Do You Haiku? (cont.)

Season: Traditionally, haiku have some word or image that indicates the season. This doesn’t mean they have the word summer, spring, etc., in the poem. But perhaps snow will tip to the fact that it’s winter, changing leaves to fall, sprouting plants to spring, etc.

One moment: This is my favorite thing about haiku. They are like a snapshot, a single moment frozen on the page. So a haiku doesn’t try to capture a general scene. Instead, it focuses in, in, in until it has zeroed in on one tiny moment, one tiny action happening right now in the natural world.

Action: Another thing I love about haiku is the verb. Even though it’s focused on a tiny moment, poets use striking verbs to capture the tiniest movements of nature.

One of my favorite poetry collections is called Black Swan White Crow, by J. Patrick Lewis.

Here’s are just two of the striking poems from that collection:

Frantic sandpiper—
high tides erasing
her footnotes