How Haiku Helps

 

Reading and writing haiku, senryu, and other mini-poems help us to see more detail and say more in fewer words. Why should this matter to poets and writers?

 

Brevity

 

Many of the poems posted on the Internet go on and on, like a first draft that was never read aloud, reconsidered, or revised. With just a little more wait-time allowed after writing and just a little more listening time allowed to evaluate the sound echoes, rhythm, and musicality, each poem can go from “okay” to “good” or “good” to “well-done.”

 

Haiku, senryu, and other mini-poems remind us to be brief.

 

Clarity

 

Lengthy poems often have overlapping pictures with no clear focus. This can happen by mixing metaphors, but also because the poem has no clear direction. That’s fine in a first draft, but after letting a poem sit for a while before coming back to revise, poets are more apt to see what they and the poem are trying to say.

 

Haiku, senryu, and other mini-poems call on the clarity of a well-taken photograph or an artist’s quick sketch.

 

Beauty

 

Haiku, senryu, and other mini-poems frequently rely on a beautiful sight or insight (preferably both!)

 

This awareness of a fleeting thought, moment, or scene causes us to welcome the unexpected, be alert for the exquisite, be attentive to the profound, and be appreciative of our environment.

 

Other Features

 

Haiku, senryu, and other mini-poems are so transportable! They encourage us to keep a notebook handy.

 

These little forms help us to break free of rhymes that quickly close down thought, originality, and natural-sounding language. Also, by focusing on rhyming words, we might overlook other poetic factors, waiting to reveal themselves.

 

When we give ourselves and our poems over to the traditional 5/7/5 syllables in the three lines of haiku or senryu, we begin to think in form. If we prefer 2/4/2 or 3/4/3 or other syllabic count, that works too. Regardless, we’ll eventually be apt to count out those syllables on our fingers, activating kinetic memory, exercising creativity, and becoming more aware of the poetic moments in our lives.

 

 

©2021, Mary Sayler, poet-writer

 

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Is it a minipoem or first line?

In the previous post “Poetry Revision:Less can bring more to a poem,” we read “In a Station of the Metro” by Ezra Pound, who originally addressed his Parisian subject in a long poem he didn’t particularly like. After letting those lines sit for many months, he condensed thirty into three, creating an exquisite minipoem that almost everyone loves. (I do so much, it prefaces my poetry book Faces in a Crowd.)

So here’s the question: 

How do we know the size and shape of a poem? 

or

How do we identify our lines as a minipoem complete in itself or as the first line of a longer piece?

Sometimes we can’t tell! Sometimes we might need to toss the poem aside for days, months, or years, and later come back with a fresh eye and clear feelings about whether we even like the poem or not.

This week, for instance, the following lines came to me:

 

When I’m gone
will you walk alone
in the rain?

 

As you see from the line-breaks, I initially heard those lines as a minipoem, and I liked the thought, the image, and the echoes of sound apparent from the start.

But then, I started wondering? Is that poem finished? Has it said all it needed to say? And so, I started playing with the lines a bit more with these results:

 

When I’m gone will you walk alone in the rain?

Will you retrace our steps again, or wander home,
hoping for the comfort of a warm fire and a shawl?

Is this all our memories will ever own –
a slow walk in the rain?

That version is okay, but I’m not sure what it’s saying. More important, I don’t love it. So I tried again:

 

When I’m gone
will you walk alone in the rain?

Will you retrace our steps again,
or wander home,
hoping for the comfort
of a warm fire and a shawl?

Is this all our memories
will own – a slow walk in the rain
heading nowhere we’ve not known?

That version says more, but it doesn’t particularly resonate with my life and experiences. So now I’m wondering if it resonates more with readers? 

What do you think – first version, last, the one in between, or something else entirely?

I'm honestly interested in your response. Do you see, though, how there’s no “right answer” to such questions we face as poets and readers? I suspect some of you will connect more with the last version of my example, even though I don’t. My preference remains with those first lines that came to me as my husband and I pondered taking a walk in the rain – until it thundered!

 

Mary Harwell Sayler, ©2020

 

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Haiku and Senryu: A Simple Guide for All

In the book, Haiku and Senryu: A Simple Guide for All, which was kindly sent to me to review, the poet-author-teacher Charlotte Digregorio conversationally discusses these two favored forms as one who avidly reads, writes, and teaches other poets and poetry students. One chapter even addresses “Teaching Haiku and Senryu” with practical suggestions and checklists non-teachers will also welcome.

While most of us might not be leading classes on syllabic verse, this book gives us a deeper appreciation of two minimalistic yet highly expressive and impressive forms. In the first chapter, for example, we learn:

“Haiku are from the heart, and they can touch the reader by evoking any type of emotion, from sadness to happiness. Effective haiku is thoughtful, insightful and intuitive, and it captures the moment.” To do this, “it must be written in the present tense.”

The present helps us to “show, not tell,” thereby engaging the senses as we write, so our readers can experience the moment with some of the wonder we felt or the beauty we noted in as few words as possible.

Traditionally, haiku has three lines with 5/7/5 syllables per line, respectively, which some poets and I still prefer as a unique challenge for combining imagery and musicality. However, many other American poets use a 4/6/4 syllabic count or 3/5/3, which “may yield more lightness and flow to the poem.”

Reading each draft of your poem will help you to hear which you prefer. Also, omitting “words that reveal too much of the meaning,” deleting adjectives, and cutting unnecessary articles such as “the” or “an” may reduce the size of your poem while compressing content.

The same principles work well for senyru too, which focuses on human nature rather than the seasonal elements and natural environments of haiku. Both forms can amuse, but “Senryu should always be light and playful humor – not insulting or offensive. It can even be satirical.” For example:

“Season’s Greetings” …
braggart’s annual letter
fuels the yule log

Charlotte Digregorio

Senryu and haiku rely on strong verbs and nouns with “a reason for each word that is used.” Nothing abstract or redundant works in poems where every character counts. This compression, along with an “understated element, which is typical of senryu and haiku, makes the poem powerful.”

If, though, you prefer more lines to express an insight or retain a fleeting moment, the chapter on “Haiku and Senryu Sequences” offers these tips:

“A haiku or senryu sequence is a series with a certain theme or tone. You can take a theme and look at it from various perspectives. While individual haiku and senryu have no titles, sequences do.”

The poems in a sequence can build on one another or follow “a chronology of moments that you have captured. The poem should, of course, move forward smoothly and effectively through its imagery” as do the examples presented throughout this highly recommended book.

Mary Harwell Sayler, poet, author, reviewer, © 2016


Haiku and Senryu: A Simple Guide for All, paperback

How to write an aahcoo

In the last post, we discussed “Micropoetry and Minipoems,” which led me to look for short forms devoted to devotional poetry. I thought maybe the senyru would do, but the more I studied that syllabic verse form, the more I realized it has its own niche as does haiku. To explain:

. Both haiku and senyru involve three lines with 5/7/5 syllables respectively. That’s assuming, of course, you want to adhere to the traditional haiku form. Both also work well with humor or surprise.

. However, haiku focuses on a seasonal look at nature, and senyru focuses on human nature, typically with a touch of irony.

Since I often see minipoems by members of Christian Poets & Writers on Facebook, I knew that many poets have begun to use the standard haiku structure to focus on God or an inspired look at our spiritual nature. Consequently, it seemed to me that we needed a more pliable syllabic verse or unique short poem form to let readers know what to expect, and so the aahcoo was born.

The name came from the familiar sound of awe and wonder – aah, whereas the coo came from the sound of a dove, often used to symbolize the Holy Spirit. Put them together, and you have aahcoo, which sounds similar to haiku but never, never the sneeze of achoo!

. Aah + coo = aahcoo, a God-centered poem of a spiritual nature

Writing an aahcoo is simple but has options:

1. You can write an aahcoo with a 5/7/5 syllabic count on three lines, respectively, so aahcoo looks like haiku.

For example:

Wind and water shape
the magnificent mountains.
Air and spirit rise!

by Mary Sayler, © 2016

Or

2. You can write a praise poem, mini-devotional, psalm, prayer, or spiritual insight in three to seven syllables on three to seven lines.

Why those numbers for a minimum to maximum count? Lord willing, they'll be easy to recall!

Three reminds us of the Trinity.

Seven symbolizes the weekly Sabbath Rest God wants us to have as a minimum.

To give you an example of the longer possibilities to experiment with as you write or revise, this aahcoo maxes out the number of syllables and lines with an optional touch of humor:

Who reads instructions
before priming old walls
to paint or paper? Who reads
rules before assembling
something new? Thank You,
Lord, for giving us Your Word
on living beyond the pew.

by Mary Harwell Sayler, © 2016

If you look over the micropoetry you have written, you might find you were already writing aahcoo instead of haiku as supposed, or perhaps you’ve been writing minipoems that could easily fit the flexible aahcoo form with a little tweaking of the number of syllables.

Regardless, when you post an aahcoo on Twitter, Facebook, or your own blog, be sure to add a hashtag, and your #aahcoo will appear in an Internet search of this new, tailor-made-for-you form.

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