Tales of a former haiku addict

Photo by gotplaid

The week that Threadless released this tee-shirt design (above), at least a half-dozen people I knew asked if I had seen it. I, in fact, had already seen and ordered it. (Good thing it wasn’t near my birthday, or I might have ended up with one for every day of the week.)

The shirt made everyone think of me because I wrote a haiku almost every day for more than two years. My habit began on August 24, 2004, and continued until October 25, 2006, to be exact. Knowing the dates makes it feel like those tiny poems comprised a living creature, a close companion that was born and later died.

But let’s not get overly sentimental about it. In many ways, haiku writing was simply part of my morning ritual: pour cereal, put Fritos and grapes in baggies, walk kids to school, shower, brush and floss teeth, write haiku, start dishwasher…you get the idea.

Part structure, part stretching, part emotion-dump

The best thing about haiku-writing was it gave me the structure I desperately needed as a freelancer. Other people get dressed in work-appropriate clothes, leave their homey homes and travel to an office, where their work day clearly begins (or at least is supposed to begin).

Working at home (and sometimes in my workout clothes, without brushing my teeth) makes the transition from life to work much fuzzier. I need structure, and mental and visual cues to keep me from wandering around the house and folding laundry all day. The structure of the tiny, ancient Japanese poem served me well. As soon as I sat down at my computer each morning to write my haiku, the beginning of my writing day was marked, as clearly as a pistol marks the start of a horse race.

The strict five-seven-five syllable format of the haiku creates the perfect confines for a good writing assignment. You have to figure out what you want to say; you have to decide what is most essential to what you want to say, and what can be left out; and finally, you have to find the juiciest possible words, with the proper number of syllables. That usually entails thinking of several ways to say the same thing, until you arrive at the perfect combination of form and content. Writing practice doesn’t get much more focused than that.

Besides providing a good writing exercise for me, crafting a daily haiku also provided a necessary outlet for my moods and thoughts. It’s similar to journaling, but more subtle and focused. When I look back at my days and days of haiku, I can immediately identify where I was in my life, and what I was feeling and experiencing, even if I wasn’t writing directly about it. It’s like identifying a scent that takes you directly back to a moment in your past, even though the scent itself might not be significant.

The two-year stretch when I was in the haiku habit is particularly interesting to look back on, because it begins a year after my divorce and ends almost a year after I met Jason. So many ups and downs represented.

Where an ancient form meets a new one

Twitter has essentially replaced my haiku habit, which has its positives and negatives. I have been encouraging students at my Media Bistro copywriting seminars to use Twitter as a writing exercise, because it forces you to figure out what you want to say and how to say it best in a very confined space (140 characters or less). I generally like the interaction that’s inherent with Twitter, too. You can write something funny or touching or controversial, and get immediate reactions.

But, as I was reading through my old haiku today, I was feeling sad that I let that practice die. Ironically, the whole reason I even looked at my collection of 17-syllable poems today was because of a Twitter haiku writing contest. First prize is a MacBook Air!!

I’ve never considered myself a poet, by any stretch of the imagination. But it’s clear that this contest was made for the likes of me. I must enter something.

And although I’d like to start writing some new ones (the first one, below, was written today), I’ll share some random older haiku with you now. If you have a favorite, please let me know which one it is! I only get one entry. (I get the feeling they’re more interested in clever/funny than in touching/sweet. Submissions are due this Sunday.)

* * *

I’m in coat, mittens.
My neighbor? Short sleeves, capris.
So who’s the strange one?

* * *

The world ticks along,
more like a bomb than a heart,
yet it stays intact.

* * *

“It’s an addiction!”
he claims, taking my yarn-lust
to a new level.

* * *

Life is like some soup:
For best richness and flavor,
please do not dilute.

* * *

“Will your marriage last?
Take the quiz!” the headline reads.
The Web’s stupid side.

* * *

“Now is not the time!”
was her response to his love,
a five-year-old’s crush.

* * *

I’ve forgotten how:
to not work; to walk mid-day;
to love my sofa.

* * *

Girls shriek from the house.
We sit outside, blissfully
feigning ignorance.

* * *

Pondering life’s work:
Does fun beat security?
Does praise trump money?

* * *

Silliness lets loose,
as if all week it had been
tugging at a leash.

* * *

It’s “impending joy,”
he says; I grin over how
smoothly “doom” was swapped.

Similar Posts:

• When I’m not feeling very faith-full
• Learning about me by reading you
• The love list project

Tagged as: contest, form, haiku, structure, twitter, writing