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Your first three haiku:
Notes:
Attribute of the classical haiku:
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Kigo
This is the Japanese for 'Season Word'. Many words are accepted traditionally by the Japanese as denoting the seasons and are recorded in almanacs. An example for English speakers the word 'Snow' indicates the season of Winter. |
Consider how the Kigo brings resonance with it of nature and the time of year.
Note that a Japanese noun can represent the plural as well as the singular. Therefore Kigo can also mean 'Season Words'.
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Juxtaposition of images.
In one line you have your 'Season Word(s)'. Put your second image in the other two lines. |
Consider the energy between your two images. Try to make them different enough to have some energy between them, a gap that electricity can jump across.
Traditionally Japanese has no punctuation. Often a Japanese haiku connects its images by a kireji (cutting word). That's similar to the way in English we say, "dot dot dot" or "quote".
A haiku in Japanese is written in a single vertical line, with a standard rhythm that provides pauses after the first and second phrase. In English, translators have inserted line breaks to signify this pause.
The line break can be enough; or use an em-dash or ellipsis.
Be aware of the energy of the gap between the juxtaposed images. It can be called "The Goldilocks Gap" because it should be not too small and not too big; the large gap allows the reader to leap between the two images without falling in a chasm between them.
Haiku techniques for the images and their relationships include: Association; Contrast; Comparison; Divine in the common; Focus narrowing; Paradox; Riddle; Sabi (loneliness, solitude, beauty); Shasei (nature sketch); Synesthesia (sense switching); Wabi (beauty of the worn, aged, and simple); Yügen (mystery and sacredness of the ordinary).
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5-7-5 morae.
Westerners unaware of the brevity of Japanese sounds, mistake this for 5-7-5 syllables. While it is a useful exercise for Westerners to write a 5-7-5 syllable haiku,
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Linguists observe that the sounds in Japanese haiku are brief, each the length of a mora, whereas English syllable are often twice that length.
Accordingly, the use of '5-7-5' syllables does not give us the 1-breath poem that is the haiku, but something more like a 2-breath poem.
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| Jump-start your poetry with ideas from our writing exercises. | ||||||
Other exercises:
Index.
"Alien".
Haiku.
Spell casting.
Write a poem like Billy Collins.
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Books of Poetry Form.
Highlights of Poetry.
Index of poetry.
How to Write Your Poetry.
How to Listen to Poetry.
Recommended books on Reading Poetry.
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Log of books read.
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Poetry exercises with poetry forms:
Forms of skaldic verse.
Haibun.
Haiku.
Hay(na)ku.
Rengay.
Tanka.
Concrete.
Ghazal.
Lai.
Pantoum.
Rondeau.
Rubáiyát.
Sestina.
Sonnet.
Terza rima.
Triolet.
Tritina.
Villanelle.
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Other poets:
Billy Collins and
exercise.
Franz Wright.
J. Zimmerman.
J. Zimmerman (haiku).
J. Zimmerman (tanka).
Jack Gilbert.
Jorie Graham.
Karen Braucher.
Len Anderson.
Li-Young Lee.
Linda Pastan.
Nordic Skalds.
Richard Hugo's Triggering Town.
W.S. Merwin.
Adam Zagajewski.
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Copyright
© 2009-2014 by J. Zimmerman.
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