It is obvious that publishers cannot be the only judges of the quality of Haiku. We are all as haiku readers affected by a good haiku as well as puzzled by a “nonsense” haiku or, more seldom, put off by a “bad” haiku.

From idea to poem

How do we write haiku? I myself start with an observation or an idea and play around with words to condense the idea into a “ku”.  Let me take two haiku, generated from the same observation and see how the end result differs.

I choose the idea “morning fog”

One writer presented the following shahai (haiku written to a photo) on that topic:

magicians lake house, 
disappears every morning; 
foggy illusions ~

epc 1956-  Ed Crowley

Photo by dbn dixie 

Another one was made by me, made into a haibun, i.e. a short paragraph followed by a haiku:

It happens that I have to get up early in the morning. In sunrise, at half past 3, I met a sight that covered the whole nature around me. It had disappeared when I finally rose, but it is still in my memory.

morning fog clouds
leave shimmering twigs
lake lies still

Now to my experience of the haiku:

The idea that a house disappears every morning is mind boggling and still quite comprehensible, since it is the magician’s house. I remember that haiku can be playful in many ways.

My own haiku is more ‘awe’ inspired. I chose words to alliterate, not for play but for beauty,

Still I am more attracted by Ed’s haiku. Any thoughts about this?