Some Notes on Lee Gurga Haiku: A Poet's Guide
by J. Zimmerman

Buy 'Haiku: A Poet's Guide' by Lee Gurga

Notes on Lee Gurga's Haiku: A Poet's Guide (2003)

This is the most interesting and helpful book about writing haiku that I have read todate (2012). Full of the history of haiku in both Japanese and English-language cultures, Gurga's Haiku: A Poet's Guide shows the reader how to take inspiration and word-sketching, create and revise a haiku, to attain a poem's final version.

In addition to guidelines of what to do and what to avoid, Gurga gives the context of haiku and their creation. He explores differences and similarities between this English-language and the Japanese-language haiku. The varied haiku examples enrich the book and inform the reader.

The book is not so much for the beginner poet but for someone that already considers herself a poet, perhaps even a haiku poet. As such, it is worth the time of the haiku poet to re-read Haiku: A Poet's Guide every few years.

Contents:
Preface: An Introduction to Haiku Haiku — The Poetry of the Seasons The Art of Haiku
Not Exactly Haiku: Senryu and Zappai The Craft of Haiku Writing and Revising Haiku
Haiku Arts: Renku, Haibun, and Haiga From Bashō to Barthes From Nature Sketch to Wordless Poem

The book closes with Works Cited, Resources, Books, Credits, and an Index.

Preface: An Introduction to Haiku

In his preface, Gurga extols haiku as

A poetry with the single aim of making us aware of life's simple gifts and everyday joys ... An antidote to irony, consumerism, and narcissism

and he sets the scene for his project — to teach "what haiku is and what it is not". Gurga emphasizes that: "haiku is informed by a set of aesthetic principles" that supersede the form of "seventeen syllables, arranged in three lines of five, seven, and five syllables".

Haiku — The Poetry of the Seasons

Gurga states:

The essence of haiku resides, in part, in its ability, through the use of a seasonal image, to convey some sense of the natural world and the passage of time.

He continues in this section to review the historical developments of Japanese and American haiku traditions over the recent centuries.

The Art of Haiku

This section concerns the tools to use and dimensions to consider in writing haiku:

Not Exactly Haiku: Senryu and Zappai

Gurga's differentiation of senryu from haiku is essentially [p. 55]:

Haiku relates nature to human nature, while senryu is concerned with human nature pure and simple. Senryu does not require a season word, and it relies on wit, irony, and satire to comment on the human condition. ... Lacking the haiku quality of growth that Henderson identified, senryu is generally 'end-stopped.'

Gurga differentiates zappai from these as a genre dominated by an imaginary element and that includes [pp. 57-58]:

verses in haiku-like forms, written purely as a joke. ... If a short poem sounds like an aphorism, epigram, proverb, or fortune-cookie wisdom, is is probably zappai.

The Craft of Haiku

This section concerns haiku language and poetics:

Writing and Revising Haiku

The begetting and improving of your haiku:

Haiku Arts: Renku, Haibun, and Haiga

Discusses linked verse and the interweaving of prose and haiku (in a haibun) and art and haiku (in a haiga).

From Bashō to Barthes

From Nature Sketching to Worldless Poem

The book closes with a consideration of haiku's appeal and with a look to the future.


To order Modern Haiku.

Order Modern Haiku (past editor Lee Gurga).

Lee Gurga's Books on Haiku.

Buy 'Haiku: A Poet's Guide' by Lee Gurga Haiku: A Poet's Guide by Lee Gurga.

Other Books on Haiku.

Buy Essential Haiku The Essential Haiku: Versions of Bashō, Buson, and Issa edited by Robert Hass: The past-poet laureate of the U.S.A presents the lives, the prose, and 300 of the poems of three masters and inventors of the haiku tradition in Japan.
Buy Haiku Seasons The Haiku Seasons: Poetry of the Natural World by William J. Higginson.
Buy Haiku World Haiku World: An International Poetry Almanac by William J. Higginson, Meagan Calogeras (Editor)
Buy Japanese Haiku The Japanese Haiku, by Kenneth Yasuda.
Buy Haiku Handbook Haiku Handbook: How to Write, Share, and Teach Haiku by William J. Higginson, William S. Higginson.

Site Meter [Thanks for visiting.]