Cover my head
or my feet?
the winter quilt.
Oh, the coziness of pulling the winter quilt
up over me. Though Buson, who wrote today’s
haiku, seems to have a dilemma!
“Quilt” is a kigo, a seasonal word for winter
haiku. There are a number of kigo for each
season. Fireflies and warblers, for example,
for summer, cherry blossoms and ponies for
spring. They evoke our experience of the
season through sense memory; they take us
deep in one stroke.
My prompt for you today to write a winter haiku:
Pick a cold or wintry day. As you are going
through your day be aware of what you see, hear,
taste, smell, feel. Jot down an image, a note, a
phrase or a sentence about it.
When you have a moment of quiet, peruse
your notes. What images and thoughts draw
your attention? Choose one or two images
and write your haiku. Don’t worry about syllable
count. What’s important is the sensory moment.
Send me your haiku! I’ll post them on my website
for fun! (You’ll soon find there the fall haiku that
you wrote.)
The translator of Buson’s haiku is Robert Hass.
p.s. About not using syllable count: my approach is to capture the spirit of a form. For example, sonnets originally had specific rules about meter and rhyme. However, in contemporary practice, what we focus on is the core of the form, that what you write has 14 lines and a turn or shift in meaning at a certain point. So what I am focusing on right now in writing haiku is to capture a moment in time through sensory images.
