Poetry Magazines - The best collection of poetry magazines online - Simon Armitage

Perhaps it might be interesting to be able to get some idea of what happens when we set out to write haiku: the starting point, the alternatives, dismissal or jubilation.

1 Jo Pacsco

On an archeological dig I unearth a flint tool. Holding it in my hand I think that the last hand to touch it did so thousands of years ago. I want to capture the discovery and the feeling of connection.

The dig on the moor -
touching a hand of the past
hold ing a flaked flint

Not quite right so I try again:-

The dig unearths a
flaked flint tool touch of a
hand of the past

Still not satisfied, I decide to try a more personal tone:-

Unearthing a flint
I feel the touch of a
hand of the past

A bit pedestrian. Try again:-

I pick from the earth
a flint tool untouched for
millennia

This feels more immediate but not exactly right. I think I’ve overworked it now and lost the original inspiration. So I give up.

2 Peter Williams

Here are some versions of an observation I thought might make a haiku, with my thoughts on each. The buried plastic pond, or the edge of it, was revealed by the removal of crazy paving in a neighbour’s garden.

the buried pond
holding darker earth
September rain

This is written using what someone on a mailing list called ‘The Haiku Machine’: 1 Point at something 2 Say what it is doing 3 State the weather. This technique can produce interesting results but becomes monotonous after a while…

September rain
in the buried pond
darker earth

This I understand to be ‘fragment and phrase’ haiku. It saves the essence for the last line and does not have a verb. It also puts the rain and the earth in the pond, but I’m not sure I like the sound of it - a bit jerky.

September rain
the buried pond holds
darker earth

I quite like this one: ‘holds’ avoids the gerund, or ‘-ing’ word, which one editor tells me extends the moment, and it flows quite nicely.

I could substitute ‘clouds’ for ‘rain’, not mentioning the rain at all as it was intermittent and the pond holds darker earth even when it is not raining. The reader can surmise the reason. Or one could dispense with the weather report and use the first line ‘paving lifted’ or ‘crazy paving lifted’ which would give the sinister combination of crazy, buried and darker. And so on. Of course the question remains, is the observation worth stating at all and does it make a haiku? I’m still thinking about that.

3 Leo Lavery

Struck by the advertising flags outside a used car dealer’s outdoor parking I wrote the following though conscious that it might be bewildering to the reader. ‘Samurai’ and ‘used car-salesmen’ too fast a comparison perhaps? The narrow, vertically fat flags and the shone-up cars like mailed warriors in the sun lined up to attack the buyer. Still I hesitate.