Slideshow Archive
The following haiku have been featured in the slideshow on The Haiku Foundation home page.
a marmot's whistle pierces the mountain first star
—Ruth Yarrow
Sometimes the most difficult kind of haiku to write is what we consider its most traditional and characteristic form: pure nature imagery. Perhaps, as our culture grows farther removed from rural and wild environments, we as poets don’t encounter the “natural” in this sense with the same frequency, and so our taste and content moves more towards an urban sensibility. But in the hands of a master we can still connect with haiku that seemingly have no human ambitions at all, and these can be as a result some of the purest and least affected poems we meet.
I was of three minds, Like a tree In which there are three blackbirds.
—Wallace Stevens
During the first haiku movement in English, professional poets were challenged to come to terms with the new genre. Some, like Amy Lowell and E. E. Cummings, wrote in the traditionally accepted form of the time. But some, like Wallace Stevens, re-imagined haiku as an American genre, and the result was some of his most moving and best-loved poetry. In the past it might have been sufficient to consider this work “haiku-inspired,” but with the evolution of our understanding of the form, perhaps it’s time to make the bolder step of declaring this “innovative haiku” in its own right, and folding it into the haiku canon.
the long night of the mannequins— snow falling
—Martin Shea
This poem does not surprise us today, but at the time it first appeared, nearly 40 years ago, it was a complete novelty. Similar things have appeared since, but none have eclipsed the original for mood and affect. Poems like this cast long shadows in the history of haiku, and inform its direction forever.
on this cold
spring 1
2 night 3 4
kittens
wet
5
—Marlene Mountain
There are very few poems like this, in haiku or elsewhere. It finds a perfect harmony between its form and its content, without being gimmicky. It’s immediacy allows its ultimate surprise in a way that no other form could permit.
I lean to one side to let a funeral pass. It leans to one side.
—Paul Muldoon
One of our most challenging contemporary poets has found sufficient resources in haiku to have authored two volumes of them. But one needn’t be a postmodern poet or a scholar to find depth, resonance and a sure response to the natural world in haiku.
waiting in the wharenui: my son’s mihi different to mine
—Sandra Simpson
English is the unofficial language of haiku around the world, not only for anglophone countries like Australia and the United Kingdom, but also for countries where English is at best a second language, such as the Balkans, elsewhere in eastern Europe, and even China and Japan. Here we have an example of New Zealand English, rich in words borrowed from Maori. A wharenui, literally “big house”, is where guests are received and important meetings held on a marae (a focal point for Maori with a kinship tie). A wharenui tells the story of the kin group in its carvings and is a place to be honoured. Guests, including non-Maori, may offer a mihi (introductory speech) to share his/her geneaology (whakapapa) and information including “their” mountain, river and sea. In the case of my son and I, my geneaology is only partly that of his, while we were born in different places and so have different mountains, rivers and seas. He may be my son, one of my closest relatives in Pakeha (European) society, but our mihi highlight that he is different to me, his own person from the time he was born.
Bone scan
the length
of a Brandenburg Concerto
—Ken Jones
Haiku would not be a worthy study if it could not command the entirety of the universe. What is more significant to humans than the notion of death, and our relationship to it. And what more interesting than the many ways in which we cope with our long slide toward it.
MOLDY BOARD SMELL ~! ((AH)) MY Grand pa’s face appears in the air
—Michael McClure
Gary Snyder studied Zen Buddhism in Japan, and brought back his newfound lore to his friends in California. His several score of efforts in the genre are the closest to the Japanese source. Allen Ginsberg turned them to his own purposes, writing what he termed “American sentences.” Philip Whalen, Diane DiPrima, Jack Kerouac, Lew Welch and others have turned their hands to haiku. McClure’s idiosyncratic work is amongst the best of the generation.
In the castle’s shadow the flowers closed long before evening.
—Dag Hammarskjöld
Dag Hammarskjöld’s name is known around the world even now, decades after his death. He gave moral authority to the position of Secretary-General for the first time, and his ministrations throughout the world, and especially in Africa, had huge repercussions for international diplomacy for years to follow. When Hammarskjöld wanted to express his innermost feelings and record his deepest impressions, he turned to haiku, and so created a vogue (posthumously) for the genre around the globe.
tundra
—Cor van den Heuvel
There is no more iconic poem in English-language haiku than van den Heuvel’s one-word evocation, and nothing which could be farther from the “traditional” form of 5-7-5. The poem is intended to be seen alone on a page, adrift in space, using the context of white space to bring its resonance to the fore, an accomplishment words alone could never achieve.
Winter burial. Suddenly the narrowiing of my own freedom.
—Günther Klinge
Günther Klinge was not a poet by profession, but his most lasting contributions to culture will have arisen from his haiku, not least in alerting doubters, including many Japanese poets, to the possibility of a haiku outside the Japanese language. His first poems were conceived (in German) in the 1960s, and in sensitive translation by Ann Atwood made available to English readers.
spring wind— I too am dust
—Patricia Donnegan
If we’ve moved far beyond the pronouncements of R. H. Blyth in the past half-century, it is still worth noting that western notions of haiku, and especially haiku in English, has a strong relationship with western notions of Zen. The best of these poems stand with the best of any haiku written, and secure this special interrelationship.
* * *
Hall of Fame
There are several projects towards which The Haiku Foundation is dedicating its efforts, including a Haiku Hall of Fame, but also a hardcopy library as well as a series of retreats, seminars, conferences and scholarships.
Kudos
Poem of the Year, Book of the Year, Poet of the Year: THF honors the outstanding accomplishments of each calendar year.
