The deep breath of life

join my haiku project!

Photo from Dave Thelwell —> my haiku below

Morning ablutions

bathed in bougainvillea,

sand and sea dances.

As previewed last week, I’m celebrating National Poetry Month in the U.S. by writing haiku.

Haiku, in case you aren’t familiar, is a poetic form that emerged in Japan in the 17^th century and gradually made its way elsewhere. The subject matter often—but not always—relates to nature and the natural world. A haiku typically consists of three lines of 5, 7 and 5 syllables, respectively. This brevity is what gives haiku its potency, because when you only have 17 syllables to work with, each word is significant.

I’ve written plenty of haikus in the last couple of years, but this month I decided to try something different. As I explained in last week’s post, I’m inviting readers to share with me a word (any word!), image or song, and on the basis of these I’m writing personalized haikus.

I like to think of this as a poetic conversation, and the idea is inspired by the “Typewriter Tarts,” a couple of Chicago-based poets who I encountered on a radiantly sunny Saturday at the Logan Square Farmers Market, while visiting the Windy Cindy. They were set up in the market with a typewriter, offering on-demand poems for $25 inspired by a few words of your choosing. I loved both the poem they wrote for me and the concept of personalized poetry, which is something I’d like to explore more.

The Typewriter Tarts @ Logan Square Farmers Market, Chicago

That’s essentially what I’m doing now with this haiku project, and it’s been great fun so far! Here are a few of the renderings, with thanks to

Michelle Ray

,

Kate Lynch

,

Julie Snider

and all the others who have shared their words/images with me.

As announced last week, the goal is to compile all of the haikus resulting from this project into a small chapbook that I’ll be releasing at the end of the month or the beginning of May. It’ll be free for paid subscribers as well as anyone who makes a submission, so don’t be shy! Send me your word, image or song and join the conversation, because in the words of Japanese author and poet Santoka Taneda:

“Haiku is not a shriek, a howl, a sigh or a yawn; rather, it is the deep breath of life.”