Haiku about hope
i tend my garden / as a meditation. hope / in a broken world
here there is not thirst / from the stone the water flows / inexhaustible
Haiku about art
no theory no word / no intent. i was taken / by the song alone
so cruel these fine tools / the kill jar and the glass case / for the butterflies
the rising music / promises even weary / souls can fly away
Haiku about the city
in the grand station / the undulating echoes / an ocean of sound
on the steel blue glass / a hushed jet slips and shivers / the city dreaming
Haiku about December
a low stone grey sky / the cold heavy on our bones / faint lights in the dusk
in the still grey dawn / the falling snow is ashes / from the burning year
Haiku about darkness
sit close, drink the wine / the stronghold of love will stand / against all assault
our fear is their strength / these secrets we imprison / in our tyrant hearts
before the long night / there is still time for poets / to speak one true word
Haiku about joy
let your laughter rise / through the velvet evening sky / and delight the moon
joy is a bubble / a shimmering rainbow world / lighter than the air
The 5-7-5 syllable structure of haiku in English approximates the seventeen mora of haiku in Japanese. The equivalence is not exact because a mora is a unit of sound, and it is common in English for one syllable to contain two mora. Diphthongs, which have two vowel sounds in a single syllable, are an example.
For traditional haiku in English, it is common to divide the poem into two parts using a cutting word. The first part presents an image from nature. The second part comments on the first, in an implicit rather than explicit fashion, often using a second image. These are the typical rules of haiku.
As you have probably noticed, I follow the 5-7-5 syllable format and ignore the other rules when it suits me. I often find it useful to divide the poem in two and place a break at the end of a line, as haiku that follow the rules do. This is a good solution to the challenges of the format and can yield good results.
I also find it useful to break the poem in the middle of the line, as the last haiku in this collection does to place the emphasis on the word “hope”:
i tend my garden
as a meditation. hope
in a broken world
Breaking the poem into two parts isn’t the only solution to the haiku format. Another solution is to make a single statement, which you can organize into clean phrases (see “before the long night” above) or use enjambment to jump across the lines like this:
the rising music
promises even weary
souls can fly away
In this haiku, much of its effect comes from wanting the words “music” and “promises” and “weary” and “souls” to sit in the same lines. The enjambment creates a feeling of motion and flight. The break between “weary” from “souls” is particularly important to this effect.
This analysis leads to an interesting question. If I don’t follow the constraints of the 5-7-5 format, do we get a better poem?
the rising music promises
even weary souls
can fly away
I’m not sure this version is better but it has a different feeling: stillness, calm, and certainty rather than the feeling of motion. This poem is an example of how the haiku format, like any poetic format, influences the results.
Finally, three equal lines – independent but interrelated – are a solution to the 5-7-5 syllable count, like this haiku from the December section:
a low stone grey sky
the cold heavy on our bones
faint lights in the dusk
This is my favorite solution because I find these haiku the most difficult to write and because they yield results closer to painting or photography than poetry. There’s no meaning in this haiku, but rather space for the reader to decide the message of the poem for herself. There is image, mood, and feeling. A portrait of a moment of consciousness without comment.
This leads me to a related topic. One of the requirements of traditional haiku is that the meaning is implied not stated. Meaning should be there but it should sit in the tantalizing distance, a dazzling insight or deeper feeling waiting to be discovered by the reader, if she is clever enough.
I think this is the result of restricting haiku to the subject of nature, which offers us beauty, mystery, wonder, awe, and terror but no information about its meaning or purpose. Nature is a fact. It expresses no opinion on why it exists. And haiku about nature, respecting their subject, should express no opinion either.
Clearly, I don’t follow this rule. Not so much from stubborn contrariness (although doubtlessly there is some of that too) but from the desire to write a poem that hasn’t been written before. Which means I often prefer to make direct statements in my haiku or no statement at all.
This is also the effect of expanding my subject beyond nature to human experience. The mountains may not have opinions but we do, and we can keep ourselves very busy expressing them. Which explains the tension in much of my work. The quiet acceptance you find in traditional haiku is a kind of wisdom. Fool that I am, I’m still banging on the door of consciousness, demanding answers, demanding whatever is behind that door to open up.
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