Haiku

I’m going to learn myself some poet­ry and poet­ics this month, it being Nation­al Poet­ry Month and all… I’m going to inflict upon you my learn­ings and the path I tread along the way. I came across this great haiku link awhile back, and have been brows­ing it ever since. Most of the con­tent is pro­vid­ed by Jane Reich­hold.

Read­ing Field and some of the haiku in that link, I’ve real­ized that I’m quite out of prac­tice writ­ing haiku. Prob­a­bly even more out of prac­tice nail­ing that spe­cif­ic and appro­pri­ate ande live­ly phrase that makes a haiku worth read­ing. The last haiku I wrote:

a gust
the gull
cor­rects its flight

gives a spe­cif­ic and appro­pri­ate phrase but has no life or jux­ta­po­si­tion or move­ment behind it. Alas.

These erot­ic haiku, on the oth­er hand, are quite live­ly indeed:

One of my favorite haiku is from my favorite poet, Richard Brauti­gan:

You can even lis­ten to him read some of his poems, and this one in par­tic­u­lar, if you click on this mp3 link [6.13MB]. Wid­ow’s Lament is 3min 10sec into the file.