SHARPEN YOUR WRITING SKILLS: Here’s haiku do it

Ever suffer writer’s block?  Naw-w-w-w, only about once a day for me.

But I started my rehab program for overcoming these dropped calls from my Muse.  Whether it’s a blank screen on your laptop, or a pure white sheet of nothing on the paper, start your composition with this exercise…a haiku.

Westerners often oversimplify this literary form, which is permissable.  Entry-level poets lay down three lines of words in a 5-7-5 form of syllable-count, which does constitute the basic haiku, as such:

         the skin and the bones

        of this middle aging house

        groan under grey clouds

But the Japanese discipline, which dates at least back to the 17th Century, includes influences and references to the seasons as well as Buddhist and Zen underpinnings.

I have liberated my own communications from blandness with the help of my personal daily haiku bootcamp.  Early mornings are more conducive for these:

                   my illusion breathes                          by trance I hear snake

                   in and expires possession                prints push branches of clover

                   I don’t own a thing                              toward the limestone

These came to me, almost in the manner of automatic writing, immediately after my morning meditation, as I attempt to remain still for 10-minutes or so, listening to my breathing pattern.

Seasonality in the haiku is more of a concern among the Japanese.  There is thought that a haiku should contain a word to refer to the current time of year, in nature.  In fact, the practice of haiku is precisely an observation of our natural surroundings, and the seasons reinforce the the nature of change as well as a balance of harmony and one-ness in our world.

I find that beyond the practical benefit of daily improvement in skills, a soothing fulfills my spirit.  Traditional haiku is nuanced in layers of spiritual foundation that escape through our mundane language:

     I breathe in breathe out             those puffy pink clouds

     I try to be here and now             hanging over the highway

     my morning worship                   do not know we’re here

A hike on a high mountain trail directly inspired this, which I titled:

                                              RED  HEAD

                             I recollect, the

                             pileated woodpecker

                             returns home with me

I’m a believer in the playfulness that is necessary in all art forms:

                if I could stand up

                side down like a boy in June

                grass stained in the yard

And, simplicity is another vital ingredient that the haiku simmers to perfection:

                                             we bow before black

                                              raspberries in the ripe breeze

                                              our summer bounty

Another benefit for me is that these daily capsules serve as a brief but germane journal entry that will spur my recall years later upon my re-read.

Finally, I can craft what surfaces from my inward development, to crystalize a particular spore of spiritual enlightenment before it dissipates:

                       the breath I expire

                       drops pantings of memory

                       on the path ahead

Obviously, a convenient social media channel in which I can perform my haiku workout is Twitter.  With the constraint of 140 characters, it’s a natural platform for tweeting haiku, #twiku.  Follow mine @Jim1Coe

My takeaway…after a short period of applying this writing exercise, I have broken through my blogger’s block and posted for the first time in weeks!

Please let me know how you deal with your slowdown in writing momentum.

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