Haiku & Haibun

1. Haiku & Haibun

2. Matsuo Bashō (1644-1694) the butterfly perfumes its wings in the scent of the orchid

3. the first fallen snow is barely enough to bend the jonquil leaves

4. Taniguchi Buson (1716-1783) rain falls on grass filling ruts left by the festival carts

5. at the ancient well leaping high for mosquitoes that fish-dark song

6. Contemporary Haiku sleeping late wild lavender pressed against the window -Ron Moss

7. blackbird tugs first worm of season dies young -Catherine Edmunds

8. So what is haiku? • short: three lines & condensed language • may leave out articles ("the" and "a") • often no capitalization, punctuation • describes a moment or a realization • traditionally describes nature • may use a syllable count • traditional Japanese haiku used 5-7-5 • Japanese syllables are shorter so 3-5-3 is closer • much contemporary haiku ignores syllable count • seasonal reference • in ancient Japan they had formal lists of symbols for each month

9. Writing Haiku 1. Choose a month and make a list of signs of that month. Think of things you see, smell, hear, feel, and taste. 2. Use one or two of these to write a haiku. Try writing with syllable counts and without. Let's try step one together. How do you know that it's April?

10. Now, what's haibun? • Haibun is a kind of haiku prose. • If a haiku shows a moment, haibun shows what led up to that moment. • Like haiku, the prose is condensed: say as much as you can in as few words as you can.