The Magic

So you want to learn haiku?
Can you live in a world so crowded with moons, cherry blossoms and fireflies that the bilby is barely visible?
A world where the seasons are all jumbled up?
Can you still your life, at least for a moment?

Haiku comes with the baggage, and the succor, of a tradition ground out over hundreds of years. As haiku in English takes root in western cultures its DNA still carries the genes of Japan;
how can it not and still be haiku?

Haiku is a social activity; it arouses passion yet welds strong bonds within the world haiku community. It's the fastest growing poetic genre in the western world, accelerating with the Internet.
Yet, haiku remains companion to the solitary bushwalker.
It could become home to the bilby.

Like other poetic genre, haiku has been used to sell junk food, recruit soldiers and send birthday greetings. But I hope haiku becomes more than a word game, for you. At the very least, it is a legitimate literary genre.

Many find a spiritual dimension to haiku. May you be so lucky.

Thumbnail History of Haiku
Janice M Bostok

As we transplant the haiku into western soil we need to be aware of its birth and long history in Japan. The good haijin studies haiku traditions. For now, we have this thumbnail history povided by Janice. ...jb(ed)

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It is believed that the haiku as we know it today developed from the ancient Japanese form of tanka. The tanka in turn is thought to adapted from the ancient Chinese poem called waka.

Before the 8th Century the tanka was divided into a 5-7 (break) 5-7-7 symbol pattern. Later, the break was at 5-7-5 (break) 7-7, which is how most writers today would recognise the tanka lines. To distinguish this time of development when tanka was written by two people, we now call the poem the tan renga -- which loosely means 'short linked poem'. It was like a game or a pastime in the Emperor's Court. One official would write the first part of the linked poem (which was like a riddle) and then send it to another official who was expected to write the answering verse or the capping lines.

This pastime was taken very seriously in the Emperor's Court and if one didn't provide a witty or a beautiful poetic reply one was disgraced! It was thought to refuse to answer was preferable to supplying a poorly composed reply.

The linked verse began to grow longer and longer until they were made up of 36, 50, 100, 500, or 1,000 verses of alternate symbol patterns. These long poems were called haikai-no-renga. Haikai means 'playful' or 'comic'.

It was by the 10th Century that the fashion changed and the break in the tanka 5-7-5 (break) 7-7 symbol sounds. This was important for haiku.

The first verse or starting verse of the haikai-no-renga then became a poem in three parts of 5-7-5 symbol sounds. This verse was called the hokku. This is where we get the haiku form.

The haikai-no-renga, because of its nature--that of being written by more than one person--became merely a game of one-upmanship. Over the years it became low tone and relied on wit and vulgarity.

In the 17th Century, Matsuo Basho a Japanese, who was to become a master poet, lived from 1644-1694. He developed the starting verse or hokku into a poem in its own right. In the beginning it was simply called the hokku. Later it was called the haikai, from the title of the full linked poem haikai-no-renga. Later again; and today, it is called the haiku. Shiki renamed the hokku, haiku late in the 19th Century.

The Education Committee of the Haiku Society of America produced a packet, "Resources for Teachers". I quote from their statement of learning objectives:

In order to understand haiku as a literary genre, we believe that students need to learn first how to read haiku.

Here's one approach to this essential skill. I hope it works for you.

1. Read with the intention of developing your sensitivity to the haiku genre and empathy with the particular haiku before you.

2. Read only quality haiku, particularly translations of the masters — for now, stay away from workshops and haiku written by friends.

3. Be aware of the background culture of the poet. An itinerant priest in rural Japan in the 18th century? A Sydney stockbroker this year? It makes a difference.

4. Read in short sessions of, say, 10 haiku and give yourself over totally to each haiku in turn.

5. Identify the point where the haiku turns or shifts perspective. Pause there while you imagine and enter the scene; only then go on to read the rest of the haiku and to let it play against the first part. Exaggerate the pause and let your expectation build. (If you can't readily identify where the haiku turns, move on to the next one.)

6. If a haiku doesn't grab you or you don't 'get it', then move on. Don't spend time analysing anything you don't immediately connect with -- that comes later.

7. When a haiku especially appeals to you:

a) Read it aloud and let the haiku guide the tempo, pause, stress and inflection of your voice. Experiment with different ways of reading it aloud.
b) Identify which of your senses the haiku uses.
c) Appreciate what is conveyed but is not explicit in the haiku.
d) Identify the mood it brings to you — loneliness, austere beauty, revelation of a new insight, sympathy, humour... But don't analyse how that's achieved.

8. Finish each session on a 'winner' and carry it with you through your day.

~ learn the skill and joy of reading haiku before trying to write it ~

... jack

BASHO

    this road ~
no traveller here
    at autumn dusk



    lightning ~
into darkness plunges
    a night-heron's cry



    above the moor ~
clear of all things
    a singing lark



    the sun's path ~
hollyhocks bend with it
    in the May rains

BUSON

    near and far
waterfall sounds are heard
    new leaves ~



    mountain dimming
the red of autumn leaves
    caught in it ~



    the outlaw
chief chants a song ~
    tonight's moon

ISSA

    plain stick gate ~
instead of a lock
    the snail



    snow thawing
the village fills with
    children ~



    the back gate
opens of itself
    a long day ~

SHIKI

    mountain village ~
from the snow drift's depths
    water-sounds



    wet feet
of a sparrow along
    the covered way ~



    people gone
fireworks over
    the darkness ~

BONCHO

    a shrike's cry ~
light slants through
    the red pine grove

CHIYO

    picked up things
all begin squirming ~
    ebb-tide beach

TAIGI

    bridge down
people on the bank ~
    summer moon

RYOKAN

    fire-building
the wind comes with
    fallen leaves ~

KYOSHI

    wet porch
from nowhere
    fallen petals ~

HEKIGODO

    the void is clawed
by a dead crab ~
    cloud peaks

RYOTA

    May rains ~
one night secretly
    a pine-tree's moon

JOSO

    a thatcher
turns to face the sea
    winter rain ~

pregnant again ...
the fluttering of moths
against the window

Janice M. Bostok

fetching firewood
i open the door
to moonlight

Janice M. Bostok

winter rain
on river mudflats -- an ibis
with hunched shoulders

Alma E Bird

Slightly more solid
than the twilight, kangaroos
crossing the firebreak.

Andrew Lansdown

an attic window sill
a wasp curls
into its own dust

Alan Summers

    round the point
swing lights of a car ~
    wild seas

Bob Jones

    daffodils ~
I stand at dad's grave
    in his suit

Bob Jones

an owl hoots
   floating in the pond
   Alpha Centauri

Carla Sari

the sound of water
          swans
stepping into flight

Cecily Stanton

In between rains,
the smell of the garden
decomposing.

Diana Levy

suburban street -
only the untended patch
has autumn berries

Katherine Gallagher

quarrelling with him
I leave the room---
both dogs follow me

Gloria Yates

On my hands now,
grandmother's
sunspots

John Knight

from the smell of dust
frogs call
breaking the drought

Jacqui Murray

night rain
I snuggle deeper
into the sound

Jean Rasey

  walking along the beach
my shadow
still young

Katherine Samuelowicz

flying fish
its wings spread
even in death

Dhugal Lindsay

the ancient pond
no-one knows how deep it runs...
water strider

Dhugal Lindsay

  evening worship
in the silence between chants
magpie carolling

Lyn Reeves

for an hour
the moon hangs
with the singlets

Ross Clark

veranda bed
corrugated sky &
nailhole stars

Ross Clark

      eucalypt saplings
filling each shade patch
        one kangaroo

Sue Mill

in the cat's mouth
the cicada
keeps on singing

Vanessa Proctor