How to Haiku

Lesson:

How to Haiku

Instructor:

Kimberly Martin

Objectives:

At the end of this lesson students will be able to:

• Know the qualities of haiku
• Write original haiku
• Publish haiku for either a classroom or larger audience

Standards Addressed:

3. Students apply a wide range of strategies to comprehend, interpret, evaluate, and appreciate texts. They draw on their prior experience, their interactions with other readers and writers, their knowledge of word meaning and of other texts, their word identification strategies, and their understanding of textual features (e.g., sound-letter correspondence, sentence structure, context, graphics).

6. Students apply knowledge of language structure, language conventions (e.g., spelling and punctuation), media techniques, figurative language, and genre to create, critique, and discuss print and non-print texts.

11. Students participate as knowledgeable, reflective, creative, and critical members of a variety of literacy communities.

Notes:

Focus of Lesson: The students will learn to write haiku poetry.

Grade Level: 2-12

Subject: Language Arts

Suggested time: 50 minutes

Advance Preparation: Instructors will need to collect 30 haiku that will interest their students. I have attached a few poems at the end of the lesson. This lesson would work well with Japanese poet biographies, and a brief history of Japan would be useful. Study of Japanese art and gardens would complement the lesson, too.

Materials:

The lesson is attached.

Plan for Assessment:

Students could be assessed by their willingness to write and edit their haiku. They could also include commentaries. Students could also be expected to select one of the means to share their work.

Extensions and Cross-Curricular Ideas:

• Learning Japanese history with social studies
• Understanding Japanese landscape painting with art
• Planning and understanding the elements of a Japanese Garden with Science

Bibliography:

Higginson, William J. The Haiku Handbook How to Write, Share, and Teach Haiku. New York: Kodansha International, 1997.

How to Haiku:

What does it take to write haiku?

Basically you need to be attuned to your senses and the world around you. When you write a haiku, you are sharing an event or an object that has touched you.

Where did haiku come from?

Originally, there was a longer poem called a renga or linked poem. The beginning of that poem was called a hokku. Essentially, that hokku was supposed to have seasonal words, kigo, that would show when the renga was written. For example, in the Japanese winter which takes place during November, December and January, here are some of the kigo:

Jiko – Season, Climate (winter night, deep cold, departing year)

Tenmon – Astronomy (icy moon, winter stars, first frost, frost withered, snow, sleet, icicles)

Chiri – Geography (withered fields, first ice, frozen ground, to freeze)

Seikatsu – Livelihood, Life (charcoal, banked fire, snow sandals, pickled radish)

Dobutsu – Animals (bear, eagle, wren, birds floating asleep, whale, oyster, sea slugs)

Shokubutsu – Plants (winter/withered chrysanthemum, desolate, withered reeds, pine, daffodils, narcissus)

In the 14th century tanka poets thought of renga as a game, but games typically have rules, so by the time of Basho, it was possible to purchase a book that would list words associated with seasons. The original idea to identify the time of composition became there must be a kigo in the hokku/haiku or a kidai, a seasonal topic. Because geography around the world is so varied, many non-Japanese poets do not use the seasonal words. Many of the Japanese people I met proudly noted that Japan has four seasons; they were quite surprised to discover that Saint Louis, Missouri does as well. I’ve found that Japanese lists do merge rather well with our climate and experience.

For a renga, a group of poets, usually over three, would get together to compose a long poem. In the 13th through 16th centuries this meant between 50-100 stanzas long though the length of 1000 stanzas was not uncommon. Each poet would take a turn or contribute when he would like. These poems do not tell a linear story but instead combined a variety of images or ideas. They were supposed to be entertaining and bring forth emotion. The challenge was in linking the verses well. Some of the ways to link the stanzas included allusions, scent, echo, magnetism and reflection.

How do you introduce the haiku to a class?

1. Warn class you will be reading aloud several short poems. Tell them that these poems are so short that if you don’t pay attention, you will miss the whole poem. Let the class know that it is okay to react. Laugh if it’s funny. Cry if it’s sad. They should do what they feel.
2. Make sure the poems that are used are very sensory. (FYI – 30 poems may only take 5 or 6 minutes)
3. Poems are made of images. Write “What are images?” on the board/SMARTBOARD/ELMO, whatever you’ve got. Most students have many ideas for images, but once someone gets to the point of thinking about pictures or the word imagination, you’re in a good place to start. Write the word, “IMAGINATION.” Imagination is “I” in the “country/nation” of “images”!
4. Have students name three sources of images:
   • senses
   • memory (personal experience, books movies etc.)
   • fantasy (invented, could be combining mind and senses)
5. As a class, make up a poem with two images. List ideas on board. Put two images together to form haiku.
6. Have students write their own haiku, I always recommend that you write when your students do.
7. Have students circle the haiku on their papers or laptops that they like best. Students should read one of their haiku aloud.

Just a note:

If your students like more direction, have them write about nature, usually it should be something lovely or nice. The third line should be a surprise. Students shouldn’t worry about counting syllables. Here are some 5th grade examples:

Little red roses

Popping out of the ground

A car blowing up

It is summer

The river is flowing

My friend has blond hair

Now that we’ve started writing haiku, what are some of the qualities of haiku?

• Should reference a seasonal word, kigo, or a kidai, seasonal topic
• Often juxtapose two images that appeal to different senses
• Avoid self
• Reader should interpret meaning
• Multiple possible interpretations, open-ended
• Include a kireji, cutting word, or in English, punctuation that cuts the poem in two
• May follow 5/7/5 syllable pattern

Haiku poems are short. Do you really need to even revise them?

on a barren branch

a raven has come to settle…

autumn dusk

-Basho 1680

on a barren branch

a raven has perched—

autumn dusk

-Basho 1689

Though the changes seem small, these changes actually improve the poem in four ways.

1. shortens an overly long second line
2. change in verb gives the poem a greater sense of finality
3. ellipsis suggests an unspecified connection, so the change to a dash creates tension and a defined break
4. in the Japanese version the k sound is strong and this effect is heightened in the revision. The translator used perch to try to illustrate the effect.

The poem is written about a classical Chinese subject “cold crow and barren tree” and as Basho did do some painting, the change in his poem is mirrored in image. His early painting had a flock of birds, but the later poem had only one crow.

What makes a haiku good for a wider audience?

Snowflakes-

dust on the toes

of my boots

-Penny Harter

I rather like this poem, because it is not a metaphor. The dust really is dust. It suggests the time when you reach deep into your closet searching for your snow boots. As you pull the boots out of the closet, you wipe the dust from their surface. This dust reminds you of when you last wore your boots in the snow now an entire season ago. Dust is time – the beginning and the end.

walking the snow-crust

      not sinking

          sinking

-Anita Virgil

This poem uses multiple sense imagery. There is movement, balance, sight, hearing, temperature, touch, smell…taste, though catching snowflakes on the tongue might be pushing it. Also, notice the whole appearance of the poem looks like snow crust that has been broken.

old pond…

a frog leaps in

water`s sound

-Matsuo Basho

Frogs are a common subject of Japanese poetry, but every poem to that time was about the frog`s singing, but Basho`s frog is leaping. Its action makes the sound rather than voice.

Basho believe poems were created by the unity of poet and experience. The first element is perception. The poet must experience a stong feeling from the object. Each object has an essential essence that can not be felt by just a look. “In writing do not let a hair`s breath separate your self from the subject. Speak your mind directly; go to it without wandering thoughts” (10). If a writer wishes to experience the river, he or she must go to the river and contemplate its nature. The second element is that the author must express the experience with words. Ideally these two elements are united. The poet`s mind and words are understood by the reader who should be able to understand the object`s very nature. This the ideal set by the Basho-School of haiku.

How can you share haiku?

• Writing a note
• Making a card, letterhead
• Bulletin boards
• Newsletter using Publisher (send around the school, to parents)
• Website
• Bus placards
• The International Directory of Little Magazines and Small Presses
• Poetry Readings
• Haiku Society of America, Inc. at http://www.hsa-haiku.org/

Some sample poems to get you started…

Center for Asian Studies, University of Colorado, 2010