Ian Kenney

I wrote these ideas down a couple of years ago, mostly (entirely?) for my own reference. I stumbled upon them just recently and, dammit, they are helpful!

Ways to approach those challenging first few words, and finding the overall theme of your haiku. “I want to write a haiku. So what am I going to say?”

Be observant not just to the goings on of the external world, but to your internal world as well. What are you feeling about something. How does your body react to a thought or a scene? What emotions are conjured up by what’s happening around you? Then, once you’ve found something interesting to try to capture in a ku, how do you convey that feeling? What familiar scene known to the reader would convey the same feeling? What writing technique would best bring it out?

So here your notebook need not be a record of only attempts at haiku, but of the things happening in your world that cause a reaction within you. Be mindful of what you are feeling. Capture in detail the sensation, the thoughts, the images that are conjured up. Don’t worry about being poetic.

Just be attentive to what is happening. Even if a poem never emerges from the moment, you will have savoured it.

Capture the detail. This helps to deliver the image or the sense you are trying to capture.