How haiku keeps us grounded in nature and therefore reality
Today we stick to reality.
This is one of the benefits of haiku.
In haiku the SOMETHING and the SOMETHING ELSE are set down together in clearly stated images. Together they complete and fulfill each other as ONE PARTICULAR EVENT.
— Betty Drevniok
In simplest terms, haikai meant rejection of poetic diction and adoption of language in daily use.
— Excerpt From: Hiroaki Sato. “On Haiku.” Apple Books.
Love words, agonize over sentences. And pay attention to the world.
— Susan Sontag
What we need for haiku:
A season word, to keep us connected to nature, reality.
Two images — the fragment and the phrase — whose juxtaposition creates…
An aha! moment.
midwinter bathing —
his head, the moon
in the water
— Issa
socks drying
in frosty sun -
brrr!
— Utsuji
wood chip path
the length of
my lunch hour
— Bryan Rickert
bare branches—
listening to the poem
without metaphor
— Nicole Pottier, France
blackbird and nightfall sharing the darkness
— Virginia Brady Young
I know for certain
at the top of the staircase
is the Milky Way
— Shionoya Jin
a red mail truck
stopped at the postbox
winter clouds
– Akiyama Shūkōryō
flame passing
from stick to stick —
such quiet.
— Sojo
not quite dark yet
and the stars shining
above the withered fields
— Buson
an iris
whiter at twilight
my hometown
— Shiki
awake at night —
the sound of the water jar
cracking in the cold
— Basho
ducks break the surface in the dark blurry crescent moons
— Chris Gordon
children imitating cormorants
are even more wonderful
than cormorants
— Issa
this sunflower
is the same height
as my late mother
— Kaneko Atsushi
on the wolf
a lone
firefly
— Kaneko Tota
whale broiled on skewers and this cup
— Tōyō
sparrow after sparrow comes
to this plum branch
— Inoue Mikio
bag lady
threading holiday tinsel
through her cart
— an’ya
blistered paint
the boat we named
for you
— Debbie Strange
after Ophelia
she drowns
her Barbies
— Bill Pauly