Haiku/Writing/Poetry

I Am Addicted — To Haiku

Way back in 2006, I stumbled upon Haiku — while looking for butterflies.

Photo by Ed van duijn on Unsplash

I was hacking around the internet, looking for the “Butterflies Go Free” exhibition in Montreal in the middle of winter in 2006. I would be there with Colin, Pauline, and hundreds of lush tropical butterflies in a hothouse in the snow.

Butterfly lands
She closes her wings
and disappears

I have stumbled upon Haiku — yet my heart sees only the butterflies and my children who await me. Several years later, the simple beauty and contrasting complexity of Haiku addicts me.

Haiku is an ancient form of Japanese poetry with acknowledged masters: Basho is the ascetic and seeker, Buson the artist, and Issa the humanist. Shiki is a big name. Oft forgotten are the women haiku poets, foremost among them — Chiyo-Ni.

To write Haiku in English, no teacher is superior to Jane Reichhold.

Now, I have the treatise published in 2022 by David McMurray “Teaching and Learning Haiku in English.”

If you are beginning to explore this truly wondrous art form, here are some guidelines to help you while you learn the greater complexities of structure, contrast, relationship and form.