Saturday, March 31, 2012

What Can I Say?

Life is full of unexpectedness. Writing haiku and the related forms is one of the unexpected things that has happened in my life. My 2010's hospitalization for pneumonia and congestive heart failure that almost killed me weakened me and left me little energy to write. To ease myself back into writing, I chose haiku writing which I had been doing but did not take it seriously, by that I mean I didn't think that I would spend my time and energy on this kind of poetry and had my poems published. I made that choice because haiku requires only three lines, although it is not easy to write them well, I could handle it as I could write for only ten/fifteen minutes months after I returned home.

After I got my first haiku published in an online journal, I was immensely encouraged and decided to become a haiku writer. Later, I explored the other related forms of haiku--haibun and tanka--and had them published. Now I am a published Japanese short poetry writer, something that I have never thought of being when I received my MFA.

A Hundred Gourds

A Hundred Gourds