haiku retrospective cdxvii

A friend posted something about the bygone days of haiku email lists, the days when there were hundreds of posts a day and long long haiku chains with dozens of authors contributing. He did not wax eloquent about the harsh criticism that many haiku received, but that was part of the picture as well. And, although the criticism was not as much fun as the play, it did serve to refine our haiku.

Anyway, this calls to mind Tim Russell's haiku exercise, one that many of us found useful.

In the old days on the shiki list, we were trying to write in the style of shiki. So haiku were to be two concrete images, with a break and a seasonal reference. There was much discussion of kireji (which I am translating rather loosely as “break”) and kigo (seasonal reference). Haiku were to be drawn from one moment in time, and sketched from life like a watercolour painting (shasei).

Tim had an exercise, one that could be useful to keep our minds limber for when a haiku moment seized us by the throats. It's a very simple exercise, one that yields 10 shasei a day.

First, pick the month or season and some aspect of it to be the short part of the days' exercise:

september grasses
spring growth
dead trees
hunter's moon
summer river

Next, take a notebook and a pencil and go for a stroll or sit on a bench somewhere.

Notice something. Write it down. Turn your head in a different direction or stroll a little further. Notice something else and write it down.

Continue until you have 10 longer parts of the haiku:

a boy picking scabs on the steps
a calico cat crouched on the car's hood
the spent blossoms of the lily-of-the-nile
a cacophony of birdsong
a heavy tread coming up the steps
oak moths mating in the bathroom
a stack of plates by the dishwasher
dust on the stack of summer reading
i try to take a sip from an empty teacup
wild cucumber tangled in the redwood

Now combine them:

september grasses
a boy picking scabs
on the steps

september grasses
a calico cat crouched
on the car's hood

september grasses
the spent blossoms
of the lily-of-the-nile

september grasses
a cacophony
of birdsong

september grasses
a heavy tread coming
up the steps

september grasses
oak moths mating
in the bathroom

september grasses
a stack of plates
by the dishwasher

september grasses
dust on the stack
of summer reading

september grasses
i try to take a sip
from an empty teacup

september grasses
wild cucumber tangled
in the redwood

In Tim's exercise, you now put these things away.

Do 10 more tomorrow.

14 September 2011