Getting Started With Haiku - Part 2
Reading Guide
Extending Your Understanding
Writing HaikuContributions by Yoko SugawaSharing Your Work
'One Exercise' by Tim Russell
Alison Williams' 'Rules'
When ten poets each endeavour to write about an ant, the result should be ten different ant haiku. If any of these haiku resemble another, the poet has only been observing the ant superficially or has based their haiku on their preconceptual image of an ant. Let us look not at our ants but rather into them. Surely the ant will speak to us. Ah!! Now quickly write down what caused that feeling of discovery. This is your ant and yours alone. Your "ant" must now be expressed in a fixed poetic form. In Japanese a count of 17 syllables (5,7,5) is used. This expression should be in your own words, as they come naturally to you. If your haiku has captured a Truth, there is no need to decorate your poem with flowery words. One should, however, keep in mind some of the main characteristics of haiku.
One cannot make good haiku simply by going about one's life in a day-to-day fashion. It is necessary to hone one's senses to the world around one and take an interest in all things great and small.
- To state without stating. In order to say ten things a haiku presents only two. Due to its length, every word is of the utmost importance.
- A haiku is like a cross-section which gives the observer a new perspective and restimulates their thoughts on the object as a whole.
- When juxtaposing one must be careful that the two elements do not fit together too well. Their relationship must be "surprising".
- Seasonal words (kigo) are very important to haiku. However in the modern world where the seasons have lost much of their omnipotency and where we wish to share our haiku internationally a more relaxed stance on kigo may be called for. Kigo need not necessarily place a haiku in any particular season but could rather be included simply to relate the haiku to the natural world.
'On making Haiku'
The key to making haiku is that when something of the natural world causes one to start in suprise and revelation and without delay one captures the moment in verse, one must be sure that this discovery, this shock caused by an encounter with a Truth is yours and yours alone. Throw away all preconceptions and predetermined ideas about the object and experience it as if you were a young child. In doing this, one is able to catch pure and fundamental Truths in nature and through this discover Truths within oneself and humankind in general. Rather than try to explain explicitly the correct way to make haiku, let us look at some of the common non-haiku that are often found trying to masquerade as the real thing.
The most common offenders are types 2 & 7. The above non-haiku are the kind that led to the corruption of haiku in the generations before Basho, before Buson and before Shiki. It is our mission to prevent this corruption from taking hold again in our times.
- Photographic descriptions of nature (objective "shasei")
- Straight facts and common knowledge devoid of emotion
- Pieces containing too much religion or intellectualism (non-literary)
- Simple descriptions or accounts (prose)
- Explanatory pieces leaving nothing for readers to discover for themselves
- Rampant metaphors springing from the intellect
- Pieces hiding their lack of content through ambiguity in language
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
HaikuOz thanks Yoko Sugawa for permission to distribute her articles to its members.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
This is a training exercise. It helps condition the muscles necessary for making haiku.
Write down what month this is.
Next to the month write another single word that names or indicates some feature of today (sun, rain, moon, clouds, wind, whatever).
Now look out the window, or go outside.
Without thinking too much (or at all, if you can manage) write a short description of any detail you see (any thing and/or any action).
Look in another direction. Write a short description of any detail you see (thing and/or action).
Turn your head and write down another detail.
Do this at least 7 more times.
Really.
When you have at least ten (TEN) little descriptive phrases, none of them longer than a single short sentence, please, go to a comfortable spot and choose one of your phrases and write part of it on the line immediately beneath the line you wrote when you first started.
Write the rest of your chosen phrase on the line beneath that one.
Skip a line.
Write down the same month and the same detail of today you used on the first line.
Write part of one of the remaining phrases on the next line.
Write the rest of that phrase on the following line.
Do this until you run out of phrases.
This is only an exercise, not a test. Do not pass any judgements on yourself, on your performance, or on what you have written. Do the best you can.
November treesPut this sheet of paper with at least ten (TEN) little balls of words out of sight. You do not need to think about them at all for a while.
shadows stretching all the way
across the lawn
November trees
a white car speeding along
the river road
Tomorrow, repeat this exercise. Completely. Don't think.
Really.
The day after tomorrow, repeat this exercise. Don't think.
On the fourth day, after you complete your exercise, take out the first sheet and read it several times (three or four is enough), and put it away.
On the fifth day, read the second sheet.
In one week, a single week, just seven days, you will have taught yourself more about haiku than it's possible for anyone else to teach you.
Really.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
HaikuOz thanks Tim Russell for permission to distribute this article to its members.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
As with definitions, a set of 'rules' is a help and comfort when you begin writing haiku. Hopefully, you will soon progress to a stage where you don't need them, when you will throw them away. Years ago when Alison Williams devised the following rules for her own use, she drew heavily on her early readings of R.H. Blyth's four volumes.
Alison Williams shares her 'Rules' for Writing Haiku
haiku should be -
1. Real.
Of real experience, preferably here and now, sometimes calling on memories, but nothing purely imaginary.
2. Of the senses.
Direct sensations/perceptions of the world and humanity. A 'moment' of significant perception often caused by a juxtaposition or contrast.
3. In the present.
Written as if happening now, and including something (season word?) to anchor it in the world, to show the context.
4. Concise.
Short and to the point, with a suitable rhythm or flow. No waffle or rambling! No extraneous words!
5. Simple.
Uncomplicated by intellect, emotion or ornament. No clever stuff, wordplay, puns, rhyme, or frills!
6. Non-judgmental.
Accepting of what is, rather than saying what I think about it. Objective (if that's humanly possible) even when looking at the self.
7. Concrete.
About real things and real people, rather than abstractions or philosophy.
8. Ordinary.
Concerned with the everyday, not with the grand or beautiful or with extremes.
9. (Ma!)
Including a small pause for thought, or space for silence.
When considering how she might update these 'rules', Alison mentions concision (no change there), truthfulness (implied in several of the original 'rules') but also, an element of surprise (which is only hinted at in rule 2) and a sense of something more beyond the surface meaning of things -- hints of things there aren't words for, allusions etc.
However, I've seen, at close hand, her original rules work for a beginner. I commend them to you.
HaikuOz thanks Alison for permission to distribute her rules. ... jb (editor)
Hi Kim, index to Part 2 beginning of Getting Started... poetry with john bird |
Introduction
Reaching OutThe MagicSharing Your Work
Thumbnail History
Definitions
Learn to Read #1
Selections
Reading Guide
Extending Your Understanding
Writing HaikuContributions by Yoko Sugawa
'One Exercise' by Tim Russell
Alison Williams' 'Rules'
Learn to Read #2
Suggestions for Further Study