When Haiku Rains - Suzanne Tyrpak

What's the Point of Season Words? Can You Write Haiku Without Them? After almost a year of writing (mostly bad) haiku, I began to understand the point of season words. There are conflicting rules about season words (also known as kigo ), and those rules can be confusing.  Some haiku poets pay no attention to season words. I find them useful, providing a kind of shortcut, not just as a reference to nature, but for setting a tone, emotion, and social commonality. I invite you to play with them.  As my teacher, Clark Strand , likes to say, "Haiku is anything you can get away with in seventeen syllables." What I like about season words : they force me to think, to consider the world in ways I may usually avoid. A season word provides a jumping off place. It's especially fun to use season words when writing in a group, to see how others use the word--a process that's often inspiring. What I don't like about season words : They can be a trap. Many have been overused...

I was first exposed to haiku as a child in elementary school. Perhaps you were too? I wrote a poem about a chestnut ... that's all I remember. Over the years, now and then, I'd try my hand at writing haiku, but when I visited Japan at cherry blossom season--studying Japanese and calligraphy--I was drawn into living, breathing haiku. Upon returning to the states I sought a teacher, and I found a wonderful workshop at Upaya Zen Center , in Santa Fe, taught by  Natalie Goldberg   and haiku master, Clark Strand . (Clark doesn't call himself a master, but I believe he is one.) I began to study haiku in earnest, studying with Clark, reading haiku masters like Bashō and many others, composing haiku in a Ku-Kai group. And, of course, writing hundreds of haiku ... mostly bad and a few good.  Haiku is a journey, a way of viewing the world, noticing the juxtaposition of the human condition and nature. Most poems contain a season word, kigo ,  and (although there's debate, due t...