Once again, it is National Haiku Writing Month (NaHaiWriMo). Haiku poet and founder of National Haiku Writing Month Michael Dylan Welch encourages people across the country and around the world to celebrate the little poems each February by writing a haiku a day.
If that’s too much, that's OK, says Welch.
“The main point is to do your best to write haiku daily, to get into the haiku habit of seeing and observing closely, and then recording your experiences in haiku," he says.
If you are looking for encouragement there’s a NaHaiWriMo Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/NaHaiWriMo.
Here you will find tips, daily writing prompts and feedback in the form of “likes” and “comments.”
"The Facebook site for NaHaiWriMo is a rallying place for many hundreds of participants (currently about 1,753), but many other people are doing NaHaiWriMo in various other ways, whether by posting daily haiku to their blogs, or just keeping them to themselves. The best place to start is to visit the NaHaiWriMo website at https://sites.google.com/site/nahaiwrimo," Welch says. "The site spells out how to participate, which is mostly to commit yourself to writing haiku daily—starting now for a month, even if the 'official' National Haiku Writing Month already started on Feb. 1."
You can also use the hashtag #NaHaiWriMo when tweeting.
One tip: A haiku is not a three-line poem made of 17 syllables that focuses on nature. That erroneous idea spread like wildfire through the country’s education system. If your English teacher tries telling you this, send them my way. English-language haiku is simply a short poem that features some sort of revelation. Poets writing haiku in English simply say that the poems should be short enough to be said in one breath. Other than that, anything goes. It doesn’t even need to be limited to three lines. Here are a couple of examples.
The park bench seats two summer dreams
— Gary Hotham
my dead brother…
hearing his laugh
in my laughter
— Nicholas Virgilio
Minimalist lines, plain language and some sort of revelation about the moment, does that sound fun? Let me know. Tweet me @myersgene!
If that’s too much, that's OK, says Welch.
“The main point is to do your best to write haiku daily, to get into the haiku habit of seeing and observing closely, and then recording your experiences in haiku," he says.
If you are looking for encouragement there’s a NaHaiWriMo Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/NaHaiWriMo.
Here you will find tips, daily writing prompts and feedback in the form of “likes” and “comments.”
"The Facebook site for NaHaiWriMo is a rallying place for many hundreds of participants (currently about 1,753), but many other people are doing NaHaiWriMo in various other ways, whether by posting daily haiku to their blogs, or just keeping them to themselves. The best place to start is to visit the NaHaiWriMo website at https://sites.google.com/site/nahaiwrimo," Welch says. "The site spells out how to participate, which is mostly to commit yourself to writing haiku daily—starting now for a month, even if the 'official' National Haiku Writing Month already started on Feb. 1."
You can also use the hashtag #NaHaiWriMo when tweeting.
One tip: A haiku is not a three-line poem made of 17 syllables that focuses on nature. That erroneous idea spread like wildfire through the country’s education system. If your English teacher tries telling you this, send them my way. English-language haiku is simply a short poem that features some sort of revelation. Poets writing haiku in English simply say that the poems should be short enough to be said in one breath. Other than that, anything goes. It doesn’t even need to be limited to three lines. Here are a couple of examples.
The park bench seats two summer dreams
— Gary Hotham
my dead brother…
hearing his laugh
in my laughter
— Nicholas Virgilio
Minimalist lines, plain language and some sort of revelation about the moment, does that sound fun? Let me know. Tweet me @myersgene!
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