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    Haiku Notebook Second Edition
    Haiku Notebook Second Edition
    Haiku Notebook Second Edition
    Ebook34 pages30 minutes

    Haiku Notebook Second Edition

    By W. F. Owen

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    About this ebook

    This book is part anthology of many of my best poems, part instructional guide especially for beginning haiku writers and part short stories or haibun to contextualize the poems. Of course, you can look at the full sample offered, but here is a brief passage from the book:

    Growing up, many friends carried good luck objects in their pockets. One had a lucky penny, another had a rabbit’s foot and another packed a small wrench his mechanic dad gave him. As if to compete, some boys had pocketknives and one had a small nail clipper attached by a small metal chain to the belt loop of his Levi’s. I never saw him cut his nails. A red-haired kid carried a bent-up photo of his dad who had died in a car accident. I didn’t understand that at the time, but I wanted to be different, too. I decided to carry the foot from a squirrel I had shot. These objects were like friends that kept us company and preserved connections to people.

    a young woman at the Wall dog tags in her hand

    The only thing I kept when my mom died was the lucky Kennedy half-dollar I had given her to use on scratcher tickets. I didn’t want to say I wanted anything. Other coins continued to give comfort for a while longer.

    her estate dividing the children

    And, another excerpt:

    Starting and developing relationships. Whether the first love or re-marrying for the third time, the ways people form personal relationships is intriguing. In these modern days, people meet online, through personal ads and, of course, the old-fashioned way, in face-to-face interaction. These may be seen as moments of awareness for self and others.

    the personals blushing as she reads her own

    morning after her date retrieving the personals

    vapor rises from the fence I try to forget her

    And, on those dates, especially first dates, who among us has not felt uncomfortable moments?

    waiting in line for the ballet we shift our feet

    In a more instructional vein, I recommend these factors:

    1. Haiku are one-breath poems probably less than 17 syllables (usually about 10-12).
    2. Have a season word (called a kigo). Usually only one season word per poem is used. This should make sense because your poem is about a moment of your awareness.
    3. Limit adjectives, adverbs and any words not essential. However, if the poem sounds stilted or weird without a “the” or “a,” use those words.
    4. Show, don’t tell. Telling is explaining or interpreting an image(s) or moment. Present the moment and leave the final interpretation(s) to readers.
    5. Do not be afraid to include the human factor. We are part of nature, remember?
    6. Work for tension between two images. This is the tricky part. Recall that I used the rubber band metaphor above. If the two things you are comparing are too close to the same, there is no tension for readers to resolve, complete or extend. If you stretch the association between the images, the haiku is too far-fetched or unreal. Practice will help.
    7. Start out trying to write a poem a day. Of course, some haiku will be bad—we ALL write those! Leave the poems for a week or so, then give them a new look.
    8. In your reading, you will notice some haiku appeal to you more than others. Ask yourself why? Adopt that poet’s style for a bit. No, I do not mean copy that haiku poet (called a haijin in Japanese). But, it can help you ground yourself in an acceptable style.

    Good luck and thank you for reading my book!

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherW. F. Owen
    Release dateJun 26, 2010
    ISBN9781452473109
    Haiku Notebook Second Edition
    Author

    W. F. Owen

    I'm a professor of communication (thirty years) and a creative writer. My main interests are haiku and related forms, and science fiction. I've published in all of the major haiku journals (e.g., Frogpond, Modern Haiku) and several anthologies. Also, I have won several contests sponsored by the Haiku Society of America. Finally, long ago, I taught SCUBA diving as an occupation. I lived in Hawaii for ten years.In the past five years or so, I've rekindled my interest in photography and, most recently, graphic design. Check out my sites on Fine Art America ("Bill Owen") and RedBubble.com ("BillOwenArt"). Thanks! ?

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      Book preview

      Haiku Notebook Second Edition - W. F. Owen

      Preface to the Second Edition

      Three years ago I published haiku notebook. So, I thought it was about time to update and enrich it. My primary purpose then, as it is now, was to write a book for beginning haiku poets and to encourage them to write haiku and its related forms (e.g., senryu, haibun). This is not a how-to textbook, as such. There are many good texts out there as guidebooks for you (see the Works Cited and Recommended section at the end of the book). Rather, I have written in a haibun style, not an instructional one. Though there are several varieties, forms and rules for good haibun, my haibun fit into an autobiographical style. Most haibun are written in sparse sentences, quite cryptically. They sometimes use vivid, metaphorical or dreamlike narratives. Briefly, a haibun involves a section, or sections, of prose giving a chronicle of life experience followed by a haiku, or several haiku, at the end or interspersed among the prose sections. Haiku do not repeat the prose experience but rather interact with it synergistically. Thus, the reader gets a situated meaning exceeding that given by the prose or haiku alone. It is a contextualized surplus of meaning. Therefore, read the book as a stream, with eddies, bends, ebbs and flows.

      Now, a few words about the haiku form. As with most literature, not everyone agrees on the right form or way to write haiku. Unlike what you might have been taught in early grades, English-language haiku are not always three lines with, respectively, five, seven and five syllables. English-language haiku are rooted in the past, linked to Japan centuries ago. Japanese and English languages differ in sound units and, of course, in other meaningful ways. Thus, the 5-7-5 syllable pattern is based on Japanese, not English. Typically (all of my explanations are generalizations), most modern English-language haiku are ten to fourteen syllables (see van den Heuvel, 1999, p. xli). Furthermore, as Cor van den Heuvel observes, most but not all, are in the three-line form. Not to belabor these technicalities, but early Japanese haiku were in one line. As Hiroaki Sato (1983, pp. 135-137) explains, before the mid-1800s in Japan, before modern printing was widespread, haiku were printed on fans, poem cards and paintings in one line (usually vertical, sometimes horizontal). It was only later that haiku began appearing in the three-line form. Therefore, you will find all of my haiku here in one horizontal line. The challenge for the reader is to find the pauses, the meaning

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