Learning About Haiku - Helpful Links

[Don Baird]

Welcome to The Haiku Foundation and the world of writing haiku.  The links below are ones that should be very helpful to nearly everyone who wants to learn and/or improve their haiku writing skill.  For the beginner, they offer a few insights on how to begin.   For the advanced, they will work as reminders of techniques and ideas to continue writing well.  

This is a basic, initial list to begin our project of collecting links to helpful articles.  It is an organic, every changing list;   so come back from time to time to check out new links as we include them.  

Please let us know if you are aware of a helpful article to be considered for inclusion here.  Please post links that you think will be helpful too.  This thread can be a nice collection/library of links for us all.

Thanks.


 
"New to Ku"
****************************************

Highly Praised Simple Overview of Haiku:
http://www.withwords.org.uk/what.html

Shadow Poetry Guide for Beginners
http://www.shadowpoetry.com/resources/haiku/haiku.html

Jane Reichhold's guide to rules that have come and gone:
http://www.ahapoetry.com/haiku.htm#comego

Jane Reichold taped seminar.  Great for beginners.
http://mendocinoaccess.org/jwplayer/index.html

Timothy Russell's exercise as a simple way to begin writing haiku:
http://shachihoko.homestead.com/1exercise.html

World Kigo Database - The Basics of Haiku Theory
http://happyhaiku.blogspot.com/2000_07_01_happyhaiku_archive.html

Jim Kacian article:
http://www.gendaihaiku.com/kacian/beyondkigo.html

Thoughts on 5/7/5 (English) by Michael Dylan Welch
http://sites.google.com/site/nahaiwrimo/home/why-no-5-7-5

"For the More Advanced Haijin"
****************************************

Jane Reichold:  a little more advanced.
http://www.ahapoetry.com/h_t_techniques.html

Tapping the Common Well by Jim Kacian
http://www.iyume.com/kacian/knots.html

Michael Dylan Welch's Grace Guts site:
http://sites.google.com/site/graceguts/essays

Lee Gurga's Editing Tips
http://www.poetrysociety.org.nz/May2006/haikuarticle/leegurga


. . . . . World Kigo Database
Alphabetical Index
http://worldkigodatabase.blogspot.com/

Seasonal Index
http://wkdkigodatabase03.blogspot.com/2010/03/saijiki-list.html

5-7-5 ... go shichi go ... in Japanese
http://happyhaiku.blogspot.com/2000/07/theory-5-7-5.html

The Japanese Haiku Topical Dictionary
University of Virginia, seasonal index
http://etext.virginia.edu/japanese/haiku/saijiki/brief.html

One line and sentence haiku:
http://happyhaiku.blogspot.com/2000/07/one-sentence-haiku.html

William J. Higginson's article on one-line haiku, From One-line Poems to One-line Haiku: http://simplyhaiku.com/SHv2n5/haikuclinic/haikuclinic.html

John's Zip School
http://www.renkureckoner.co.uk/zipschool/  

Haiku as Anti-Story by Jim Kacian
http://www.gendaihaiku.com/kacian/anti-story.html

Kireji (aka cutting words):
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kireji

Modified by Alan Summers to include: Wikipedia link about kireji: Haiku as Anti-Story by Jim Kacian

Kireji, the japanese view on cutting words...
http://gendaihaiku.com/hasegawa/index.html

[AlanSummers]

Dear Gabi,

I've altered the link to what you want.  We're just trying to include a collection of weblinks that are useful, and not confusing, to people very new to haiku but can also prove useful to people more seasoned to haiku.

Alan

[Gael Bage]

Don and Alan, thank you for this, having mislaid where I saw previous links this will be invaluable, I was actually going to suggest this might be helpful - now who is psychic  :)

[sandra]

May I suggest that you post this link in your list:

http://mendocinoaccess.org/jwplayer/index.html

An online workshop with Jane Reichhold, aimed at beginners. The film is almost 1 hour long.

[sandra]

Oh, and for "more advanced", Jane's essay on techniques:

http://www.ahapoetry.com/h_t_techniques.html

[Don Baird]

Thank you Sandra.  Looks like a couple of great links.  :)

Don

[moonrise]

Thanks so much for posting this great set of links!
Dawn

[hairy]

Here's one that I found helpful starting out. It broke me of my bad 5 7 5 haiku habit early on.


http://www.shadowpoetry.com/resources/haiku/haiku.html

[Don Baird]

Great!  Thanks!!!  I post it with the rest!

Don

[AlanSummers]

Useful essay on using repetition in haiku:

Repetition - For Meaning and Melody
by Florence Vilen (Sweden)

First Publication in the WHCessay mailing-list of the World Haiku Club
http://www.tempslibres.org/tl/en/textes/essai05.html

[John McManus]

If anyone is interested in a bit of a history lesson on the persecution of the gendai poets here is a good article.

http://haikureality.webs.com/esejeng48.htm

There are plenty of other decent essays and articles on there too. Well worth checking them out!

warmest,
John