How To Write A Haiku

The haiku, because of its simplicity, is one of the few form poetry styles with which most poets experiment.  However, simplicity can be deceptive and it is the very implication that a haiku is "easy" to write that invites so many poets to write technically poor haiku.

Haiku has a long history and although most people are not familiar with the tradition behind haiku poetry nor make the correlation between spiritual practice and haiku, even less people are unable to define it.  A haiku is a seventeen syllable poem made up of three lines.  The first and third lines are five syllables each making a 5-7-5 syllable three line poem.  If a haiku were only this, a three line poem composed of seventeen syllables, then any seventeen syllable sentence would suffice and qualify as a poem.  In my article, How Not to Write a Poem, I give an example of a haiku composed of a simple sentence.

I hate you mostly
when I talk to your wife on
the phone as she cries.

This meets the definition most people use to define a haiku but falls so far short of a true haiku that to label this a haiku is an insult.  It fails to meet the other criteria which are often overlooked.

A haiku is not only a three line poem but it also includes an allusion to nature.  This can be seen in the haiku of the masters, such as Bassho and Issa, as well as others.  From a particular species of plant or animal (a cherry blossom, a hawk, a cicada, a chrysanthemum) to a clear season (harvest moon, snow, summer’s sun), there is supposed to be some allusion to the natural. 

However, sometimes this is a subtle allusion.  Your seasons will differ from those of other nations and traditions. In my home, growing up, we had a fake Christmas tree that stayed up year round so referencing a decorated tree had no seasonal meaning.  But had I referred to a particular block party in the streets of Manhattan, anyone who grew up in my home would recognize the time of my haiku.  Be aware of your own seasons, think beyond those obvious four seasons that dominate the thinking of society.  Adopt and adapt your seasons to infuse your poetry with a subtlety that may elude most readers while infusing your writing with something intrinsic, personal, and potentially profound.

Haiku is intimate, a highly personal form of poetry, that is easily recognized for its immediacy in the predominance of the present moment.  Some haiku may be written in the past tense, very few are written in the future tense, but most haiku is undeniably set in the present.  Because of this, haiku have an emotional integrity that is often overlooked by the poet who is assuming that the haiku is an easy poem. 

I learned this lesson when not writing a haiku a long time ago.  I had been experimenting with sumi-e brushwork and was trying to copy the drawing of a hawk standing on a rock looking over its shoulder.  Each drawing I made seemed devoid of something I could not define.  The brush strokes were carefully performed, allowing for control within the freedom of the ink’s flow.  My frustration grew as I tried again and again to recreate the image I had before me. 

Then I stepped away, looked at the original from which I was trying to draw inspiration and wondered to myself what the hawk was thinking and feeling.  In my mind it seemed to be saying it wanted to be left alone, not documented in ink.  I returned to the paper, meditating on this feeling of isolation, of wanting to be alone and undisturbed.  Nothing else changed.  My strokes were the same, the ink I used not watered down in any way, but this time the image that I created had an energy that the previous attempts had lacked.

This should be true of your haiku; you must first feel the moment before you can write about it.  You may write about something only moments passed or decades old.  By drawing on the past moment, placing it into the present tense, you draw yourself and your reader into the haiku’s moment, bridging a distance between yourself and the moment and your reader so that the three become one.  Honor the emotional moment and trust your reader by being subtle in how you expose yourself in the delicate lines.  The very brevity of a haiku, the seventeen syllables, will force you, as a poet, to synthesize a moment into a concentrated form, condensing the emotion so that it has the same weight as it did when experienced.

For instance, I wrote a poem, Poetic Bugaboo, about a moment I experienced while frustrated with myself as a poet.  The same theme could have found its way into a haiku because the insect meets the criteria for having something of nature in the poem.

Squashed gnat between the
lines of a poem written
with no real passion.

It is possible, maybe even likely, that most readers would not understand the frustration I was feeling with myself as a poet but a haiku trusts the reader to sit with the poem, meditate upon its meaning, discover the emotion of the words, and in this way writing a haiku and reading one can become a form of spiritual practice. 

Most writers have learned the five W’s and an H rule:  Who?  What?  Where?  When?  Why? and How?  In writing a haiku there is a similar, often overlooked rule.  Each line of the strictly traditional haiku will ideally fall into the following pattern: 

Line 1:  Where?
Line 2:  What?
Line 3:  When?

Before you balk at the strictness of this, arguing that poetry is about breaking with tradition, I offer this challenge.  Try to conform to the strictest definition of the haiku, rise to the occasion and allow yourself to write a haiku that conforms to these rules, dare yourself to find freedom within the strict rules.  Write seventeen syllables, broken into three lines, include a natural element, and then answer the three questions (Where? What? When?) In precisely those three lines of five-seven-five syllables.  Find the freedom in the form and conformity.  Trust yourself to be in the moment, write from the moment, and dare yourself to write a true haiku.  And if you fall short of the purest form when writing your haiku, welcome to the club.  Trust me; you are in very good company.

alone in my bed
no wishes left or dreams, dark
clouds hiding the stars

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How To Begin a Meditation Practice

The benefits of meditation are well documented and a quick search online will pull up a long list of reasons why we should make time to meditate regularly. Making the commitment to do so is another matter. Even with the best of intentions, annual resolutions to make meditation a habit, it is easy to let the busy-ness of life get in the way of slowing down to meditate and reflect. I offer the following suggestions to help you develop the discipline of meditation.

My first suggestion is that you make an investment. Obviously, in order to meditate, you will have to make the investment of some of your time. This is often the easiest way to avoid meditating because there are so many other "more important" things to do instead of taking a few minutes to meditate. But if you are serious about meditating it may help if you make another kind of investment. Look around your home and find a corner or area you can devote to meditation. Make it as pretty and comfortable as you possibly can. Buy pillows or a meditation stool. Often, when we make a financial investment in accomplishing something we are more likely to make the time to follow through on our intention. 

You may determine that you do not have the room to set aside even a corner for meditation. If this is the case, then your financial investment can take the form of a meditation cd or even some comfortable clothes to wear while meditating. By spending some of your financial resources on your intention to meditate you will be sending yourself a clear message of the seriousness of your commitment.

My second suggestion is that you make a commitment. The more time you spend meditating the more you will reap the benefits of meditation. However, meditation is like exercising and if you try to spend an hour or more on your first time meditating you will very likely stop meditating long before you experience any of the benefits. At first, set aside five minutes to meditate. Sit comfortably in a chair or even sit up in bed. Or, if you are fortunate to have created a meditation corner or space for yourself, go there and get into a comfortable position. We have all seen people sitting, their legs crossed, feet resting on thighs, hands on knees. The truth is, we are not all comfortable sitting in this position and it is essential for you to find a position that is comfortable for you. You may find it possible to sit with your legs crossed for more than twenty minutes. If not, find a different position. Experiment until you find a meditation position that you can sit in for at least five minutes. 

You may choose to use a cd to help you time your meditation or you may want to set a timer and simply focus on your breath. It doesn’t matter how you do the meditation so long as you are comfortable. Thich Nhat Hanh also suggests that, when you sit in silent meditation that you smile softly. This helps the muscles in your face to relax. 

Sit for five minutes at first and only increase the length of time until you are ready to try sitting for longer. You may prefer to sit for five minutes on days when you are busy with work and save the longer practices for weekends (or whatever days you have the most time to commit to meditating). You may find certain positions only comfortable for a certain amount of time. Don’t beat yourself up if you can only sit in one position for fifteen minutes. Instead, remember this and, when you only have fifteen minutes to devote to meditating, sit in that position. Use your discomfort to your advantage.

My third and final suggestion is that you make it uncomplicated. If you cannot afford to buy pillows or cd’s, if you don’t have the space to create a meditation corner, don’t worry about it. You don’t even have to schedule a time, necessarily. If you arrive at work a few minutes early, do not go rush to your desk. Instead, sit in your car or outside and begin breathing slowly, smiling softly, and allowing yourself a moment of meditation before your work day begins. You can do this again, when you get home, either sitting in your car in the driveway before rushing in to start dinner, or you may opt to go inside and sit down on your couch for five minutes. 

If you did nothing else towards meditating you will be meditating ten minutes a day. If you then add in two weekend meditations of twenty minutes each you will be meditation for over two hours a week. Does it still feel impossible to set aside that much time for meditation? If so, perhaps you need to re-read some of the information on the benefits of meditation to reinforce your reason for making the time your own.

There is one more thing I would like to encourage you to do; keep a notebook and pen handy. You may find yourself distracted by random thoughts, some of which you won’t want to forget later but now is not the time to focus on these things. Instead, jot them down in the notebook and return to your breath. It is also a good idea to pause, when you are finished with your meditation, to write down how you felt during practice. Did you feel warm or cool? Was there any tingling in your hands or a tension anywhere? Make note of any sensations, emotions, or whatever else may come up during a meditation. Record what works and doesn’t and, above all else, follow your intuition as it leads you in how you should practice your meditation.

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