The Haiku Handbook: How to Write, Share, and Teach Haiku - Softcover

Higginson, William J.

Softcover

ISBN 10: 4770014309 ISBN 13: 9784770014306

Publisher: Kodansha USA, 1992

Synopsis

The Haiku Handbook is the first book to give the reader everything needed to begin writing or teaching haiku. It presents haiku poets writing in English, Spanish, French, German, and five other languages on an equal footing with Japanese poets. Not only are the four great Japanese masters of the haiku represented (Basho, Buson, Issa, and Shiki) but also several major Western authors not commonly known to have written haiku.

The book presents a concise history of the Japanese haiku, including the dynamic changes throughout the twentieth century as the haiku has been adapted to suburban and industrial settings. Full chapters are offered on form, the seasons in haiku, and haiku craft, plus background on the Japanese poetic tradition, and the effect of translation on our understanding of haiku.

Other unique features are the lesson plans for both elementary and secondary school use; and lists of haiku publishers and magazines (in several languages). The Handbook concludes with a full reference section of haiku-related terms, bibliography, and a comprehensive season-word list to aid in understanding and appreciating Japanese haiku.

About this title

About the Author:

WILLIAM J. HIGGINGSON studied Japanese at Yale University where he discovered the haiku, and served, with the U.S. Air Force in Japan. He is a charter member of the Haiku Society of America, founded in 1968, and edited and published Haiku Magazine (1971-76). He has three published collections of longer poems and one of haiku, and has work appearing in magazines and anthologies worldwide. He has also taught in the National Endowment for the Arts "Poets-in-the Schools" program, leading writing workshops in hundreds of schools, and he regularly speaks at conferences in the U.S., Canada, and Japan. Higginson's international anthology of haiku for children, Wind in the Long Grass, is a classroom favorite. His two-volume sequel to The Haiku Handbook, The Haiku Seasons and Haiku World, gives a comprehensive view of the history, present state, and international possibilities of seasonal consciousness in poetry.

PENNY HARTER, Higginson's wife and collaborator on the Handbook, is a poet and teacher with 14 collections of poems to her credit. She has received three grants from the New Jersey State Council on the Arts for her poetry, and an award from the Poetry Society of America. She has served as a visiting poet for the Council and the Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation in classes from kindergarten through high school. Her work is published internationally; among her recent books are Shadow Play: Night Haiku, a collection for children, and her latest book, Turtle Blessing. The couple lives in Santa Fe, New Mexico, where Harter teaches at Santa Fe Preparatory School.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.:

[Following is the first section in Chapter 1, "Why Haiku?"]

Haiku Happen

We often see or sense something that gives us a bit of a lift, or a moment's pure sadness. Perhaps it is the funnies flapping in the breeze before a newsstand on a sunny spring day. Or some scent on the wind catches us as we step from the bus, or bend to lift the groceries from the car. Something tickles our ankle and, looking down to see what it is, we see more:

a baby crab
climbs up my leg--
such clear water

Or we are lying awake, alone with our thoughts, and as we turn to look at the clock

at midnight
a distant door
pulled shut

and we find ourselves more alone, because of the being on the other side of that door, than when we had no thoughts for others anywhere in the world.

The first of these two short poems was written about three hundred years ago by the Japanese poet Matsuo Basho. The second is by a twentieth-century Japanese poet, Ozaki Hosai. Both poems are haiku.

Moments that can give rise to haiku are not foreign to the Americas. Mark Cramer has translated the following poem, originally written in Spanish by the Mexican poet Jose Juan Tablada a few years before Hosai wrote "at midnight":

Tender willow
almost gold, almost amber,
almost light...

And just recently New Jerseyan Penny Harter found

the old doll
her mama box broken
to half a cry

Haiku happen all the time, wherever there are people who are "in touch" with the world of their senses, and with their own feeling response to it.

About this edition

• Publisher: Kodansha USA
• Publication date: 1992
• ISBN 10: 4770014309
• ISBN 13: 9784770014306
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 331