National Haiku Day May 17, 2020

In the Writing Through Grief group I facilitate on Maui, one of our favorite exercises is writing Haiku Poetry.  I first learned to write Haiku in a writing class in college and fell in love with the form years ago. The form is so simple that anyone can write it and easily express thought concisely.

Basically, Haiku poetry is written in 3 lines. The first and third lines have 5 syllables and the middle line has 7 syllables. Here are some examples:

no creatures better
not men nor flies – all are one
each one lives and dies

by William Blake

I write, erase, rewrite

Erase again, and then 

A poppy blooms.

by Katsushika Hokusai

Calm as a river

Tranquility in my heart

Blue summer skies reign.
by Paul Holmes

Spring is in the air 

Flowers are blooming sky high

Children are laughing

by Kaitlyn Guenther

In silence, alone, 

I feel my heart and wonder 

at the miracle.

https://spot.colorado.edu/~downton/lifegardening/life.htm

The Sun’s warm caress,

Gently touching our faces,

While we now cannot.

by Madeline Bauserman, Washington

Such peace and beauty

Grateful for my distant friends

Our world is changing

By Emily Thiroux Threatt

As people are looking for things to do during this time we are spending at home, writing Haiku can be an entertaining project that can even become meaningful to you. My grief writers have discovered they can express things in Haiku that they weren’t able to get out any other way.  We are even collecting Haikus written by group members to publish our own little book.

The University of Buffalo created a project to spark creativity for those at home now. You can read about it here. They encourage Haiku writers to post on Instagram where the hashtag #haiku already has 1.2M posts! They want you to post your Haikus along with art that represents them, preferably art you do to make it an especially creative project. I posted one with one of my photographs.

http://www.buffalo.edu/ubnow/stories/2020/04/haiku-project.html

Another interesting project is being done in collaboration between the Orange County Museum of Art and sound artist Alan Nakagawa. “Dubbed “Social Distancing, Haiku and You,” the project asks participants to write and digitally record haikus inspired by their own personal experiences during the pandemic. Upon receiving the digital recordings, Nakagawa will use Pro Tools software to create a sound collage that interweaves the multitude of voices into a single composition.” You can even create and submit your Haikus to by included.  The deadline is April 16^th. More information is in the Smithsonian article. His composition will be released April 23.

 https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/sound-artist-asking-people-record-covid-19-haikus-180974642/

I encourage you to write some Haikus yourself.  In honor of National Haiku Day, I am offering my grief Haiku writing class for free here. 

I would love for you to post your Haikus in the comments below so that we can all share. I can’t wait to read what you write!