Butterfly! These words
from my brush are not flowers...
only their shadows.
Soseki*

  


The "haiku" that you find on the following pages is not "by the rules" 
haiku. Most of it is, as the title of the first selections indicate, what
I choose to refer to as "american haiku".  The famous Japanese haiku poet,
Shiki, said of haiku that "essence is more important than form" and
proceeded to take liberties with the form and structure of the art of
haiku.  Maintaining the classic form in English sounds like so much
gibberish and doesn't lend itself to the "impressionist" quality that I
find in the works of early haiku masters such as Issa, Basho and Buson.
My love of haiku was fostered by the works of those talented gentlemen as 
translated by Peter Beilenson who, it is said, rendered the best translations
of their poetry and collected it in three volumes; Japanese Haiku,
The Four Seasons, and Cherry Blossoms. Peter began, and Harry Behn completed
the forth volume in the series, Haiku Harvest, because Mr. Beilenson
journeyed to the "other side".  Each of the poems captures a moment with
the deft strokes of the artists words.  The four works were published by
Peter Pauper Press, also, I believe, now deceased.

So, with apologies only to those listed above for being presumptious enough
to put my name along with theirs, I offer you my own attempts at haiku.
                                                    soji (aka Gary)
 
                                                      






3 american haiku

    *

8th grey day of rain...
 even the flowers
  in my garden
   seem sated.

         **

See, I leave paths
in these fields of diamonds...
shuffling through
dew laden grass.

        ***

Summer evening concert
crickets and cicadas harmonize
 solo by Mr. Frog

         !



More Haiku this way


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*This haiku, by Soseki, is from the Peter Pauper Press
volumes mentioned above.