17  17 explores the possibilities for haiku as a literary art in English.* Founded by poet and author Clark Strand, the group sponsors a variety of activities:
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Weekly Haiku Challenges with Clark Strand on Facebook
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Haiku—The Master Class, a year-long course in every aspect of haiku (registration is closed for 2022 and will reopen for 2023 in the Fall)
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Haiku Teacher Training, a 10-month curriculum for Master Class graduates who wish to lead haiku groups of their own (this training will be offered again in 2023)
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Focused Weekend Workshops on subjects relevant to the study of haiku
For information on how to join any of these activities email clarkstrand@aol.com
* To view the "17 Essential Points" that inform our approach to haiku in English, you can consult the list at the bottom of the newsletter.
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Upcoming Programs & Events
ANIMISM: The Soul of Haiku
A Weekend-Long Immersion in the World's Oldest Spiritual Tradition (July 29 - 31 on Zoom)
This weekend workshop explores a very old idea in haiku poetry. Today we call it animism: the belief that everything in the cosmos—animals, plants, rocks, rivers, weather—is sentient and alive.
All Homo sapiens were once animists. With the rise of civilization, however, anthropocentric ways of thinking gradually displaced the belief that we occupy an entire universe of living things. But not in haiku. In haiku poetry, animism remained the rule.
At this weekend workshop. we will explore haiku as a way of reclaiming the "the life of things," bridging the gap between the human and more-than-human worlds.
The workshop will include informative talks, interactive exercises, self-directed "haiku walks," a traditional kukai meeting to celebrate one another's poems, and lots of Q & A time. Because of the interactive nature of the workshop, space is limited to 20 people on a first-come, first-serve basis.
All Zoom sessions will be recorded and sent to participants as a lasting resource.
The schedule (on Eastern Time) will be as follows:
Friday, July 29 (7 - 8:30 pm)
Saturday, July 30 (12 - 1:30 pm & 3 - 4:30 pm)
Sunday, July 31 (12 - 1:30 pm)
COST:
Self-Selected Scholarship ($195)
Workshop Fee ($230)
Pay It Forward ($300)
To register send payment to woodenbowl@aol.com via PayPal
Learn to Write Haiku:
Mastering the Ancient Art
Of Serious Play
That's right. The title is 5-7-5. Clark's 6-Week Course for Tricycle Magazine will use video, Zoom, and written components to cover the history and practice of writing haiku. The course will go live on September 12, 2022. After the initial run, it will be available as a video course you can take at your own pace. To be notified by email when enrollment opens, you can go HERE.
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MAY HAIKU TIP
Essential Point #10: The Underlying Principle of Formal and Popular Haiku
Both Formal and Popular Haiku aim to produce a distinctive turn of thought. In Formal Haiku, the turn of thought is inspired by the season word.
In haiku, the use of words belonging to a certain season allows us to evoke the whole of nature by referring to one particular thing. The “season word” functions as an anchor—a point of connection with the natural world.
Often, in composing a haiku, a poet will begin with a designated seasonal topic. Playing with the season word, seeking it out in nature, or imaginatively exploring its various meanings—these allow the mind to form connections. This process of association opens us to discovering original juxtapositions, deeper meanings, and fresh possibilities for “haiku humor,” from which a turn of thought may arise.
At other times, the poet may begin with an idea for a turn of thought, or a pressing need for self-expression, which inspires the choice of a season word. The word may be used to evoke a traditional set of seasonal associations, or it may be employed in a surprising way. For example, the word “spring” is usually associated with rising life force, but when juxtaposed with death or loss, the result might be a feeling of poignancy.
Using a season word to produce the turn of thought deepens the meaning of a haiku, connecting it not only to nature, but to the collective consciousness of a given culture. A fine turn of thought resonates in the mind of the reader long after the seventeen syllables are done.
That season words have been used for so long (and so effectively) to achieve poetic resonance raises the bar for Popular Haiku. A Popular Haiku doesn’t have to include a season word. Even so, to qualify as a haiku, it must produce a turn of thought that gives the 17 syllables MORE than seventeen syllables of meaning.
—Suzanne Tyrpak & Clark Strand, Editors
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This Month's Feature
Chiyo-ni: In a Class of Her Own
by Susan Polizzotto, 17 Features Editor
(Chiyo-ni, by Utagawa Kuniyoshi (1798-1861)
the morning glory
laid claim to my well-bucket
I beg for water
asagao ni tsurube torarete morai mizu
This poem almost always makes the list of Japan’s ten most famous haiku. Any Japanese who likes poetry and literature can probably recite it by heart and provide the author’s name, Chiyo-ni (1703-1775).
Born in the Edo period near the Sea of Japan to parents who owned a scroll-making business, Chiyo-ni wrote her first poem at age six or seven. Within a few decades, she was well-known as a painter, calligrapher, and haiku master. Her haiku, then called hokku, were popular throughout the country. She collaborated with samurai and fellow poet-artists, composing haikai no renga (“linked verse poetry”) in person and through letters on a regular basis. Many of these collaborators would travel to see her, and she sometimes took artistic pilgrimages to visit them, until her health no longer allowed it. Her friends included hundreds of men and women—poets and artists as well as samurai, prostitutes along with monks and nuns. Chiyo-ni continued writing poems until her final days, penning what is regarded as her death poem at age 72:
now seeing the moon,
I sign my name saying
goodbye to the world
tsuki mo mite ware wa kono yo o kashiku kana
Approximately 1,700 of Chiyo-ni’s poems survive, a number that seems appropriate given that her name, Chiyo, means a thousand years. In Japan, she is commonly referred to as Kaga no Chiyo (Chiyo from Kaga Province), or Fukuda no Chiyo, because she married into or had close ties with the Fukuda family. During her lifetime, she used various pen names—initially, Chiyo-jo (jo being a feminine suffix), or the phrase that simply identified her as “Matto Scroll-maker, Chiyo” (Matto being the city of her birth and family's business). She became Chiyo-ni after she took orders in the Jodo-Shinshu (True Pure Land) sect of Buddhism, ni being the suffix for a nun. Her Buddhist name was Soen, meaning Simple Garden, and she sometimes signed paintings and poems with it, too.
Shiko, a disciple of Bashō, discovered Chiyo when she was very young and became her first teacher. Many of Bashō's followers were still alive at that time, traveling and writing haiku. As Chiyo got older, she decided to study with other teachers in order to gain exposure to many voices rather than just one. This approach helped her to develop her unique style.
Even though Bashō died nine years prior to her birth, Chiyo-ni was often compared to him and was considered one of his heirs. She didn’t reject this association, but subtly asserted her independence. She wrote this poem on a portrait of Bashō, sending a clear signal that, while she acknowledged Bashō’s influence, her poetry was by no means an imitation.
To listen is fine,
not to listen is fine too —
the nightingale
Chiyo-ni cultivated a community of poets who composed haikai-no-renga and wrote poems to and about each other, maintaining strong friendships with them throughout her life. Two collections that together contain over 850 poems were published while she was still living. They offer ample evidence of her unique poetic style, one that bears hallmarks of some of Japanese haiku’s most prized characteristics: simplicity (karumi); sparseness or slenderness (hosomi); and oneness with nature (shizen to hitotsu ni naru).
Chiyo-ni was a woman of extraordinary talent and sensibility who celebrated the small and transient things in the world: morning glories, grass, spider webs, violets, plum blossoms, dragonflies, geese, and snow. But to trivialize her haiku as mere “nature poetry” or label her delicate aesthetic, a quality that is extremely difficult to master, as “too feminine” or simplistic, would miss the deep and subtle currents of wisdom and awareness running through them.
It’s said that Buson, who was a contemporary, criticized her and another woman poet, Kasen-jo, in an essay, declaring their poems to be weak and emotional. However, he must have admired the work of Chiyo-ni and other women haijin because he published an anthology of their poems, the Haikai Tamamoshu, and asked Chiyo-ni to write the forward.
In early 20th century male-dominated literary circles, Chiyo-ni's style was harshly criticized, mainly by Kyoshi Takahama (1874-1959), one of the most famous haiku poets of his day. Men might get away with writing poems that were occasionally subjective or emotional, but if women did that their work was denigrated as “kitchen haiku.” Nevertheless, the influence of Chiyo-ni quietly persisted, and not only in Japan. Though not mentioned as frequently as other masters, Chiyo-ni’s haiku have been studied in the West and translated into English, French, Italian and Spanish. Their purity, clarity, musicality, and harmony with nature place them in a class of their own.
Although the facts about Chiyo-ni’s personal life are obscure and conflicting, most scholars believe she married in her teens and that a baby son and her husband died when she was about twenty. Thereafter, she returned home, cared for her aging parents, and kept the family business going. Rumors say there was another marriage proposal, which she turned down, and that she had lovers and possibly another child, or maybe two.
In her fifties she became a Buddhist nun. She shaved her head, but unlike most nuns did not move into a temple, or at least not permanently. She visited temples and probably trained in Kanazawa for a period of time, because there are few haiku from 1754-58 that describe nuns, temple rituals, and rohatsu, an eight-day silent meditation retreat. Her independent living status allowed her an uncommon degree of freedom to travel and collaborate with men and women. Concerning Chiyo-ni’s decision to take orders, Jane Hirshfield explains that her motivation wasn’t to renounce the world, but to “teach her heart to be like the clear water which flows night and day.”
While translations of some of Chiyo-ni's best known haiku can be found online or in anthologies, and occasionally used copies of books featuring about 50-150 poems surface, I have yet to find a comprehensive volume in any language other than Japanese. Patricia Donegan and Yoshie Ishibashi co-translated and published a collection of about 100 poems in Chiyo-ni: Woman Haiku Master (Tuttle: 1998). It is now out of print and used copies are extremely rare. Rising to the challenge of curating and sharing Chiyo-ni’s haiku with a larger English-speaking audience, I have begun a new translation of her work. I’ll be sharing more of her haiku and discussing the translation process in next month’s newsletter.
I am grateful to Mitsuyo “Mitzi” Ito of Carolina Beach, NC, for her insights on cultural context and assistance with translation. All translations in this article are my original ones, unless otherwise noted.
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Highlights from the Weekly Challenge Group
Each month "17" features four haiku with commentary from our online Facebook community, Weekly Haiku Challenge with Clark Strand. To learn more about the group and how to join it, go HERE. —Suzanne Tyrpak, 17 Highlights Editor
"thaw" spring / the landscape
everything has thawed
leaving less of yesterday
in its hurried wake
—Stefanie Ayazi
The first and last lines are letter perfect. They express, respectively, a feeling of resignation at having passed the “tipping points” for climate emergency, and the speed with which this has happened.
It is the middle line, however, that puts this poem in its own category. The words “leaving less of yesterday”—apart from the pure poetry of their rhythm and sound—offer the most perfect description I have seen in haiku form of the emerging psychological phenomenon called solastalgia, depression caused by environmental change such as natural disasters, climate change, and other negative alterations to one’s surroundings or home.
—Clark Strand
"swing" spring / humanity
the swing is not there
only the tree and the branch
and the memory
—Noelle Adamo
This haiku appeals to me on several levels, first as a playful psychological verse. The poet indicates the absence of a swing, forcing readers to think of nothing else. How long was it there? How many children played on it? Where did it go?
On an emotional level, the poem overflows with melancholy, capturing the transient nature of life. The swing, an object that once gave joy, is now gone. Life is a succession of unique moments. The remembering self brings those moments alive again in memory. This poem is a beautiful expression of that.
—Susan Polizzotto
"Easter / Passover" spring / observances
Every Easter
my son sleeps with his stuffed lamb
I paint the door red
—Ginger Garrett
The poet’s sleeping son clutches a stuffed toy lamb, not just this Easter, but every Easter. No matter how many years have passed, her son will always be her little boy, her baby.
The last line’s turn-of-thought takes the poem into a darker place, recalling the slaughtered lambs of Passover sacrificed by ancient Hebrews. Smearing lambs’ blood on their doors, parents prayed Egyptian soldiers would think the Angel of Death had already visited—had already killed their firstborn sons—and pass by.
What parent doesn’t feel trepidation at the thought of death visiting their child?
—Suzanne Tyrpak
"roof leak" spring / humanity
The roof overflows
leaking into a bucket
that overflows too
—Shelli Jankowski-Smith
This poem offers many layers of meaning in an exceedingly simple package.
The opening line is richly atmospheric with its image of rainwater saturating the eaves and roof shingles to the point that it seeps through. The turn of thought is ingenious, twisting the meaning of “overflows.”
We are left with the feeling of rain that cannot be contained. Not by the roof. Not by the bucket. Not by anything.
—Clark Strand
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Upcoming Season Words for the Weekly Haiku Challenge
For those belonging to the Weekly Challenge Group, it can be helpful to know what words are coming up over the next month, but we encourage all of our subscribers to write and share haiku on these themes. In this way, we can begin to follow the seasons together—spring, summer, fall, and winter—and share the joy of haiku together as a community.
—Becka Chester, 17 Season Word Editor
May 23 Season Word, “plow,” all spring / humanity
The earliest plows were simple digging sticks, often with handles attached for pulling or pushing through the earth. Throughout the Roman Empire, wheelless plows with iron blades were pulled by oxen. These implements were extremely useful in Mediterranean dirt but proved of no use in the heavier soil of northern Europe. With the development of the wheeled plow, agriculture was able to expand into regions in the north.
Today, a variety of plows are used for farming. Plows made of inverted discs with a backwards inclination achieve the depth required for planting, while rototillers, made of knives mounted on a horizontal, motorized shaft, are used primarily for weed control. To dig into particularly hard soil, a subsoiler or a chisel plow is used, some of which can rip into the earth up to one meter deep.
In Haiku World, William J. Higginson writes, “For many, the scent of ground newly broken with the plow in preparation for planting defines the arrival of spring.”
June 6 Season Word, “baby’s breath,” late spring / plants
Higginson writes: “The Japanese [word] literally means ‘mist plant.’ The small white flowers of Gypsophila blooms in dainty sprays from late spring to early summer; plants grow up to three feet tall.”
For centuries, baby’s breath was a fashionable flower throughout Africa, Australia, and Eurasia. During the Victorian era, it was given its unique name and introduced to the United States. A popular filler flower for bouquets, it has long been symbolic of everlasting love, new beginnings, and innocence. It grows in a variety of colors, including red, blue, pink, butter yellow, with white being the hue most widely used.
In 1999, the rock group The Pretenders recorded the song, “Baby’s breath,” the refrain of which is as follows:
Why do you send me roses?
Save them for someone’s death
The love you have to offer
Is only baby’s breath
June 13 Season Word, “beachcombing / gathering shells,” late spring to early summer / humanity
As spring winds down and warmer summer days begin, many head to the shoreline to search the beaches for a variety of treasures – from manmade objects such as worn sea-glass to relics from the natural world, like shark-cases and seashells. The best time to go beachcombing is typically right after a storm or at the tide’s lowest ebb. Walking slowly along the edge of the sea, combing the beaches can be rewarding, even if one only finds an inner serenity from it.
In Haruki Murakami’s novel Hard Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World, the protagonist describes his childhood near the sea: “I’d go to the beach the morning after a typhoon and find all sorts of things that the waves tossed up. There’d be bottles…and hats and cases for glasses, tables and chairs…the strange thing is, everything washed up from the sea was purified. Useless junk, but absolutely clean.…the sea is special in that way.”
June 20 Season Word, “cross breeze,” all summer / humanity
The Urban Dictionary’s definition for cross-breeze is “a breeze that occurs when two windows are [opened] across from one another, creating a flow of cool air for one’s pleasure and comfort.” Although the air coming through the opposing windows is arguably natural, the conscious act of opening two windows has made it part of the man-made realm. It is a wind-driven method for cooling or clearing pollutants from an indoor area which doesn’t require any artificially generated energy.
Used as an easy way to cool hot, stuffy rooms for ages, it is now being utilized in modern buildings and is termed “natural ventilation” in the construction industry. It is a key element in today’s green buildings.
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Kool ‘Ku News
Haiku is the most popular form of poetry in the world. That’s why it so often appears in popular culture. Here are some of the poems that made the news in our online community—plus haiku-themed special mentions, news items, contest announcements, and more. – Clifford Rames, 17 News Editor
Kukai Results—APRIL 2022
A Kukai is a monthly haiku gathering where poets anonymously submit 3-5 poems for commentary by their peers. Participants vote for the five haiku they liked the best from those submitted and then briefly explain what they liked about them. This Kukai was conducted by the WEEKLY HAIKU CHALLENGE with Clark Strand group on Facebook.
Below is the two First Place poems (tied at 6 votes each) from the APRIL 2022 Kukai, along with selected commentary by peer poet participants. Congratulations to all!
FIRST PLACE HONORS (6 votes each)
bus origami…
thoughts folding in on themselves
on the way to work
—Jonathan Aylett
Stefanie Ayazi: “This haiku captures our daily humdrum lives and brings them to the next level.”
Clifford Rames: “Daydreaming in the bus, and randomly sorting and filing thoughts... I have been there. Not sure my mind's results were as precise and elegant as successful origami, though.”
Lynn Wagner: “The mind meanders, unlike the purposefulness of a bus on its route and demands of the workplace. I imagined an origami bird flying out the bus window.”
Kelly Shaw: “I like the lightness and heaviness, contraction and expansion, all at once.”
those three steps backward
to set the swing in motion…
story of my life
—Susan Polizzotto
Clifford Rames: “Sometimes it's the setbacks that eventually allow us fly.”
Jonathan Aylett: “Conveying pathos and humor in 17 syllables is quite a feat. Masterfully done.”
Becka Chester: “A setback can be the catalyst for a new start. Well-done!”
Kelly Shaw: “This sobering truth feels like life as a game of hide-and-seek where we're purposely forgetting in order to try to remember again.”
Results of the APRIL 2022 Tricycle Monthly Haiku Challenge
“The history of modern haiku forms a circle, not a line. Those poets who believed that haiku should lead to advances in the realm of human affairs have come around to the idea that haiku is, most fundamentally, a form of animism—the belief that a distinct “spiritual essence” infuses everything in Nature, including animals, plants, rocks, and even the weather.” —Clark Strand
Congratulations to poet, Nancy Winkler, who, in this winning “dandelion” haiku “traces the taproot of a dandelion to a place of calm in the face of intractable modern problems.”
With its deep taproot
the dandelion stays calm
as its head explodes
— Nancy Winkler
To see all of the APRIL results, honorable mentions, and full commentaries, click HERE.
The season word for the MAY 2022 Tricycle Monthly Haiku Challenge is “soap bubble”). For more info and to submit, click HERE.
Don’t Forget: Tricycle now has its own private Facebook group, the Tricycle Haiku Challenge—a place to connect with other participants, respond to calls for submissions, discuss the winning poems, and ask questions. You may request to join the group HERE.
Haiku Success Stories
More and more haiku written by our Weekly Challenge members are finding a place in the wider world. Below is a selection of this month’s publishing successes and competition wins by our members. Enjoy!
Kyoto x Haiku Project: Haiku of the World
During the spring, Mayuzumi Madoka, one of Japan’s most widely recognized haiku poets and the foremost proponent of formal haiku in the world today, invited poets from around the world to submit haiku on the theme of “PEACE” to the Kyoto x Haiku Project. A selection of these haiku are now live on the Project’s website, including a significant number of poems authored by our members, including a number of fine poems by Jonathan Aylett, Clifford Rames, Resa Alboher, Dana Clark-Millar, Lynda Zwinger, Kelly Shaw, Clark Strand, and Marcia Burton. Congratulations to all! Note: If you have a haiku or a few you’d like to submit, you still have time to send them in. The deadline is May 31, 2022 (see below).
Consulate-General of Japan in Toronto—Sakura Haiku Challenge
In autumn 2021, the Consulate-General of Japan in Toronto, Canada, launched the “Sakura Haiku Challenge”, inviting poets to submit Sakura-themed (cherry blossom) haiku. The Consulate reports that it received over 250 poems from around the world. We are pleased to report that among the haiku selected for publication on the Consulate’s social media platforms (Facebook and Twitter) are poems from several of our members, including Susan Polizzotto, Resa Alboher, Erin Langley, Jonathan Aylett, Shelli Jankowski-Smith, Suzanne Tyrpak, Joann Passalaqua, Becka Chester, Kelly Shaw, Lynda Zwinger, and Ginger Garrett. Congratulations to all!
Poets Salon: Nurtured by Nature
ColoradoBoulevard.net publishes short poems, free verse, haiku, senryu, tanka, cherita, haibun, tanka prose, and short prose poems every two weeks on various themes. Congratulations to Clark Strand for his “camellia blossom” haiku, which was selected and published in the May 18, 2022 issue!
Upcoming Competitions and Submission Deadlines
Eastern Structures
Submissions are being accepted on a rolling basis for Eastern Structures, an English language print journal of Asian poetry forms. Please see the submission guidelines at the link above for more info. Poems submitted now will be considered for the next issue, No. 21.
Sequestrum
Sequestrum, a journal of short prose and poetry that publishes “concise, evocative writing that couldn’t exist in any other form, yet reminds us of the breadth and scope of longer works”, is currently accepting submissions of formal 5-7-5 haiku. Maximum five (5) haiku per submission, and the deadline is June 16, 2022.
San Francisco International Haiku, Senryu, and Tanka Contest
Sponsored by the Haiku Poets of Northern California, this competition is open to everyone. The closing date for submissions is not until October 31 2022, so you have plenty of time to polish up your poems. Please see the HPNC website for complete guidelines and submission instructions.
Haiku In the News
Saugerties and Ellenville Students Compose a Collaborative Poem Called “Behind the Mask”
A profile and report on a poetry project organized by Sari Grandstaff, a long-time member of the Weekly Haiku Challenge group. Sari has been the Saugerties High School (in Saugerties, NY) librarian for 13 years. In 2007, Sari founded National Haiku Poetry Day. Read more about Sari’s latest initiative here.
Cutting Bars of Soapku
Every year, Whole Life Soaps in Wrightwood, CA hosts an annual Soap Haiku contest. One winning haiku is then pressed onto a custom line of all-natural handmade soaps. The winning haiku also appears online in Rattle magazine. The deadline was May 21, 2022, and winners will be announced no later than July 1, 2022.
Artists against War: A Salvo of 17 Syllables
On May 24, 2022, NHK World—Japan aired a special program that attempts to answer the question: What can artists do in time of war? The series features the creative expressions of Japanese artists from various fields in response to the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Noted haiku poet, Kono Saki, was on hand to present her anti-war haiku, while recalling the role of the poetic form during World War II.
Haiku Book Picks
Every month we feature a book (or books) that would be valuable additions to any haiku library, from “must-have” timeless classics for serious students of haiku, to notable and/or fun examples of contemporary Formal or Popular Haiku collections for haiku lovers looking to dive into something fresh and new.
Borrowed Water: A Book of American Haiku by the Los Altos Writers Roundtable (Charles E. Tuttle Co. Publishers, 1966)
Edited by Helen Stiles Chenoweth, this hard-to-find collection of over 300 haiku by 13 contributors was written and selected by participants in the Los Altos Writers Roundtable group. Formed in 1958, the group of aspiring writers intensely studied the works of the four great Japanese haiku poets: Bashō, Buson, Issa, and Shiki. The haiku in Borrowed Water represent the group’s first foray into haiku in English—and one of the earliest collections of American haiku, that is, haiku that use the form to celebrate a poetic viewpoint of life in America rather than attempt to merely recreate Japanese-style haiku in English. One point of substantive note: The poets featured in Borrowed Water are all women, which at the time was quite a revolutionary departure from the existing norms of haiku tradition.
Quote of the Month
“There is no authority on haiku in English unless you accept, as I do, the haiku to be a definite form (and to be followed in a like manner) as the sonnet, which was introduced successfully into English from Italian and which has as definite a restriction of content as the haiku. (The haiku’s) seventeen syllables, 5,7,5 in three lines, with its…seasonal implications, its balancing images, its naturalness of expression, its dependence on ‘effect’ rather than intellectual ‘point’ is nowhere near as difficult as the sonnet’s structural and internal restrictions—and look how long the sonnet has been part of our literary heritage!”
—Helen Stiles Chenoweth, Editor; Borrowed Water: A Book of American Haiku by the Los Altos Writers Roundtable; Charles E. Tuttle Co., Publishers ; 1966)
Kool ‘Ku Comics & Memes
This month’s Kool Ku’ meme comes courtesy of https://www.vircom.com
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