Circus and Haiku

On my Orange Orb blog at Word Press, I wrote a post about a dream I had involving the world of the weird (which is what the Orange Orb blog is about) and haiku. Who knew such things could be connected? In my subconscious, they often are. Circus and Haiku: A Positive Omen for Creativity?

Jack Kerouac Blues and Haiku

Love Kerouac's haiku. Here he is reading his work, accompanied by wailing sax and such: Kerouac Blues and Haiku on YouTube.

Haibun and Modern Haiku Publication

Years ago, I subscribed to Modern Haiku. I recently re-subscribed, and the issue arrived the other day. Beautiful.

While I've been writing a lot of haiku again the past couple of years, I hadn't pursued various publications, other haiku poets, or my own submission/publication goals. But I'm back to it!

Along with my rediscovered exploration, I've been writing Haibun. Haibun is a short (anywhere from 20 to 300 words) (more or less) poem, essay, narrative, memory, recollection, prose piece, autobiography, micro-story, poem, and ending with a haiku. The Haibun can have a title.

Several things about this form I love. There is 'Zen zone' between the end of the haibun and the haiku. The haiku is not a linear conclusion. It stands alone, as does the haibun. But they also go together.

The haibun needs to be descriptive, sensory, detailed, succinct, non-repetitive.

I have a Haibun work-in-progress. It's not finished; this is the second draft. It started out as a poem, but I've been re-working it to fit into the Haibun form.

Bronson Caves, Hollywood California 1969

My father -- Big D we called him -- was an amateur photographer. He'd develop his photographs in our living room; trays of smelly solutions transforming paper into black and white images. Big D would develop horrible cracks, peeling skin, on his hands from the chemicals. He gave me his Olympus camera. I felt important, proud, and loved taking photos of the L.A. art museum on Wilshire, billboards, cemeteries. But then he took it back. My dad was also an actor and ex-child performer in the Tom Mix circus. He was killed in an episode of Gunsmoke, the naive and well-meaning young cowboy shot dead by the villain. He rehearsed a role from the Ice Man Cometh in our living room, scaring the shit out of me with his emotional coldness. He directs me telling me to scrams as I run through caves at Bronson Park. "Again!" he yells. My screaming is not sincere enough. I try again, running, shrieking . . . "Stop!" commands Big D. "Do it once more ... really act like you're frightened." Jesus Dad, I'm scared every goddamn day. What the fuck? But I do it again. And again. Still, it doesn't take. 

a narrow cave

ochre walls

dim light

________________

So that's the work in progress. Another version of the haiku at the end:

a narrowing cave

ochre walls crumble

at the end -- a glow

I've written three Haibun so far. The first two I'm very happy with, but can't post them here since I'll be submitting them to Haibun.com and Modern Haiku.

The one I've published here; I get happier with it as I work with it, but it's not quite there yet. As far as the haiku goes, they give off different feelings. The first one, closer to what I was feeling and the overall emotion of the Haibun. The second, is a little more hopeful. I think I'll stick with the first one.

NaHaWriMo: Stop with the 5-7-5 Haiku!

“The term syllable is an inaccurate way of describing the actual metrical units of Japanese poetry.”

        —Haruo Shirane, in his introduction to Kōji Kawamoto’s The Poetics of Japanese Verse (Tokyo: University of Tokyo Press, 2000)

“I don’t think counting 5,7,5 syllables is necessary or desirable. To reflect the natural world, and the season, is to reflect what is.” 

        —Gary Snyder

Indeed, the point of the “no 5-7-5” NaHaiWriMo logo is to emphasize that it’s a widespread misunderstanding to think of haiku merely as anything written in 5-7-5 syllables. Remember, 5-7-5 does not a haiku make. (NaHaiWriMo.com)

Oh I love this article! As I love the website. NaHaiWriMo --- haiku that does not follow the entrenched idea among westerners that haiku must be 5-7-5. Three lines that must have 5 syllables in the first line, 7 in the second, and 5 in the third.

I am an educator. I cringe and freak every time a well meaning teacher teaches their class about haiku. Students happily write haiku, following the mandate they're taught from the beginning: haiku has to have three lines of 5-7-5.

It's frustrating to have students, excited by the idea of haiku, become stuck in the 'right way' to create a haiku. After all, their teachers taught them that. Trying to gently teach them otherwise -- students and adults -- is difficult. That's when I pull rank; I'm a published haiku poet, etc. Still, I get suspicious looks, as if I'm not really correct and am somehow misinformed about all this.

The NaHaiWriMo site has an excellent article on why 5-7-5 is not the goal of writing haiku. It is not the 'rule.' 

Next to the fountain

next to the fountain
patina on the Buddha
moss covering stone




regan lee
july 2017/eugene

Patina on the Buddha

next to the fountain

patina on the Buddha

moss covering stone

regan lee

july 2017/eugene

Two Haiku

watching the water
vibrate in the singing bowl
a sudden breeze

cutting lavender

purple flowers shimmering

in summer twilight

regan lee/june 2017

haiku: Pale Beige Room

the pale peach-beige room
reeking of dog, sweat and heat
after three years, death

squirrel-orange

president elect

squirrel-orange is the new black

hard rain's gonna fall

regan lee

decemeber 2016

oregon

found poem haiku/senryu

in search of a look

i ate cottage cheese for seven days

the night the city screamed

regan lee
june 20015

iris haiku

in between the stones
glimpses of cream and purple
the tiny iris


~ regan lee
april 2015

the middle of town

wild turkeys visiting

watching from rooftops

~ regan lee

eugene, oregon

april 2015

haiku

teacup afternoon

violets smashed against stone

thunder and cold rain

regan lee
eugene oregon
april 5 2015

Crow haiku

telephone wire

crows calling to each other

below, one remains

regan lee

eugene, or

4-6-2015

Misconceptions in writing haiku

Even in college, I was surprised (as well as frustrated by the arrogance of a published poetry professor) who insisted that haiku must be 17 syllables. Rigid adherence to the 5-7-5 rule!

This is such an entrenched belief, taught to students from elementary grades and beyond.

In Japanese, a haiku poem is usually divided into three groups/lines of syllables, the first and last with five syllables, the second with seven. However, be careful not to get stymied by strict adherence to the number of syllables and miss the essence of haiku. The 17 syllables is not an absolute rule. Most Japanese syllables are short, as in po-ta-to. English syllables can be long, and take up too much space in a haiku, so English haiku frequently have fewer than 17 syllables, sometimes as few as ten. (from: The History and Artistry of Haiku, Patricia Burleson)

Haiku is a moment in time, in the present.  An act of not thinking but being.  It is noticing. Seeing. It is elegance and brevity. Balance. It is all of you within that moment without the ego of you interfering. 

Haiku is not the creation of crunching an experience into a set of syllables for syllable's sake. 

Rain haiku

Haiku: Cedar Waxwing

image source here

haiku

Winter haiku

Haiku Zasshi Za Publication

From Winter/Spring issue, 1988 of Haiku Zasshi Za, a little publication that came out of Seattle, WA. They published a haiku of mine:

an open window

a telephone rings

cold night air


                                     ~ regan lee