My Haiku Journey

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 to English translations from Japanese) the traditional form is a seventeen syllable count of 5-7-5. 

Clark likes to say, "Haiku is whatever you can get away with in seventeen syllables."

                                                                all winter they wait

                                                                to burst out of their branches 

                                                                my cherry blossoms

                                  

                                                                       --Suzanne Tyrpak