Back in February, Roberta blogged about National Haiku Writing Month (Nahaiwrimo) and her own personal Haiku Monster.
Why do I call it Haiku Monster? To me, writing haiku is so addicting that it could take over my life, eating up my time and creativity with delicate little nibbles. If I can contain it to a single month, however, it won’t be quite so dangerous.
I’ve dabbled with writing haiku and other poetry forms over the years, enjoying my efforts and then moving on. But this time around, Roberta’s haiku monster really grabbed me. First, because her haiku poem didn’t follow the form that I learned in high school and second, I loved the picture it formed in my mind. My brain began spinning off all sorts of cool word combinations.
I followed the link she provided to NaHaiWriMo, which led to more links about writing haiku, and I learned that the haiku form of 5-7-5 syllables that we were taught in school is really not THE criteria to follow. Haiku is so much more than a set number of syllables.
In any case, it appears as though Roberta’s Haiku Monster is actually a Haiku Virus, because now I have the bug, to the extent that I have an Evernote page on my phone dedicated to writing verses whenever they come to me and I started copying them into a journal dedicated solely to my haiku. Most of my haiku is written late at night or when I’m on the road, either driving or as a passenger. I know it’s not wise to be concentrating on poetry while driving, but some of my best thinking occurs when on the road.
Last Sunday Bill & I took a drive up into Oklahoma to hike at the Travertine Nature Center in Sulphur. We’ve been there before and it’s a beautiful place to hike. I took pictures (no surprise there!) and wrote several verses of haiku, which I’ll share with you tomorrow. But here’s a short verse I wrote while we were driving back home.
cattle grazing
pumpjacks spinning;
Oklahoma wealth, old and new.
Image by Brigitte Werner from Pixabay