The Haiku Foundation Forums

I love that haiku of Leonard's alluding to Peggy's voice... So much to think about on such good posts here.   Thanks.   

This concept comes to mind in a problem I was having with a bush...pretty plain language there.  But this bush was so hard to describe and I was at a loss for a word to describe it's many passages created by the tangle of branches and the many hiding places for the birds all winter.  (See how many words it takes to try to explain what that bush was!)  One day on the way home it came to me: 
bushmaze.   Now there is no such word.  But in one word it holds all the elements three lines of description took to explain.   
     I don't look for fancy words...I love the pot and rake and trowel... but I do love a word that holds the truth or the essence of something.   

I find the haiku truly reflects the poets feeling of the chill that had come over his world...it was not just a condum but a knotted up condum... I feel is it even more than a parody...but a condemnation in that he brings to mind the passion that had been there once... now hidebound and frozen.     

Save the date!  Haiku North America 2011 will be held August 3 to 7, 2011 (new dates)   
Members of the Haiku Norhtwest group have generously offered to host the 2011 conference and they have many exciting plans already in the works, including a harbor cruise.  The confeence itself will be held at the Seattle Centre, at the foot of the Space Needle, providing easy access to haiku writing and walking opportunities such as Pike Place Market (via the monorail), the Olympic Sculpture Park, the Experience Music Projet rock-and-roll museum and Science Fiction Museum, and countless other attractions -- including fleet week and the Seafair festival, with the Blue Angels performing overhead.
    In addition:
The conference theme will be "Fifty Years of Haiku" celebrating the past, present, and future of Haiku in North America.  The deadline for proposals has been extended to February 28, 2011
(http://www.haikunorthamerica.com/pages/2011.html), but sooner is better.  Proposals do not have to fit the theme.  If you've already submitted a proposal, please confirm with Michael Dylan Welch at Welch.M@aol.com that you  can come to Seattle on the new dates.  Speakers already include Cor van den Heuval, Richard Gilbert, David Lanoue, Carlos Colon, Fay Aoyagi, Jim Kacian, Emiko Miyashita, George Swede, and many others.  Info at:  www.haikunorthamerica.com and HNA blog at http://haikunorthamerica.wordpress.com/.

Thanks, Billie, Glad I stopped by...

These discussions of internal and external mysteries are interesting to me.  It's one of the reasons I tend to navigate to haiku that's nature based...it allows a certain view point that seems to me to allow things to be shared and explored without knowing the answers.   

Alan's remark about "maybe GOD..." reminds me of an old Hebrew saying..."Why did GOD create man?  A. Because GOD loves stories!"....   And perhaps that's why we're created in the image of GOD?  This is getting very interesting!   

It has been my experience with haiku that intersect with religious tradition that often the connection is not recognized unless one uses images that have been so worn by religious use that they are virtually useless in haiku.   I find that writing haiku for any "purpose" ends in failure... But that does not exclude in the contemplation of every day simple images... an awareness of the mystery beyond what may be so familiar.   It's important not to apply concepts to what we present...but to be able to present the fleeting moment of the experience.   
    I recently came across a hawthorn tree and this Christmas had a grand time using it in haiku - often to the people in my Church who were not familiar with the many concepts that tree has inspired in the past...but the ones who "got it" seemed to be caregivers for family members enduring cancer treatments.