Sometimes you do your best work when you got a gun to your head.
— Chili Palmer, as portrayed by John Travolta in “Get Shorty”
Ideally, I approach the day’s haiku postcard with several haiku already chambered up in my notebook. Ideally, I have several cards already written up and ready to go.
As it happens, such ideal conditions do not often apply.
More typically, I often find myself in the evening with no ideas. Fortunately, I set to fiddling and something emerges over a dozen or more attempts and revisions. More often than not, the final version doesn’t emerge until I’m inscribing the actual postcard.
I like the pressure, the gun to my head. I think it’s produced some of my best work, true to Chili’s observation.
(That doesn’t mean there’s no room for improvement. If you look at my printout of the haiku from my 2012-2014 postcard project, it’s almost unreadable from all the notes and hand revisions.)
Something happened last week that is different. I actually wrote the haiku postcard, and posted it online. But in the morning, I realized I’d missed a step.
Original:
takeout run
the sunset alone
worth the drive
The last line was a pen-in-hand inspiration, which I liked, but previously I had not been wild about the first line. I had wanted takeout dinner because takeout run didn’t quite flow.
When I reread the haiku in the morning, I realized that, at least in a minimalist poem, run and drive were somewhat redundant, meaning that had I just delayed one more revision, I could have had my takeout dinner too.
So I retracted it and posted a revision, new card and all:
takeout dinner
the sunset
worth the drive
Anyway, here are the seven haiku and where they went, thanks to the USPS.
haiku 20240205 Millersville, PA USA
gray and wet and cold
somewhere out there
my cat
haiku 20240206 Palm Springs CA USA
morning woods
mist rising from
the pine needle floor
haiku 20240207 Grass Valley, CA USA
falling and falling
the snow doesn't stick
until it does
haiku 20240208 Waikato, NEW ZEALAND
snow crusted
over pine needles
the sound of melting
haiku 20240209 Santa Cruz, CA USA
takeout dinner
the sunset
worth the drive
haiku 20240210 Walnut Creek, CA USA
after the mall
crowds and traffic and noise
perfect stars
haiku 20240211 Walnut Creek, CA USA
rubbing oil
on the iron skillet
still warm from pancakes
That’s all seven! See you next week! And remember…
I STILL want to send you a card
It’s kinda weird you read my Substack but haven’t requested a card yet. I don’t get it. Please ask! It’s free. I ask nothing in return, aside from your good graces or maybe a cup of coffee if you’re so inclined.
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And I’m posting reels of each week’s haiku postcards on Instagram. The “live” photos feature lets you see my sloppy attempts to angle in on the best shot. Check it out!
Recommended reading
I heartily recommend all the books below. I get no commission, zip zero nada, if you buy through my links. (Amazon Associates gave me the boot because I didn’t move enough merch. Oh well.)
Haiku: An Anthology of Japanese Poems, Stephen Addiss/Fumiko Y. Yamamoto/Akira Y. Yamamoto
With the exception of The Haiku Anthology (see below), this was the first haiku anthology I bought when I first started sending out haiku cards. I stumbled across this small, beautiful book, while making my requisite writer’s pilgrimage to Shakespeare’s Books in Paris (ooh la la). The richness and scope between the covers in this little book is simply amazing, featuring over 102 poets, many more if you include anonymous authors. It’s my go-to when packing for a trip. Buy it here.
The Haiku Anthology (Third Edition), Edited by Cor van den Heuvel
Want to know what modern English-language haiku really looks like? What it is capable of? Here is your answer, and a must for every haiku poet’s bookshelf. When I first started writing haiku, this volume served me very well. Many of the haiku within have remained with me throughout the years, and I have been privileged to now count some of the contributors as colleagues and friends. Buy it here.
Three Simple Lines: A Writer’s Pilgrimage into the Heart and Homeland of Haiku, Natalie Goldberg
Many writers will immediately recognize Goldberg from her forever bestselling Writing Down the Bones. As it happens, she has been writing haiku for her entire adult life, and has much to teach us. In Three Simple Lines, she intertwines memoir, history, and travelogue in a magnificent way as she journeys through Japan, chasing down the ghosts of Bashō and Buson, among others. She also draws much needed attention to women haiku poets, who were too often overshadowed by their male contemporaries. Buy it here.
Mountain Tasting - Haiku and Journals of Santoka … (tr. John Stevens)
I found Santoka challenging at first. Much of his haiku feels incomplete to me or dashed off. But he grew on me. Soon I felt like a companion on his journey, bouncing from inn to inn, begging for alms by day, pounding sake by night. Buy it here.
The Essential Haiku - Versions of Bashō, Buson, & Issa
Essential is right! Edited by Robert Hass, a great poet in his own right. Hass includes great essays on the history and evolution, as well as other writings by the poets themselves. A true master class in haiku! Buy it here.
Narrow Road to the Interior and Other Writings, Matsuo Bashō (tr. Sam Hamill)
Haiku poets have a tradition of wandering the countryside, and Bashō set the example! Buy it here.
Selected Poems, Masaoka Shiki (tr. Burton Watson)
I wrote a whole post about Shiki. Haiku might not exist today without his influence and renewal of the form. Buy it here.
Issa's Best: A Translator's Selection of Master Haiku, Issa Kobayashi (tr. David G. Lanoue)
Issa is probably the most beloved of the classic poets. His humility and joy in the face of unbearable loss and poverty endear him to haiku lovers everywhere. Lanoue seems to have made translating Issa his life’s mission, and I love his versions. Buy it here.