Recently I was reading some Alan Watts (Zen and the Beat Way), and was struck by his analysis of haiku poetry. He wrote “by the seventeenth century the Japanese Zen Masters had brought ‘wordless’ poetry to perfection in the haiku, the poem of seventeen syllables which drops the subject almost as it takes it up…” He goes on to say how it can be overdone in imitation, but that “a good haiku is a pebble thrown into the pool of the listeners mind, evoking associations out of the richness of his own memory. It invites the listener to participate instead of leaving him dumb with admiration while the poet shows off.”
Spot-on, I think. Seems we all get tasked with haiku writing in high school and college, and while it’s relatively easy to dash one off, it can be very challenging to get it right. Recently I wrote three Nashville oriented haikus, for a contest here in the Music City (the winners will appear on bus passes), and while none were chosen, I had fun doing it and am happy to share. Nashville Haikus for you. All the best, Doug
“Blonde on Blonde”
Ray Ban Poetry
Filling up the Quonset Hut
Nineteen sixty-six
“Ch-ch-changes”
Nathan on the run
Soul patch rising falling leaves
Mockingbird hotel
“Wedgewood and Houston”
The question is no
Artists crawling tell you so
Answering the soul
Doug Hoekstra 