Poetic Adventure Week 3: haiku

Navigating the world of haiku in English

Dearest Readers,

How has the last week treated you? Here the seasons are changing, and characteristically the wind has become stronger. I am happy winter is ending and my bare neighbourhood tree looks poised to sprout its first leaves. I know, it will soon be unbearably hot, and we will be complaining about that too but we’ll deal with that when we come to that bridge.

Here are the poems shared by some of our readers for last week. Do read their wonderful poems here:

• let’s say we’re different

• A heroins journey/Land of hope and glory

• A Course in Fancy Words

Each week’s poetic adventure is unique and can be attempted in any order. So, you can still join in for the next 8 weeks, even if you haven’t started yet. Or, you can hop in and hop out only for one week. The choice is yours.

Coming back to the seasons, we will be diving into ‘the world of haiku’ today. Though I am not a haiku expert, and will probably never be, I would like to call myself a haiku practitioner—someone who is trying to use the form regularly, and in the process continues to learn. I frequent the pages of Triveni Haikai India and have learnt a lot from the people there. I have been writing haiku, tanka and haibun for 2-3 years now, and in today’s adventure, I intend to share a bit of what I know about writing ‘English language’ haiku.

NOT 5-7-5!

First, let us get what it is not, out of the way. Japanese haiku usually contain the 5-7-5 sounds(not syllables). However, haiku written in English by contemporary haiku practitioners do not follow the 5-7-5 syllable count. What????!!! I am sure this comes as a surprise to some of you and raises a flurry of questions. Then, how do you write haiku? Is it just three short lines? How do you identify a haiku? I hope to answer these questions with a few examples.

The Cut, the Season, and the long and the short of it

For this adventure, I will be using some of my published haiku as examples. Here is my winning haiku from ONLY POEMS:

It was first published here.

road trip—

a whiff of marigold

before the marigold

This is what the editor wrote about it:

“Namratha Varadharajan’s haiku captivated me with its masterful manipulation of time and anticipation. In eleven syllables, we have a complete sensory experience of a fleeting moment, mirroring the quick way in which scent travels through a car window. What I love most is the cadence the repetition of “marigold” creates — and the repetition itself is brilliant — the first instance ephemeral, the second concrete — perfectly capturing that delicious moment of anticipation meeting reality. This is what the best haiku do: they make us pause, breathe, and experience the world anew.”

*I’m still jumping for this note!**smiles**had to share it**ok, moving on*

Haiku uses Seasonal references or kigo:

A word or phrase that points towards a season ranging from food, events, festivals, plants, etc is the kigo in a haiku. The seasonal references are local, i.e a kigo in Japan will be different from the one in India, to the one in Australia. A dictionary of kigo words is called a saijiki and a couple of saijiki are given below. Please feel free to browse them and come back.

Japanese saijiki with North American seasonal words added:

https://yths.org/season-word-list/

Indian Saijiki:

https://www.trivenihaikai.in/indian-saijiki

These are not exhaustive lists but they give you an idea of the possibilities.

In the ‘road trip’ haiku, the seasonal word is marigold. In India, marigolds bloom in summer and fall but they are most prominently seen during the autumn festivals like Navratri and Dussehra, which are considered the peak season for their usage.

Here is another example:

monsoon evening

plastic-covered heads

hurry home

(first published in Poetry Pea)

Can you identify the kigo in this?

Haiku has a cut or a kire:

The kire cuts the haiku into 2 parts/phrases: one short and one long. The kire is one of the most important parts of a haiku, without which it would only be a sentence. Referring back to our first example,

phrase one : road trip (short)

phrase two: a whiff of marigold

before the marigold (long)

These are 2 distinct images, juxtaposed together.

Here is another example:

still pond—

a koi dimples

the tree's reflection

(first published in haikuKATHA)

Can you identify the 2 parts?

Note how the cut is achieved. Sometimes, we use punctuation to show the cut, but most haiku practitioners know where the cut is without the punctuation. The most commonly used punctuation in haiku are em-dash (—) and the (… ).

While you are at it, note how each part or phrase presents a distinct and different image and how these images are juxtaposed against each other.

“This juxtaposition of two images is the heart of the haiku.”

Here are some more things to keep in mind when writing a haiku:

Use your 5 senses:

When writing your haiku, try to incorporate your five senses: what you see, what you hear, what you taste, what you smell, what you touch, into it. Bring the reader to the moment, using the senses.

Consider this.

babbling brook

the mynah sings

the higher notes

Did you hear it?

Use concrete images in the haiku - instead of ‘abstract’.

Words like fear, love, beauty, etc are generally not used in a haiku. Instead, the feeling is conveyed through the use of concrete images.

Consider this:

push and shove

in the temple line…

a prayer for shanti

(first published in haikuKATHA)

Note that this is not a haiku, but a senryu because it talks about human behaviour and does not have a seasonal reference or connection to nature. But, that is a discussion for another time.

Make room for the reader. Make the reader feel. Make it reader think

The best haiku are those which leave room for interpretations, that take on new meanings and convey different experiences when you re-read the haiku.

Consider this:

thousands of pigeons—

I follow the call

of a lone bulbul

(first published in Poetry Pea)

I will leave it up to you to interpret.

Last Words:

This is an intro to haiku, and there are so many more intricacies in writing a haiku. The only way to write haiku is to read a lot of haiku. The haiku rules are rules which usually broken often by those who write haiku but you need to know them to break them. And remember, there is no word called ‘haikus’, it is always ‘haiku’.

PROMPT FOR THE WEEK:

Write a haiku. Look around, go for a walk. Observe the weather and the change in seasons. Use the kire and the kigo. Juxtapose the two images to create a meaning that is larger than the sum of the 2. Use your senses to write the haiku. Incorporate movement in your haiku. But remember, there are no wrong answers in poetry, so, have fun! You can share more than one haiku with us. Post your haiku in the comments or share the link to your haiku, and we would love to read them.

If you want more information or links to deepen your knowledge of haiku, do feel free to ping me. I have loads of links I could share with you.

See you next week,

Be kind,

Namratha