Dear Writers, Poets, Haiku Enthusiasts,

This class is about that ancient Japanese form of poetry known as haiku, but what is it? Yes, three lines, 17 syllables. I will share this, but in these modern times, the structure has been shaken up. Even one word, written with full-breath, full-heart, and an experience of emptiness—STOP!—can penetrate life and death.

This is sounding serious and it is, but also your shoe, an apple, a horse’s nostril can be the haiku subject:

    Dear, dear,
    what a fat, happy face it has,
    this peony!
                Issa

We will listen to many, divide up several times into small groups, try different angles of haiku and, of course, during the three hours have a small break. 

I am very excited to share this time with you and am looking forward to it.

May you be well and awake,

Natalie

If you like, you might look at: 

The Essential Haiku, edited by Robert Hass

The Poetry of Chiyo-ni: The Life and Art of Japan's Most Celebrated Woman Haiku Master by Patricia Donegan and Yoshie Ishibashi

Three Simple Lines: A Writer’s Pilgrimage into the Heart and Homeland of Haiku by Natalie Goldberg

The Heron’s Nest (back issues free to view)

#FemkuMag (back issues free to view)

Trash Panda (Sample Poems Only)

Zen Peacemakers (Archived Haiku Challenge Winners)