The Haiku Year

Tom Gilroy, Anna Grace, Jim McKay, Douglas A. Martin, Grant Phillips, Michael Slope
2004
157 pgs.
$13.95
Capture the moment in an instant of enlightenment.

Seven friends made an agreement to write a haiku every day for a year. Many are in the original, Japanese format - three lines, 5-7-5 syllable pattern. And many take on the looser "Western style" that Jack Kerouac called "POPS" -- little three lined poems aiming towards a kind of zen enlightenment.

Even "Amanda called"
on a scrap of paper
lightens my day

geese overhead
the radiators'll be
tapping soon

left outside in the rain
even plastic flowers
fade

Talking to himself
he makes me feel at home
in this Starbucks.

Bright sun
through filthy windows
shiny winter gloom

How do I say
goodbye when you're not even
here to hear it

Lonely rainy day
hoping to run into
someone I know

With just my finger
I wrote of our love
in the snow.

I'm not sure what the plant on the cover or its significance is....I didn't purchase this because it was all dirty and scuffed up, so I sat in the cafe at Borders and read it. Then I tried it out. It would take a lot of determination to write every day. And sticking to the regimented 5-7-5 format would take a long, long time if you DID find that impetus to write a haiku a day. I'd love to try it, capturing a moment from my day every day. I really enjoyed the concept AND the poetry!