by Kelly

Having worked as a classroom teacher myself, it’s no mystery I was drawn to Teacher Haiku, a book of seventeen syllable poems about the experience of being a teacher.

To learn more about the book, I contacted author Randy Howe with a series of questions about the intersection of teaching and haiku. Here’s what he had to say.

What do teaching and haiku have in common?

I think that the teacher and the haiku poet have a lot in common, actually. There are many reasons why each might not accomplish their goal. If the teacher (or poet) does not have a lot of faith in the audience, she or he might overstate what is better left understated.

The best lessons and poems leave the lion’s share of the work for the students/readers.

For example, a teacher, or a poet, introduces an idea and then asks the audience to contribute to that idea, either by connecting to a personal experience or by exploring it further.

The teacher, of course, checks for understanding in his or her students while the poetry reader is left to his or her own devices. The poet can reread his or her haiku, but will never really know what kind of an impact each poem makes on readers. Teachers have more of an idea, between testing scores and conversations with former students. I like the latter so much more than the former!

The topic of “haiku” seems to be something most students have come across at some point in their school career. Why do you think the topic of “haiku” is popular among teachers as part of a lesson plan?

I am a special education teacher and one part of my job is modifying assignments. The most common modification is chunking long-term projects and assignments into smaller parts. This makes the material much easier to digest and goes a long way to alleviating student stress.

Much the same, haiku are brief and more palpable than, let’s say, the epic Greek poems. They offer a glimpse of an emotion, situation, or scene. Year in and year out, I see teachers successfully introduce students to poetry with acrostic poems and haiku.

I teach high school now, but taught at the elementary level for five years and nothing made the kids happier than to write a haiku and then illustrate it. Plus, they like learning a little bit about Japan. For my high schoolers, nothing beats manga. Graphic novels have become an essential tool in teaching literacy to students who are struggling and I guess there’s just something intriguing about the Far East!

A lot of the haiku in this book rely on a certain insider’s knowledge, so to speak, of what goes on inside a classroom. They were obviously written from a teacher’s perspective. Should more teachers engage in writing haiku?

My immediate reaction is yes. And then on second thought, I say, “Double yes!”

I think that teachers should write about teaching, whether it’s in haiku or journal entries. There has to be some release from the day-to-day stress, and teachers should definitely reflect on their art.

When revising, I had to take a harder look at how I felt about what I was saying. Whereas the first draft of many of my haiku were harsher than I intended, later drafts better captured my feelings about things like new computers arriving without keyboards, parents who seemingly ignore the fact that their child is not my only student, and kids more interested in daydreaming than listening to me.

At the end of a hard day, these annoyances can seem like mountains. On a Saturday morning, while drinking coffee in my pajamas, they seem more like molehills which is, of course, exactly what they are. It’s good for teachers to write about what they are experiencing and then go back and re-examine their observations and feelings.

Then they can more accurately categorize what is happening to them in the classroom and the decisions they subsequently make. For those whose chosen format is haiku, the benefit is being forced to cut to the chafe. This is probably true for all professions, pushing aside the inessential to get to what really matters.

The haiku in this book pick up on so many tiny school-year details. Did you write these haiku over the course of the school year or did you write them in the “off season”?

I am able to do a lot of my professional writing over the summer vacation, but “Teacher Haiku” was written during the winter of 2008. I started messing around with the essential topics in early December and by the time the holiday vacation rolled around, I was ready to write.

Deciding on subject matter was a lot easier than composing the haiku! I had never written haiku before, but like most people I thought, “How hard could this be?” Well, it’s hard. I still reread many of them and see how they could be better. I also know that in all too many instances, I wrote sentences rather than joining fragments and painting pictures.

But I do feel I was successful in capturing the life of a teacher over the course of a school year. After sixteen years of teaching, I know what March feels like, even in December. It feels long!

But there is a light at the end of the tunnel and not just the light of summer vacation. You see how your kids have grown since the beginning of the year. The hardest thing for me was sharing both discouragement and hope in just seventeen syllables.

Do you ever write haiku that aren’t about school?

I hadn’t written a haiku before “Teacher Haiku” and I haven’t written one since! I really love this book, though, and I loved writing it. Really, from that first step, when I was jotting down the essential topics, to the process of revising, it was a great experience for me. If I’m not learning, I’m not living. So, this new experience fit the bill.

There’s a guy who writes haiku about his beloved NY Mets, so maybe there is a market for sports haiku. I’ve also thought a nice hostess gift would be a collection of haiku about parties. I think that teaching is probably the most serious topic I would ever tap for poetry.

The most fun I had with this book was when I was writing in a humorous style. I just feel more comfortable in that zone. I’ve never been one to sit around the staff lounge, bitching and moaning about how awful everything is. I like my glass half full.

What are you working on now? Is there a book of “summer vacation haiku” in the works?

Ahhhhh, summer vacation. I think that a book about parenting and having fun with your kids might be in order. I can’t wait to hang out with my son and daughter again—all day, every day!

Recently, I finished revising “One Size Does Not Fit All,” a book I edited for Kaplan. It’s a collection of teacher stories, all with a focus on diversity in the classroom. It will be out in June and I can’t wait to see the response. It’s timely subject matter and the writing is really topnotch. Contributors include teachers from coast-to-coast, as well as Canada. There’s even a 9/11 piece from an American woman who was teaching in London at the time.

I am also looking forward to “1001 Smartest Things Teachers Ever Said,” which was just published by Globe Pequot Press. This is more of a gift book, so it should be on a lot of bookstore tables this spring.

I’ve been doing a fair amount of writing for my blog, and I’ve also been honing my skills as a Tweeter. And, of course, I’m counting the days till summer. Ahhhhh, summer vacation!

by Kelly

Once a teacher always a teacher.

While it’s true that several years have passed since I made my living in the classroom, I’ll never be able to shake certain teacher sensibilities. I still think in terms of “school years.” I still rip articles out of newspapers and magazines because I see their lesson plan potential. When I ran across a copy of Teacher Haiku at my local bookstore, of course I had to buy it.

Randy Howe, the book’s author, is a teacher himself, and the haiku in this little gift book are chronologically arranged according to the August-June calendar.The first haiku bemoans the loss of summer vacation while the last haiku celebrates the very last day of school.

In between are haiku about curriculum maps, staff meetings, report cards, standardized tests and kids who miss school to go on vacation.

Which brings up an important issue. These haiku are not meant for students. They were not designed to be part of a lesson plan about poetry, vocabulary or Japan.

Instead, these haiku are for teachers. This one asks a question I often wondered while teaching:

If I give feedback

and students don’t listen do

I still make a sound?

And this one speaks volumes of truth:

The tables have turned

Homework is more work for me

than it is for them

This haiku brought a smile to my face, along with many memories of my days as a middle school teacher:

I will never be

too harried or too old to

chaperone a dance

Ahhh. The school dance. Always an eye-opening and entertaining experience! Maybe I can find an upcoming one to crash . . .

by Kelly

Sometimes, even the easiest things can seem so complicated.

Take haiku. Perhaps you’re new to haiku and you’re seeking a simple description about the poetry form. You want to know where haiku comes from, what a haiku is supposed to mean, and if there are any rules you need to follow.

Do a Google search on any of these topics and you’re likely to become so overwhelmed that you’ll lose your creative drive to write your own haiku.

Enter a new book by Valerie Bodden called Poetry Basics: Haiku. The haiku title is just one in a series of four books by Bodden, all with the title Poetry Basics. The series also features concrete poetry, limericks and nursery rhymes.

The haiku version explains the origins of haiku in straight-forward language before explaining how the form was introduced to Western culture.

The book explains the reasoning behind the 5-7-5 syllable rule, but also opens the door to “free form” haiku, or uncounted English-language haiku, encouraging readers to first try out the counted version before revising their haiku into something less rigid.

The author also explains the concept of a cutting word, or a break in the language of the haiku that divides the poem into two ideas.

She also emphasises the nature theme then moves on to explain that a haiku which is not about nature, but about people instead, is called senryu.

While the book is clearly a picture book meant for children, I must say I found it helpful to read. It reminded me of haiku points I’d already known but had forgotten.

If you’re seeking a resource to explain the very basics of haiku, this might be a title to put on your library list — even if you are an adult.

And if you’re a teacher or a school librarian this is definitely a resource that would get used.

If you want more ideas about teaching haiku to kids, check out this listing of picture books on the topic:

Haiku Picture Books for Kids

by Alison

Consider this review a Valentine for Patricia Donegan. Because boy, am I in love with her books.

So enamored was I with  Haiku Mind that when I found out her new book Love Haiku: Japanese Poems of Yearning, Passion and Remembrance would be out in January, I ordered it months ahead. The book is co-translated with Yoshie Ishibashi and some of the haiku in this book have been published in English for the first time.

In Love Haiku, Patricia Donegan has gathered a compilation of romantic haiku by diverse Japanese poets. On one page is a haiku by Basho and on the next a contemporary haiku about a sex change. And this is the magic of this anthology. Love has so many faces, it’s a creature with so many forms that it is astonishing to see Patricia Donegan truly capture its complexities in one small book of poetry.

Also noteworthy is the male / female component of this book. It is a book about love, after all, and I appreciate that the male and female perspective share equal space.

As the title suggests, the book is divided into three distinct components of love: longing, passion and remembrance.

First there is longing, and I enjoyed this one by Yoshiko Yoshino :

nights of rain -

lonely, I fall asleep

holding my breasts

And then there is passion which is nothing if not complex, as in this haiku by Kanajo Hasegawa:

the one I curse

is the one I love -

red cotton roses

While this haiku of remembrance, by Seisha Yumaguchi, made me smile with its image of ephemeral beauty:

in the waves

no trace, where I swam

with a woman

Love Haiku is an exquisite book that pulled me into it’s theme so deeply that I could not stop reading these love poems aloud to my husband. And it is rare indeed to find a book of poems where each one seems to take your breath away. But this is exactly how I feel about this collection.

by Alison

I’ve long been a big fan of advice columns. It all started with Dear Abby so many years ago and to this day I still search out the advice columns in my local paper and favorite fashion magazine. Sometimes the advice is good and other times not so good, but they always seem to be an entertaining read.

Now I will never look at advice columns the same way thanks to Haikusue.

Haikusue is the advice columnist for the San Francisco-based fashion, music and lifestyle magazine Style Wylde. And true to her namesake, Haikusue delivers her wisdom concisely in seventeen syllables. Her haiku are clever and well-crafted and her ability to get to the point is refreshing. But do you know what’s most amazing? Her advice is GOOD.

How does she do it! That’s what I wanted to know. So I decided to contact HKS to find out more. Here’s what she has to say:

Have you always been good at giving advice?

Honestly, I do not know.   I’ve definitely improved as I’ve gotten older.  I receive a ton of relationship questions, and I think it took being in a stable relationship for seven years to gain the knowledge/life experience to answer other people’s questions.  Of course, I am still learning all the time, and I am sure years from now, when I reread this interview, and see that I had the audacity to think I knew enough about life to give out advice at this point, I will be mortified.

How did it occur to you to combine haiku with advice giving? Why do you think this combo works so well?

I was already writing a blog, when I came up with the advice column idea.  The now defunct blog was made up of boring political commentary/life musings by me, which no one read. Each entry was introduced by a haiku-summary before the post. After a while, I began to realize that the haiku were by far the best part of the blog and was I looking for way to phase out of boring-blog status and into something more creative and haiku centric. At that point I was also really inspired by fortune cookies.  I think I was eating a lot of  them, and saving the fortunes. I became obsessed with the seemingly abstract, yet sometimes spot-on advice they seem to dole out.  I still love fortune cookies, and I am very superstitious about how you chose your cookie when they are presented and what you do with the fortunes afterwards.

I think haiku and advice work well together because haiku demands extreme word conservation. You can’t mince words, or beat around the bush with haiku, you only have 17 syllables you have to maximize the impact of your words in order to actually give real advice in such a tight format.  Of course, on the flip side, sometimes readers do not appreciate the lack of soft-pedaling in my answers.  I received many hate e-mails, and negative comments from people after I posted this one:  http://www.stylewylde.com/haikusue/2009/10/7/live-in-haiku.html, apparently it was a little too ‘tough love’.

Do you write haiku when you are not solving other people’s problems?

Yes. I started writing haiku for an elementary school poetry project; originally I think I was drawn to it because it seemed easier than writing a huge a-b-a-b rhyme scheme sonnet. I remember thinking “Really, 17 syllables about nature and I’m done, and it doesn’t really have to make sense, SOLD.”  Later, in Junior High I discovered I was actually good at it, when a haiku I wrote ended up winning a district- wide competition.  (Of course during that time I was also dabbling in a lot of typical 7th grade girl poetry writing about my eternal undying love for John Taylor of Duran Duran and the unbearable soul-crushing weight of braces on my teeth.)  After that, I took a break from haiku for many years, and it was until about 2003 when in a fit of boredom at my soul-sucking admin job I happened on the then ’secret’ craigslist.org forum ‘haiku hotel’.  The haiku hotel was weird, and beautiful, and hilarious all at the same time. I loved it.  I haiku’d all day long.  I would count syllables on my fingers as I took the bus home each day.  Craigslist really gave birth to Haikusue, and I have been writing haiku daily in one way or another ever since.

This has been a brutally cold winter for many of us. Would you have any sage advice for aspiring fashionistas trying to deal with this unusually cold weather?

Vogue, Harpers and Elle

Christened season of layers

Embrace it with flare

I have my own problem and I’m hoping you can help….

I’ve tried everything but I can’t seem to get my husband to pick up his dirty socks. And his dirty underwear. And jeans and shirts. His dirty laundry is pretty much thrown all over the house. I’ve tried everything, from simply asking him to aim for the hamper to more passive aggressive techniques (i.e. sabotaging his underwear drawer, etc.) Nothing has worked and my back is killing me. What should I do?

Dear Alison:

shame him to action

refuse to pick up laundry,

invite HIS friends ’round

by Kelly

How is it that I have never heard of Andrew Vachss? He’s an accomplished author with well over 20 books to his name! On Amazon, reviewers heap praise all over his Burke series, a collection of 18 books about a private eye who avenges abused children.

Ah…but that’s it. He’s classified as a “mystery/thriller” writer. His books appear on the shelves along with Vince Flynn, Daniel Silva and Michael Crichton. I don’t spend much time in that part of the bookstore.

But perhaps maybe I should. Who knows which of these authors is nursing a quiet love of haiku? Turns out, Andrew Vachss is.

His newest novel is called Haiku. It’s a stand-alone work, having nothing to do with his long-running series.

In it, a group of homeless men band together on the streets of LA.

The unofficial leader of the group is a man called Ho. Ho, an elderly Japanese man, walked away his comfy life as a highly respected and admired martial arts master after a piece of advice he offered a student ended in her murder.

Ho can not come to terms with his role in her death. Thinking back on the moment she asked for advice, he believes he was dismissive of her request, that he spoke to her with an air of arrogance born from his inflated title.

Because of this, he leaves everything behind to pursue a life without any trappings in hopes that someday he’ll be able to write one solitary haiku that reflects his true spirit.

Before he can do that, however, he must survive on the streets. To do that, he needs friends. Enter the rest of the characters in this book. Each has his own demons and all are far from perfect. Together, though, they are able to pool their resources to save one of their own.

The book is not filled with haiku. Instead, it is the idea of being able to write one perfect haiku that pulls the main character through to the end.

The book wasn’t as tension-filled and suspenseful as I expected a “thriller” to be. It was much more contemplative. There was an active plot, a real problem that needed fixing, but there was also a strange sub-plot that got a lot of attention up front but then never amounted to much. Yet, overall, I enjoyed the story, and walked away curious about the author’s other works.

Which is how I ended up at the Andrew Vachss web site, which is where I found a page of his own haiku. This one, in particular, seemed fitting of a mystery writer:

When winter vanished

I searched, only to find you

Missing and presumed

If you check out the rest of Andrew Vachss’s haiku, I suggest you click on the last two. Each of them links to a accompanying cartoon.

by Kelly

I don’t knit, and truthfully, I never wished I knew how. But now, after flipping through the pages of Haiku Knits, I might be changing my mind.

This beautiful book showcases a collection of knitted designs created by Tanya Alpert, a fiber artist and knitting goddess who owns a store in the San Diego area called Knitting by the Beach.

The 25 patterns in this book are divided into five categories–Lingering Snow, Wind and Stream, Ocean Breeze, Fading Light and Beauty in Motion.

Each section starts with a haiku. My favorite is the haiku that accompanies the section called Fading Light:

City never sleeps

Sundown, dusk, alluring lights

Excitement beckons

The patterns in this section range from wispy and romantic to a more substantial sweater cape to ward off the evening chill.

All of the book’s designs harken back to a Japanese aesthetic. Alpert writes in her introduction that she began working with Japanese yarns a few years back and fell in love with their “unique textures and understated beauty.”

Those elements carried over into the designs she features here, which are sometimes cozy, sometimes lacy and often inspired by nature. She ended up naming the collection Haiku Knits because, she writes:

“Two of the main tenets of Japanese aesthetics are economy in the use of space and materials, and asymmetry. As in haiku, in the expression of emotion and thought, an economical use of space and time seems especially appropriate today. As for asymmetry, it suggests fluidity and motion.”

The ideas of economy and asymmetry are apparent throughout the book. And after dreaming about all the knitted designs I would be making as soon as I learned how to knit, I realized that while all my beginner attempts would most certainly be asymmetrical, the process as a whole probably wouldn’t be very economical. I’d have to take classes, buy supplies and of course, invest in skeins and skeins of glorious, beautiful yarns.

But a girl can dream…

by Alison

Before becoming a mom, a typical Saturday morning for me would include yoga class followed by a leisurely coffee at my local cafe.

These days I can only look forward to such a morning in the form of a birthday or mother’s day gift from husband — you know, one of those handmade coupons tucked in a pretty card and promising me a day to myself.

Ah, well. But I still love cafes, even if my weekly jaunts to a cafe are a little less leisurely.

I love a good espresso or the occasional caramel latte, but truth be told, my love of cafes is not about the coffee — it’s the human connection that draws me.

Whether I am at a cafe to sit quietly and read, meet up with a girlfriend or stop in for a quick caffeine fix, I just love the company cafe life allows me to keep … busy professionals, teenagers texting, blind daters over expressing, moms chasing toddlers along with writers tapping away on their iMacs. Cafe life is vibrant and varied.

And with this in mind I assumed Cafe Haiku was written just for me. It’s a collaboration of photographs and haiku by cross continental friends Zenbu Nometa of Shingu, Japan and Jeffrey Goldsmith of San Francisco, USA. Their book, Cafe Haiku, is a fun and cheeky little look at cafe life.

The haiku that were most interesting to me were (of course) about the people. Such as this one:

Hi there, Nicotine.

Would you like one? Oui, bien sur.

Devilish cafe friend.

Perhaps it’s not legal to smoke in many cafes in the States anymore, but I love this one for painting a little scene of boundaries being blurred and intimacies being formed which is so common in the world of cafes.

Also memorable for me is this one, which makes me think of my college days:

To cafes they go.

To talk of one thing most dear.

Michelangelo.

I might feel a little pretentious waxing on and on about the great artists in some settings. But at a cafe? Never!

Now a book about cafes would not be complete without mention of coffee and this is where Cafe Haiku puts it’s focus, which was not surprising after all seeing as how the book was published by the Caffeine Society.

And although I wish Cafe Haiku contained more haiku about the living pulse of cafe life, I did enjoy many of the caffeinated poems. Such as this one:

Why just go Euro?

Vietnam’s got great Java.

Condensed black and white.

Oh, that sounds intriguing! And with the very pleasing accompanying photograph, oh yum! I could use a Vietnamese Java tout de suite.

Wait. What did I just say???? I do not speak French but it seems this book has made an impression on me. I think I’m going to have to cash in that coupon gift from husband and head to a cafe. And then I shall surely spend half the day reading, chatting, people watching, drinking Java and of course…. writing haiku.

by Alison

Life gets a little complex in our household around the winter holidays. My husband is Jewish while I was raised with Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny. And since Christmas can be pervasive around this time of year, we make a special effort to highlight Hanukkah in our household.

So I was thrilled to receive this great gift in the mail for Penny from her Grandma. Hanukkah Haiku, written by Marriet Ziefert and illustrated by Karla Gudeon, is a wonderful addition to our Hanukkah activities.

Hanukkah Haiku is a beautifully illustrated book that is perfectly suited for young children. It counts out the eight days and nights of Hanukkah through the imagery of the candles on the menorah and an accompanying haiku.

And I may be biased here, but Hanukkah Haiku is now my favorite Hanukkah book for young children. Through the simplicity of seventeen syllables the beauty of Hanukkah is clearly illustrated and functions as a wonderful introduction to the customs of this holiday. For example, with this haiku I was able to teach my two year old about the Shammash candle:

Two candles tonight.

Daddy holds the Shammash high.

It lights the others.

Penny has also learned about the excitement of the gift of gelt - gold coins (which in today’s world means shiny foiled chocolate coins). And so she especially enjoyed this haiku!

Five candles tonight.

Uncle gives a gift of gelt.

The coins are shiny.

The vibrant folksy illustrations are also a wonderful touch. With pictures of happy parents, uncle, grandparents and children enjoying latkas, dreidels, music and the beauty of the menorah, Hanukkah Haiku is charmingly festive.

And so yes, I’m feeling festive! We’ve been so busy enjoying the holidays that it has taken me to the 5th day of Hanukkah to publish this little review but all is good.

Happy Holidays everyone!

by Alison

Well, this is refreshing!  The new President of the European Union is none other than the reluctant Prime Minister of Belgium, Herman Van Rompuy. Not exactly known for playing the part of the alpha-male, Van Rompuy is more famed for being a “nice guy” with few enemies and a “quiet sense of purpose”.  Can it get cooler than that? Oh, yes it can. Van Rompuy also writes haiku.

Check out this humble haiku penned by this new EU Prez:

Hair blows in the wind

After years there is still wind

Sadly no more hair.

OMG! I love this guy!  And not only does he write haiku, he also reads them aloud at the sort of very important events politicians tend to partake in. At a recent news conference Van Rompuy introduced himself, along with the prime ministers of Spain and Hungary, with this humorous haiku:

Three waves together,

Rolling onto the harbor –

The trio is here.

I think I have a new criteria for future politicians. It’s not all policy and press, as we tend to think. Our future leaders may also benefit their constituents by possessing the wisdom of haiku…. and correct me if that’s not a great quality for leadership!

You can read more of Herman Van Rompuy’s haiku, written in his native Flemish, at his blog. But if you don’t read Flemish you are in luck - a translated version can be found here.