Haiku

     (Bless you!)

Way back in 2015, when I was still a young lad, I took a brief seminar called “Literary Detective Fiction.” It was a small but good class (four of us) with a good instructor (John Straley), in a lovely setting (Pebble Beach, Calif.)

John Straley (https://sohopress.com/authors/john-straley/) shared with us that he keeps a journal and writes a haiku each day. “A haiku has the same virtues as a murder mystery,” he says.

Often focusing on images from nature, haiku emphasizes simplicity, intensity, and directness of expression. A traditional Japanese haiku is a three-line poem with seventeen syllables, written in a 5/7/5 syllable count. John doesn’t care about the number of syllables. But he looks for a seasonal reference in the first two lines and an emotional turn/surprise ending. (The emotional turn helps me with the Aristotelean reversal I strive for in a good mystery or suspense story.) Finally, the ego of the writer should be invisible, which is also important for me to remember when writing fiction.

Beginning with a "nature" image seems consistent with John’s thoughts on writing:

• Ecology is about place.
• Everything starts with "the place"
• Characters evolve from place
• A story has to know where it is in time and place. 

I managed to start a journal and write haikus (on and off) for about five months after the class.  I enjoyed it. Here are a few of mine:  

Evergreen trees pop

Against a fierce blue background

Not just for the rich.

We held most classes outside, and when I wrote that one, I was looking up at the underside of this tree:

 

Sunday, I found a few other Catholics and we went into Carmel, to church.

Early mass, warm sun

Shines bright on Carmel Mission

Not quiet but hushed.

 

From something said in class:

Surfaces in rain

Appear, shiny and poppy.

Vivid when wet.

Back in Maryland:

Dog days dragging on

Nothing moves, chiefly the air,

But including me.

 

Into a humid

Day I sink, like a warm bath.

I like cold showers.

2015 was a year of locusts here.

Late summer chirping,

Buzzing in the morning air.

Noisy li’l’ buggers.

Me (and War) on literary fiction:

Existential angst!

Hooie! What is it good for?

Absolutely naught.

And:

Wife’s office upstairs;

I work down here. Ought to keep

In touch more often.

 

Anyhow, that was fun. See if you can use the comments section to post some of your own haikus.