Masters of the Haiku Universe

Masters of the Haiku Universe

When I lived in Portland, I ended up in a very fancy neighborhood in an expensive high-rise condo building. Don’t ask me how—I’ve come to realize I never understand the tides that pull me. But it was an interesting experience, and in a very short while, I started calling my neighbors The Masters of the Universe. They were for the most part wealthy and spoiled and entitled, and also very vulnerable and clueless in unexpected ways.

When we talk about poets, though, I think of them as Masters of the Universe, too, because they’ve developed the tools to tap into the richness of the world, the beauty and pain and strangeness. Poetry makes us mindful, a skill we all need.

I have always been very fond of haiku, and have recently been reading some haiga- haiku and image combined. There is a very old tradition of Persian marbled papers that combine images this way that I suspect is the root tradition, but haiku is the gateway drug for poets like myself. Write a little haiku, and suddenly images and words are flying through your mind like geese over the interstate. (And just in case the police are reading this, I pulled off the interstate and pretended I was having car trouble to write down my ideas.)

Basho is the Master of the Haiku Universe. I love his haiku most of all, and I suspect he was so good at them because he focused exclusively on the form. Here are a couple of examples- the last one is my favorite.

Dying cricket,
how he sings out
his life!

The she cat -
Grown thin
From love and barley.

Wrapping dumplings in
bamboo leaves, with one finger
she tidies her hair

The syllables aren’t the issue- the traditional 5-7-5 is a good starting point, but the use of the cutting verb or image means the ideas translate- after all, Basho wrote not only in another language, but in another written form.

Another thing I love about haiku is that it’s so short it can’t take itself too seriously. Just when one is becoming overwrought with feelings, the thing is over. Good practice. And humor is always appreciated and unexpected. These two haiga are funny- I particularly love a poem about bangers and mash.

http://haigaonline.com/issue14-2/issu...

http://haigaonline.com/issue14-2/chal...

I’ve been kind of bummed out that my beautiful new novel is tanking. Writer’s code for sinking like a rock in a pond, without a trace. So I have been comforting myself by writing poetry. I decided that, like Basho, I needed to focus on one form and work on it until I had it down- which may take several lifetimes, but is my usual way of working. I’m not going to worry so much about the syllables, but concentrate on the cutting verb, or the juxtaposition of the images. That’s the key point, and style comes later.

When I wrote Tootsies, years ago now, I wrote several toe haiku because the protag was a young poet and he was in love with a man who loved toes. That was about the most fun I’ve had as a writer, and I think I’m going to celebrate the season, and being back in Boise, and Oscar coming into our family, and being alive to take a walk along the river, to wonder if that bird I keep seeing is an egret or a heron.

Here’s my first haiku: (most haiku don’t have titles, but I learned from writing flash fiction that titles can do some heavy lifting, and I like them.)

Southern Cross

sugarstars and a splash
of cream
across the sweet night sky