WRITING HAIKU  WRITING HA I KU ABeginner’sGuidetoComposing JapaneseHaikuPoetry Bruce Ross TUTTLE Publishing Tokyo Rutland, Vermont Singapore Contents Foreword to the Second Edition 9 Introduction 11 Looking at Nature: Haiku 21 Telling a Joke: Senryu 45 Telling a Story: Haibun 67 Expressing Your Feelings: Tanka 91 Drawing a Picture: Haiga 109 Creating with Others: Renga 127 Appendix A: Further Notes on Haiku Form 155 Appendix B: Taking a Walk: Ginko 161 Appendix C: Further Notes on Haiku Aesthetics 163 Further Readings 171 Permissions 181 5 To my friends in the world haiku community A thousand bows to you. Acknowledgments I would like to thank my students at Writers & Books, Rochester, New York; Writers at Champlain Mill, Winooski, Vermont; the Institute on Japan of the University of Vermont; the Doll-Anstadt Gallery, Burlington, Vermont; and the Japan-America Society of Vermont. Also, the comembers of the Haiku Poets of Upstate New York and the Burlington Haiku Group. And, finally, those haiku po- ets met in activities sponsored by Haiku Canada, the Haiku Society of America, the Boston Haiku Society, the Kaji Aso Studio, Boston, Massachusetts, and Haiku North America. Thanks for assistance are due to Francine Porad, John Stevenson, and Tomiko Hayashi. Thanks also are due to my editor, Jan Johnson, for nudging me in the right direction. Lastly, and most importantly, Astrid Calypso Miriam Andreescu, my wife; Murray David Ross, my brother; and Tom Clausen, my friend, well deserve very special thanks. Forewordtothe SecondEdition It has been nineteen years since I published the first edition of this book. Since then, there have been two major changes in the haiku world. The first major change is a worldwide interest and production of haiku in other languages. For example, here is an award-winning haiku from Goran Gatalica from Croatia, including the original version in Croatian. spring pilgrimage— first cherry blossoms in mother’s sandals proljetno hodočašće— prvi cvjetovi trešnje u majčinim sandalama The second major change began in the United States, and represents a change in phrasing and word choice, perhaps resulting from com- puter and smartphone use. However, the haiku form is timeless. Each individual haiku poet has the ability to experience their own so-called haiku moment that is a poetic insight. I originally wrote this book as an easy-to-understand guide to writing haiku and related forms for a young readership. My pub- lisher, Tuttle, wanted a revised edition of the book, but since haiku is timeless, I have left the body of the book intact. Bruce Ross, Hampden, Maine 2021 9