[Notes by J. Zimmerman]
The first day began with leisurely arrival, sharing of baked breakfast goods, and shoreline explorations.
We assembled with Christopher mid-morning.
After introductions, Christopher talked about choices we make in writing haiku.
They include:
- What to include.
- What to exclude.
- How to set up a 1-line fragment and a 2-line phrase,
so that we write 2 parts in 3 lines
and produce a "polyrhythm".
Christopher encouraged us to develop a daily practice. He writes over breakfast about
what captures him:
"
Haiku can take you to a meditative place through intent focusing ...
Before writing anything, ask 'What is happening right now, at this very moment?'
By doing this, a direct connection is made to the external world;
we see how it is reflective of our human condition.
Later on, if the experience is important enough, the connection will still be strong,
the images will come back, and words will surface ... "
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We each received a rich packets of handouts, which Christopher summarized and that
we would use in the workshop and would take with us for later application. They included:
- Haiku Usually ... A list
conceived by David LeCount of 15 haiku qualities, such as:
"use little poetic device (no similes, metaphors, anthropomorphisms)";
and
"reveal human emotion through natural images."
- "Positive Quality Check-list". A list of 13 items that a haiku writer could strive for.
The last one was:
"Poet transparency: The poet has stepped out of the picture
so that you can enter without distraction."
- "Pitfall Check-list". A list of 13 items that a wise haiku writer eliminates
from her work.
- "Haiku scavenger hunt". Each of the following
features was illustrated by 1 or 2 haiku, and we were to look for these
in our own haiku and the haiku that came up for discussion.
A haiku could, of course, sometimes contain more than one of these features:
- Pivot. Such a haiku can be read two ways. One has the cut after the first line.
The other has the cut after the second line.
"This triangulates an experience very effectively" (CH).
- 5-7-5 with kigo.
- Minimal. The example was 3-3-3, about half the traditional length.
- Cutting after the first line.
"Eighty to ninety percent of haiku cut after the first line" (CH).
- Cutting after the second line.
"This can give a resonance that is not seen in the more frequent cut placement" (CH).
- Allusion.
Often this is "a resonance with an important current event what it means at this time in
history. ... [there is a danger that it] lacks universality
... [so try to have it] be accessible" (CH).
- Sentence-Ku:
"juxtaposing two elements without a cut" (CH).
- Synesthesia:
"one sense described in terms of another" (CH).
- "Examples of other haiku features". Each of the following
features was illustrated by 2 or 3 haiku:
- Alternative connotations of key words.
- Precision in use of prepositions.
- Musicality.
- Minute observation.
- Extra-ordinary in the ordinary.
- Tightness in the present moment.
- A training exercise (by Timothy Russell).
- Basic Guidelines for work sent to
The Heron's Nest.
- "Editors' Mind": Guidelines for a real-life exercise on how to to pinpoint
haiku strengths and weaknesses
in haiku that have passed an initial editorial screening and from which less than half
will be chosen for the final publication.
- "The Big Cat": 151 haiku (listed anonymously) that had passed
a real-life initial editorial screening.
- "Edit the Masters": A list of 5 haiku
(of Basho, Buson, Issa, Shiki, and Hagi-jo) translated by R.H. Blyth,
for us to see if we could improve on the translated version.
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Christopher talked for a minute about each handout, and gave a little more detail on:
- The features of the haiku scavenger hunt (so that we might try to find them in
our beach combing for haiku);
- The training exercise (by Timothy Russell), which he especially recommended as
a useful practice to help us "break up droughts" in our writing.
Christopher ended the morning session by
reading "Japan" by Billy Collins from Picnic, Lightning:
Today I pass the time reading
a favorite haiku,
saying the few words over and over.
It feels like eating
the same small, perfect grape
again and again.
...
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We broke for lunch and ginko walks.
When we met in the afternoon, we each read a few of the haiku that we had written during our walks.
Christopher gave each of us the opportunity to pick one of our haiku that we were struggling with.
We offered it for suggestions to the group, which was very supportive in making comments
encouraged by Christopher.
This process let us identify strengths and weaknesses,
particularly those listed in his handouts.
We had a break for refreshments and some more explorations of the shore.
On our return, we celebrated with
a congratulations cake that Kay Anderson brought,
in honor of the 5-year anniversary of
The Heron's Nest.
In the late afternoon, we began to assess the haiku in the
"Big Cat",
marking our favorites and making notes on why.
The sun oozed like thick, molten copper through thin sea fog into the Pacific,
and we finished our assessments
in time for Christopher to enter our data in to his traveling computer,
and tell us how many votes each haiku had received from our group.
By then time our hosts had completed preparing
a delicious salmon dinner
to share at the end of this day.
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Yuki Teikei Haiku Society:
www.theheronsnest.com
