Last month was National Poetry Month and I challenged myself to write a poem a day, as others, like Janlori Goldman, did. I cheated a little - writing ahead or catching up here or there - but I otherwise produced something daily.
I aimed to write a haiku a day. At first the form seemed easy because of its length, but counting syllables and working within the confines of a form isn't as easy as it looks ("easy as it looks," that is, when it is done well.) I found myself counting syllables and listening to words more carefully throughout the day. Overall, it was a fruitful exercise. The resulting poems weren't extraordinary, but they challenged me to think about words differently and continued to weave poetry into my daily life.
The poems also documented moments of each day. Haruo Shirane writes about haiku, "The Japanese have been kind of satirized for carrying cameras around, but before the camera, it was the haiku. So you climbed the famous mountain and you composed the haiku. And that meant that you had been there. And you pulled out your diary and you read that poem and it reminded you that you were there or you could send that haiku to your friend to show that you had been there."
For more on haiku, read poet.org's definition or poet and translator Robert Hass' thoughts on the subject.
For more on National Poetry Month - over on my writing coach blog, I invited guest authors to write about poetry throughout the month. Hope you'll click through to read some of the posts.
I aimed to write a haiku a day. At first the form seemed easy because of its length, but counting syllables and working within the confines of a form isn't as easy as it looks ("easy as it looks," that is, when it is done well.) I found myself counting syllables and listening to words more carefully throughout the day. Overall, it was a fruitful exercise. The resulting poems weren't extraordinary, but they challenged me to think about words differently and continued to weave poetry into my daily life.
The poems also documented moments of each day. Haruo Shirane writes about haiku, "The Japanese have been kind of satirized for carrying cameras around, but before the camera, it was the haiku. So you climbed the famous mountain and you composed the haiku. And that meant that you had been there. And you pulled out your diary and you read that poem and it reminded you that you were there or you could send that haiku to your friend to show that you had been there."
For more on haiku, read poet.org's definition or poet and translator Robert Hass' thoughts on the subject.
For more on National Poetry Month - over on my writing coach blog, I invited guest authors to write about poetry throughout the month. Hope you'll click through to read some of the posts.
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