Haiku Writing

Suddenly I find myself working on a haiku project which has not been listed for this year's writing plan of mine. Since I joined the Haiku Foundation http://www.thehaikufoundation.org/forum_sm/ to workshop my haiku in mid March, I've been reading, studying, and wrting haiku, and haiku writing has become my primary project. Every day I live with a haiku mind that helps sharpen my awareness about my surroundings to which I've already paid attention as a fiction writer and playwright.

I know why I love haiku because it shares some techniques with fiction writing. A good haiku shows but doesn't tell; it requires concrete images that involves our five senses.

Unlike poetry in general, the poet can project his/her thoughts and feelings into the poem, a haiku poet just shows the reader what he/she sees, hears, smells, touches, and tastes and puts it down in words and lets the reader interpreter the layers of meaning known as the leap. That is the indispensable ingredient in haiku, and that is why an effective haiku is not easy to write.