Ah, haiga. If I were to envy an artist it would be the haiga poet…. (continue and revise + add picture)

Teacher, friend, lover, writer, poet, and photography nut are all words that accurately describe me. I live in the suburbs of Atlanta, Georgia (with my six zebra finches) and spend most of my waking hours thinking about nature and haiku. I am one of those poets who finds it difficult to separate the two things. I have volunteered my photography skills to organizations like the Sierra Club of Georgia and the Atlanta Audubon Society.

For the past thirteen years, I have taught elementary students and moved into teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL) about three years ago. In my spare time, I ride the lovely byways and highways of Georgia looking for my next photo opportunity.

For haiku poets, images are created from experiences which translate into words. For me, I document those images and experiences through digital photography and use them as my source of inspiration. I have found that as I move deeper into my fabulous forties, my memory simply isn’t as good as it used to be. Also, I am able to share the images with my students and motivate them to learn more about nature and to write haiku.

As a teacher, friend, lover, writer, poet, photography nut, I hope to inspire a generation of children to love and to appreciate haiku and nature as much as I do.

hot, freshly showered

i step onto the iced street

and turn into steam

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….Read more of Barb Heath’s haiku.

….And be sure to check out her haiku on Twitter.

courtyard politics

birds exchange words with gray squirrels

ancient peace resumes

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….Read more of Barb Heath’s haiku.

….And be sure to check out her haiku on Twitter.

brittle, bitter cold

and bald sunlight bleach stillness;

leech life from bleak forms

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….Read more of Barb Heath’s haiku.

….And be sure to check out her haiku on Twitter.

a languorous rain

drums its fingers on my sill

and cries itself out

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….Read more of Barb Heath’s haiku.

….And be sure to check out her haiku on Twitter.

lush purple garden

more honest in the moonlight

the sun changes you

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….Read more of Barb Heath’s haiku.

….And be sure to check out her haiku on Twitter.

Thank goodness for Twitter! Because this is where I first became acquainted with the haiku of Barb Heath. And after just a few tweets I was already hooked on her poems. So I asked Barb if she would be interested in being a guest at our site and I’m glad she said yes. Her haiku will appear over the next five days.

Barb is a professional writer who has found a different kind of sanctuary in haiku. Let’s give a big welcome to Barb as she tells us a bit about her life, work and approach to haiku:

I’m Barb Heath, a full-time freelance writer/editor. I’ve been writing as long as I can remember, but I didn’t discover haiku until my sophomore year of college. For the first 20 years of my life, I learned to “expand on my thoughts.” “Add supporting details.” Organize paragraphs. Write ten page papers. Fifteen page papers. Twenty page papers. Cite ten sources or more.

And then came haiku. I stumbled into a “poetry in translation” class that was originally supposed to be “advanced creative writing.” Haiku: it was mystifying, aggravating to me at outset. I loved what we read in class, but I couldn’t reproduce it. I had never learned to love such little things as syllables before. I was about to throw my haiku homework in the garbage when I realized, “I don’t have to be good at writing haiku, but I do have to learn something from it.”

Haiku actually taught me (what I think is) the most important thing for all my writing: focus. Haiku forces me to focus events, emotions, settings, etc. until they’re in their purest, most impactful forms. For me, writing haiku is like squeezing the juice out of a 750 page orange. Sometimes it takes me days to choke the nectar out of a single sentiment. Stray segments of haiku hang around my apartment on sticky notes, ripening. Professionally, I write essays, articles, standardized testing stories, web copy, and advertising materials. Recreationally, I even do some comics. Haiku fits in there somewhere.

Love?:

Negotiating

with a still-married woman…

Insane or in Love?

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…Read more of D. Gale’s haiku.

.h

Lost Love:

Postcard from afar

Venice with sun low in sky

Lydia sends her love.

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…Read more of D. Gale’s haiku.

.h

Self-criticism:

Reading another

Armenian genocide book.

Why do I do this?

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…Read more of D. Gale’s haiku.

.h