June Is Haiku Month

Invitation to Haiku month

                       Some say haiku month is February because it’s the shortest month.    
                       I say it's June because we need calm beauty in these stressful days.

I take Natalie’s words to heart and decide to turn my face away from politics for at least a moment each day in June in order to write a daily haiku. You’re invited to join in.

Natalie, from the book above: “Allen Ginsberg, the poet, first introduced me to haiku. … He also told us that the formal five syllables, then seven, then five, often taught in Western schools, does not necessarily work in English. In Japanese each syllable counts. They don’t have the, an, that, those articles of speech, so he encouraged us not to worry about the count if we write or translate haiku.

“The only real measure of a haiku,” Allen told us that one hot July afternoon, “is upon hearing one, your mind experiences a small sensation of space” — he paused; I leaned in, breathless —”which is nothing less than God.”

I like the way counting syllables forces me to try different options which sometimes take me places I would not normally go. However, I give myself permission to simply omit those articles altogether or in the count for this excursion into haiku.

     “Haiku are not fragments but they function as shards of glass reflecting the moonlight.” 
                                                          — Peter Turchi

Here’s the plan: I will post a haiku a day in Substack Notes and invite you to post yours in comments (feel free to add a link to your Substack). Each Sunday, I will share all of them in a post. At the end of June, I’ll wrap them all into a flipbook and share with everyone.

Along the way you might want to read Natalie’s lovely book where she shares many haiku by Japanese masters as she travels through Japan to honor them.

I will be using photos as part of my inspiration so here’s the first:

                                                         Come play!