About Revelations: Unedited
For each issue, we will invite a different poet to reveal trade secrets or pet peeves or whatever else he or she wants to say. By “Unedited,” we mean eactly that—there will be no run-through in the test kitchen. The poet will have total freedom, but, of course, with that will also come total responsibility.
Deep in the Woods: The Haiku Journey
For many years, people have been asking me how I write haiku. At first, I did not reveal my technique. I knew that I wanted to further my craft of haiku writing. Although my aim was to push beyond the guidelines that I had read, I also knew that there would be failures and hopefully successes, too. To that end, I strove to report the richness of the natural world, except that I had to rely on patience, in the art of haiku writing.
Like my younger brothers, I, too, was a curious boy. I stamped deep into the thick woods, observing ferns, silver maples, mulberry trees, chinaberry trees, willow oaks, white oaks, longleaf pines, sweet gum, elms, poplars, sassafras, dogwood, and hickory, though I wonder about the seeming rapidity of the hickory’s disappearance in those childhood woods. I also examined the numerous wildflowers, which beckoned me. Do I need to mention the robins, blue jays, cardinal birds, wrens, hummingbirds, woodpeckers, mockingbirds, swallows, finches, blackbirds and owls that ascended and descended, called and peeked? Do I need to mention the crayfish that crawled on the creek’s bottom? Do I need to mention the snails that crawled up the siding of our house? I also wonder about the seeming rapidity of the snail’s disappearance. In recent years, I have witnessed slugs after steady rain.
Without knowing it decades ago, I believe boyhood nurtured my haiku mind. At that time, I waited for phenomena of the natural world to reveal itself or maybe even flicker. As if pausing for a photographer, I still wait for the magnificent show of the natural world. While participating on a ginko, I usually stop and wait for the haiku moment. Others have asked, “What are you doing?” I glanced up, and said, I’m waiting for the haiku moment.” Thus, I usually write haiku rather than simply jot notes for later haiku. This process works for me. Of course, some haiku tumble off the page. And still, I do not give up on those fell haiku.
Think of a haiku as a poet’s record of his or her existence. What would the haiku reveal about the poet’s temperament? If the poet was startled by the haiku moment, I think the haiku should prompt the same reaction for the reader. The first person point of view, sharp juxtaposition, specificity, and present tense greatly enhance a haiku’s resonance. I hope I am able to employ those techniques most effectively. And it is the craft of haiku writing that I am always pushing.
Often, I reorder the diction in my haiku. I also tend to the music in my haiku: alliteration, assonance, consonance, euphony, onomatopoeia and meter. I no longer focus on counting syllables in my haiku writing. Of course, there are other literary elements that help to make good haiku. For example, vivid imagery and allusions help to develop good haiku. More importantly, because I feel a kinship with the earth, I think such kinship enables me to write my haiku. My several years of doing farmwork and gardening, perhaps, have laid additional groundwork for my haiku writing.
autumn sunset
hospital helicopter rises
from the heliport
after all-day trip
I sit for a haiku moment
to spring
husband and wife
walk the corgi on the towpath
autumn wind
noon heat—
in the log cabin’s crevice
lizard
Veterans Day
we only want
to make love
Spring meeting—
the gray-haired speaker’s
dipthong
almost spring
the tatoo winged
onto her arm
Easter Sunday
on the Obituary page
no names I know
all day rain
washes the pollen away . . .
stubble on my face
up the train steps
I hoist her heavy suitcase—
a yellow leaf falls
a train whistles
from the other side of town
autumn wind
skywriting
of a military jet . . .
autumn sunset
