New To Haiku: Advice for Beginners-

When I started writing haiku decades ago I was guilty of thinking the form equaled haiku, I was wrong.

Haiku is a moment of time in nature that invokes a human emotional response. It is not easy to capture that moment in "one breath." Although I have been writing poetry since 1993, the haiku is still not easy for me to write.

Three of Chetta's haiku:

windy day
every tree
dancing

spring rain
ten-thousand frog croaks collapse
a rain-soaked silence

one pink flower
on the old man's desk
only his eyes to see it.

From an article posted by The Haiku Foundation
New To Haiku: Advice for Beginners-Mary Stevens

For those just starting out with writing haiku, what advice would you give?

Writing haiku consists of two parts: noticing the haiku moment and capturing it in the haiku form.

For the noticing part, follow the beauty, the wonder, the meaning, what moves you. What you write shows what draws your attention and what you value. Following it develops a kind of relationship with your writerly self.

For the developing in the craft part of writing haiku, the single most powerful action you can take is to read. Many poems. Read them aloud, over and over again. Read a variety. Study the poems. Analyze them. It is very beneficial to memorize a half-dozen of your very most favorite haiku. When contest results come out, read the poems and judges’ commentary. Read the articles in journals like Frogpond and Modern Haiku that instruct on the conventions of haiku and break down how specific, exemplary poems work.

Also, befriend revision. I used to dislike this part of writing haiku, thinking it tedious. But when Brad Bennett told me that he enjoys the process, it changed my attitude. Now I love removing superfluous words, thinking about line order or number of lines, and checking the thesaurus for words with fewer syllables and whose sounds harmonize with the rest of the poem....

Example Haiku by Mary Stevens:

autumn peach
the honeybees finish
what they started

milk moon
my palms full
of light

dancing
all of me
for me

haiku gathering
strands of spider silk link
two folding chairs

Please stay on topic with your comments. Off topics comments may be removed. Thanks.

Too many characters in your comment. Required
Characters Remaining: Your comment is too long. Please revise. Thanks.

Type the characters you see