Tag: haiku

Poem-A-Day April 25: Haiku

Haiku

i count the morning
stars the air so sweet i turn
riverdark with sound.

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Hello Friends,

Today’s poem is by a master of haiku, Sonia Sanchez, from her 1998 collection Like the Singing Coming off the Drums. The haiku form is about so much more than 3 lines of 5 syllables, 7 syllables, and 5 syllables — you can read more about what makes a haiku a haiku in this article Why “No 5-7-5”? on the National Haiku Writing Month website.

If you enjoyed today’s poem, you may also wish to check out other haiku by Sonia Sanchez I’ve shared over the years, including Poem-A-Day April 19, 2022: Haiku and Poem-A-Day April 1, 2019: Haiku [for you]. Poet Sonia Sanchez was also previously featured for Poem-a-Day April 9, 2014: this cough i cough and throwing waaaaay back to the very first year I sent poem-a-day emails Poem-a-Day, April 24, 2007: does your house have lions?.

Thank you for celebrating poetry month with me.

— Ællen

Poem-A-Day April 24: When I hear the word miracle I want to throw up

This Too Shall Pass

was no consolation to the woman
whose husband was strung out on opiods.

Gone to a better place: useless and suspect intel
for the couple at their daughter’s funeral

though there are better places to be
than a freezing church in February, standing

before a casket with a princess motif.
Some moments can’t be eased

and it’s no good offering clichés like stale
meat to a tiger with a taste for human suffering.

When I hear the word miracle I want to throw up
on a platter of deviled eggs. Everything happens

for a reason: more good tidings someone will try
to trepan your skull to insert. When fire

inhales your house, you don’t care what the haiku says
about seeing the rising moon. You want

an avalanche to bury you. You want to lie down
under a slab of snow, dumb as a jarred

sideshow embryo. What a circus.
The tents dismantled, the train moving on,

always moving, starting slow and gaining speed,
taking you where you never wanted to go.

■
Hello Friends,

Sometimes the title of a poem acts as the first line, as in today’s selection by poet Kim Addonizio, originally published as part of the Academy of American Poets Poem-a-Day on March 12, 2024. There is a reference in this poem to a famous haiku by Mizuta Masahide, which you can read here.

Kim Addonizio was also previously featured for Poem-A-Day April 25, 2024 (“To the Woman Crying Uncontrollably in the Next Stall”).

Thank you for celebrating poetry month with me!

— Ællen

Poem-A-Day April 13: Even more so

Even more so
because of being alone
the moon is a friend.

■
Hello Friends,

The moon is still pretty full, so we’re featuring one more moon poem by the great haiku master Yosa Buson (1716 – 1784). In the original Japanese, this haiku follows the format you are probably familiar with: 5 syllables, 7 syllables, 5 syllables. This English translation comes from Haiku Master Buson: Translations from the Writings of Yosa Buson – Poet and Artist – With Related Materials by Yuki Sawa & Edith Marcombe Shiffert.

You can view even more haiku previously featured for poem-a-day here.

Thank you for celebrating poetry month with me!

— Ællen

Poem-A-Day April 23: Two kinds of insects

Haiku

Two kinds of insects
The ones who sing at night
And the ones who don’t

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Today’s haiku is by the Japanese poet Kobayashi Issa (1763–1828). Several poets circulated this translation on Twitter, but I don’t know who the original translator is. If you’d like to learn more about what makes a haiku a haiku, please visit the Why “No 5-7-5”? page of the National Haiku Writing Month website.

—Ællen

Happy National Poetry Month 2019!

Hello Friends!

Each April, I celebrate National Poetry Month by sharing with you all some of what I love about poetry — through 30 poems from 30 poets delivered to your inboxes over 30 days.

Email open rates for the past twelve(!) Aprils tell me that more people read this April 1 message than any other message I’ll send out all month (alas, no matter how good my subject lines are) — so if you’re going to read only one poem this month, let’s make it a love poem:



Haiku [for you]

love between us is
speech and breath. loving you is
a long river running.

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Sonia Sanchez’s “Haiku [for you]” from her 1998 collection Like the Singing Coming Off the Drums is somewhat unusual in that haiku is a poetic form that is not typically about love. You may have learned in grade school that haiku is a very old Japanese poetic form that follows a 5 syllable, 7 syllable, 5 syllable format. But did you know the logo of National Haiku Writing Month is actually a 5-7-5 with a big red X over it? For those fluent in Japanese, 5-7-5 is a problematic English approximation of what is actually going on in Japanese haiku. If you adore 5-7-5 (I’m looking at you, Jeremy Bratt), this is not to say that you can’t write a haiku in English in 5-7-5; it’s just that 5-7-5 is not the essence of what makes a haiku a haiku.

What is arguably more important than the syllable count or line breaks in a haiku is that it captures one tableau-like image or idea, often invoking nature in a particular season or element of time, and containing a moment of pivot or juxtaposition. If you’d like to really get into the nitty gritty, you can read more about the haiku form here.

Do you have a favorite haiku or other poem you’d like to see featured? Send it my way! And once again, Happy National Poetry Month!

— Ellen

The haiku form has previously been featured for Poem-A-Day April 24, 2018, Poem-A-Day April 13, 2015, and Poem-A-Day April 29, 2011 (which includes the shirt I am wearing today!).

If you’re a fan of short, also check out this selection of previously featured poems shorter than haiku.

5-7-5

The morning breeze
ripples the fur
of the caterpillar

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Hello Friends,

Today's haiku comes from the celebrated Japanese poet Yosa Buson (1716 - 1784). This English translation is by Stephen Addiss. In the original Japanese, this haiku follows the format you are probably familiar with: 5 syllables, 7 syllables, 5 syllables. But often to capture the essence of a haiku in translation, it does not make sense to preserve the syllable count.

Do you have a favorite haiku? Send it my way.

Enjoy.
Ellen

Poem-a-Day April 5: haiku-esque

Hello Friends —

Like yesterday’s “Killing Flies,” today’s (very different) poem also can be read as dream or nightmare. Robert Hass is one of the foremost translators of haiku into English, and you can see the influence of the haiku form on today’s poem, which opens his collection Time and Materials: Poems 1997-2005.

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IOWA, JANUARY

In the long winter nights, a farmer’s dreams are narrow.
Over and over, he enters the furrow.

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For narrow, see also Poem-a-Day April 3, 2011.
For furrow, see also Poem-a-Day April 27, 2007.
For haiku-esque, see also Poem-a-Day April 29, 2011; Poem-a-Day April 2, 2009; Poem-a-Day April 14, 2008; Poem-a-Day April 5, 2008; and Poem-a-Day April 20, 2007.