fly. It included the word “I.” It wouldn’t do. Jean was firm. My poem had too much “I”. Jean had pointed out the all too common problem of too much poet intruding in the poem.
I still like the poem I wrote that night and I still like Semion’s drawing — and I’m still learning from that evening.
Tanya Joyce
Painter, Poet, Pinole Artisan
[email protected]
www.tanyajoyce.com