Anyone who’s kicked around in haiku circles has heard the expression haiku moment more than once. This is that sudden experience of witnessing something so powerful, and yet so perfectly normal, you are arrested into a state of being fully present.
Maybe it’s the way the moon is playing with the clouds passing before it. Maybe it’s a cat stepping through the grass. Maybe it’s the sudden splash of a frog jumping into a pond.
You get the idea. The haiku is right there: you just need to pluck it up and write it down.
I’ve always been bothered by the externality that seems implied by this concept. Something outside happens to you, and then you capture it. What about inside you? What’s going on there?
Where’s the agency?
If a mundane event like a frog jumping into the pond can present a haiku moment, I have no choice but to acknowledge that all mundane events, all moments, present haiku moments.
Maybe it’s the squeal of a car tire in a parking garage. Maybe it’s the sound and vibration of my neighbor’s garden gate closing. Maybe it’s the way my breakfast cereal settles into the soy milk.
Maybe instead of waiting for something outside to arrest me into a haiku moment, I can aspire to seeing the haiku in every moment? Maybe I need to meet the haiku halfway?
Just a thought.
Here are last week’s seven haiku moments, and where I sent the postcards that I hope communicates them.
haiku 20240415 (El Cerrito, CA USA)
seeking solace
I gaze at the night sky --
the neighbor's cat, too
haiku 20240416 (Allentown, PA USA)
daycare center
children gather at the fence
to watch my dog play
haiku 20240417 (Lafayette, LA USA)
what I always see
in the bathroom mirror
my original face
haiku 20240418 (Houston, TX USA)
what a privilege!
watching a raven
scrape its beak clean
haiku 20240419 (New Bern, NC USA)
gold country dusk
spooked deer run away
shadow into shadow
haiku 20240420 (Rockwell, NC USA)
al fresco evening
the fortune teller counsels
an empty chair
haiku 20240421 (Los Angeles, CA USA)
front porch
dusty with pollen
a cat's paw prints
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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I also post 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.