Haiku

Writing Haiku

My last post was about black-out poetry, a technique I learned from Austin Kleon’s book “Steal Like An Artist.” Today I’m going to try another technique which I learned from taking a Masterclass with Billy Collins. His suggestion was to take an ordinary everyday item and find inspiration in it. Being a Brit kid from the last century and a big Corrie fan, I chose a teabag.

I’ve been feeling the need for focus lately and what better form of poetry for narrowing down the words to as few as possible than to write a Haiku poem?

Poets over the decades have waffled on the exact rules of writing Haiku. The traditional Japanese Haiku is a three-line poem with a 5/7/5 syllable count, often focusing on images from nature, emphasizing simplicity and clarity of expression.

A modern Haiku poem is not required to, and generally does not, rhyme–although it can at the poet’s discretion. In other words, it’s all up to the writer how they want to approach it.

The set rule of 5/7/5 syllables still needs to be adhered to and spelling needs to be accurate, but all other punctuation and grammar are poetic license (pun intended).

So here’s my Haiku poem from my teabag–

WAXING

Liquid dries and leaves–

A breakfast roll, crescent moon?

–Pacman’s gaping mouth

On days when I can’t focus enough to write, I like to jot down a short poem to help bring me back to concentrate on my work. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I see a particularly interesting dust bunny that could be my next masterpiece.

Til next time, remember you are loved by the One who created you in His image.

~ Lynne