by Alison

***Update: Readers now have a chance to win a subscription to Berry Blue Haiku. Just leave a comment below by Friday, July 16th and you will be entered in a random drawing.***

Oh, here is something that is not to be missed! The very first issue of Berry Blue Haiku is now out and on the virtual newsstands. Berry Blue Haiku is a new online haiku magazine created with kids in mind. The whole presentation - the haiku, the artwork - is simply stunning so be sure to take a look and enjoy.

The brainchild behind Berry Blue Haiku is the wonderful Gisele LeBlanc of Cobalt Crow Productions and Reflective Ink, a favorite poetry blog of mine.  And so I was curious to know how Gisele thought up and pulled together this incredible project. Here’s what Gisele has to say about poetry, children and the publishing process:

cover art by Joy Nelkin Wieder

How did you come up with the idea for this magazine?

I ran another small online magazine for children a few years back–it was called Dragonfly Spirit. We ran fiction, poetry, and nonfiction articles on poetry and art. That was when I took notice of haiku.

Then about a year and a half ago, I started focusing on writing poetry, and learned more about haiku. I absolutely fell in love with the form and couldn’t seem to get enough of it.

I had been thinking about starting a poetry magazine and realized that there was no haiku magazine out there targeted toward kids.

And that’s when the seed began to sprout.

Who is your target audience? Kids, yes, but I’m also thinking parents and teachers?

Yes, although the magazine is dedicated to kids, it’s also targeted toward teachers and parents who have an interest in or want to learn about haiku. We’ll be featuring articles and lessons on writing haiku that can be used both at home and in the classrooms. We want the magazine to inspire young and old alike.

You are accepting submissions at Berry Blue Haiku. Are you looking for submissions by children or adults?

The first issue contains material primarily by adults, but now that we are live, we are involving kids, too. In the magazine we are running haiku contests and challenges for kids and all entries, as well as miscellaneous submissions, will be considered for publication.

Initially, we had decided to run our contests/ challenges for children up to age 13, but we have decided that we will also welcome entries from students ages 14 - 18 (under a separate category).

What do you think children can learn from haiku?

I think haiku can help children see the beauty in simple moments. It can help foster an appreciation and reverence for nature. It’s also a wonderful form of expression, can be very therapeutic, and is a perfect introduction to poetry. And, learning to say what you want in so few words is also a great way to practice writing and language skills.

The first issue of Berry Blue Haiku is free. For a limited time yearly subscriptions (4 issues) can be ordered at a reduced rate of $3.49 and then after June 30th at the regular rate of 4.99. The next issue will be out on September 15th.

If you are interested in submitting your poetry, writing or illustrations to Berry Blue Haiku you can get more information here.

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

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

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!

It’s that time of year again: summer vacation.

School is out, kids are jazzed and parents are wondering how to channel all that young-blood energy into something creative and productive.

We know! Why don’t you teach those kids to write haiku?

With that idea in mind, we’ve compiled a list a picture books that are either written entirely in haiku or incorporate haiku in some manner.

Asian Arts and Crafts for Creative Kids: Haiku
By Patricia Donegan

Even though this book is billed as one for kids, as an adult interested in the ways of haiku, I found myself paying close attention as I turned each page.

If the world of haiku is completely new, this book is a great starting place. It gives a brief history of haiku and also offers easy to understand instructions as to exactly what makes a haiku.

Learning activities give kids the first line of a haiku and encourage them to fill in the rest, making the writing of haiku more of a game than a serious endeavor and allowing children to feel successful with the genre right off the bat.

The book also suggests several activities designed to get kids outside. It teaches kids how to take a “haiku” walk and offers an entire chapter about how to combine haiku with paintings or drawings.

If you’re a parent looking for intelligent art projects to do with your kids, a teacher looking for classroom ideas, or a student looking for crafty things you can make on your own, this is a great book.

One Leaf Rides the Wind
By Celeste Davidson Mannis
Illustrated by Susan Kathleen Hartung

Follow a young girl as she explores a Japanese garden. On page one, she sees one leaf blowing in the wind. On page two, she notices two foo dogs. On page three, she spies three bonsai trees.

And so the story goes all the way to ten, making this a counting book combined with a haiku book. Each haiku describes the items the young girl has discovered, and each haiku is written in 5-7-5 format. The illustrations offer detailed views of a Japanese garden.

If there’s a Japanese garden in your neck of the woods, this would be a fun book to read in conjunction with a visit there.

Even if there isn’t a Japanese garden nearby, surely there is a park. Share this book with your child before going and then create your own version when you get home. In your park you see one slide, two picnic tables, etc. Challenge yourselves to write each item in haiku!
Author web site of Celeste Davidson Mannis

Wabi Sabi
By Mark Reibstein
Illustrated by Ed Young

The idea of “wabi sabi” is an ancient Japanese concept. It means, more or less, that you are able to appreciate the beauty in simple, everyday items or moments that might be missed by most. For example, if you think that the nicks and chips in a piece of pottery are pretty, then you have found wabi sabi.

In this gorgeously illustrated picture book, a cat named Wabi Sabi sets out to try and discover the meaning of her name.

Her journey takes her across Japan. Along the way, she stops to contemplate both the man-made and the natural beauty of the island. For example, she wonders at both the lights of Tokyo and a bamboo forest.

The author combines prose and haiku to tell the tale, which makes the book’s story line easier to understand for a younger audience.

There is a fantastic mini-film about the making of Wabi Sabi that interviews both the author and illustrator posted on YouTube. You can see it here:
Mark Reibstein: Wabi Sabi

Grass Sandals: The Travels of Basho
By Dawnine Spivak
Illustrated by Demi

This book can be approached in two different ways.

First, it could simply be read as a picture book about a man named Basho who one day decided to lock up his hut and set out on a walking trip across the island of Japan.

As you might expect in a picture book, there is text on each page that propels the story. In this case, the text tells you about the things Basho encountered on his walking trip – an old pine tree, cherry blossoms, kind strangers who shared their food. The illustrations support the story line and are interesting to look at.

On the other hand, if you wanted to use the book as a teaching tool, that is a possibility, too. After all, Basho was a real person; he was the original haiku master. This makes Grass Sandals a biography and in that case, the book can be used to explain the origins of haiku. Sprinkled throughout the book are nine haiku written by Basho in the course of his travels.

If Not for the Cat
By Jack Prelutsky
Illustrated by Ted Rand

Jack Prelutsky is a recognized name in the realm of contemporary children’s poetry. Here, he takes on haiku.

Each of the seventeen haiku in this book is about animals. There is a haiku about a rattlesnake, another about an eagle, and still another about a sloth.

Prelutsky’s haiku follow the 5-7-5 format and each is presented as a riddle. The answer to each riddle-haiku is the illustration on the page.

Each illustration is given a two-page spread, ensuring young children will engage with the big, bold pictures.

For older students, it would be fun to remove the haiku from the book and the illustrations, asking them to solve the riddle-haiku in small groups. Only after solving the riddles can they see the book to check their answers.
Author web site of Jack Prelutsky

Today and Today: Haiku by Issa
By Kobayashi Issa
Illustrated by G. Brian Karas

“Haiku,” writes illustrator G. Brian Karas in his introduction, “tries to capture a single moment, like a snapshot of time or a feeling, in a way that reveals the beauty of that moment and what it tell us about life.”

Well said. In fact, when people ask me to explain haiku, I often start with the idea of a single photograph. A haiku is like a camera, I say. Its job is not to capture everything. Its job is to capture a fleeting moment that you want to remember because it added meaning, depth or beauty to your life.

And this is, really, the only way to approach this book. If you pick up a copy of Today and Today thinking that you’ve picked up a bedtime story, you’ll probably be disappointed for that is not what it is.

It is, though, a collection of sixteen haiku, all written by Issa, a haiku master who lived in Japan during the 1700s. The haiku are divided into the four seasons and presented with images that illustrate the idea behind each poem. Because the haiku were translated from Japanese, not all of them fit the 5-7-5 construct.

This book would work best with older children and would be a particularly great tool if you were teaching the traditional purpose of haiku.

Cool Melons Turn to Frogs: The Life and Poems of Issa
By Matthew Gollub
Illustrated by Kazuko G. Stone

Poor Issa! After reading this book, your heart will break for him. What a tragic life he led!

First his mother died when he was just three. Then enter nasty stepmother. At the age of 14, his father cast him out, alone and penniless, into the world. And it only gets worse from there. Luckily, Issa had haiku.

Issa, one of Japan’s most beloved haiku masters, wrote over 20,000 haiku in the course of his life. This book presents 33 of them.

These haiku are spaced between portions of text that tell Issa’s life story. In this way, the haiku are easily understood as they seem to relate to what was happening in his life. Pretty pictures also illustrate each haiku. End notes share further detail about a handful of the haiku included.

This book is a beautiful biography that could be used during a unit on haiku, poetry, Japan or famous authors/people. As Issa’s life was quite dramatic, his story would even hold the attention of older students. Very young children would probably have a hard time sitting still for its duration, though, as it is longer than most picture books.
Haiku Lesson Plan (pdf) on author’s web site