Once again we are hosting Hexapod Haiku Challenge, with entries due by May 15th. We resurrected the challenge last spring, after a seven-year hiatus. It was so much fun, and we had some really incredible entries. I can’t wait to see what everyone comes up with this year.
In the meantime, I’m re-listening to some older episodes of the Haiku Chronicles podcast. Episodes 2 (Bashō’s Frog) and 4 (History of American Haiku, part I, roots) are really helpful, in thinking about what is and is not a haiku. Listening to these discussions, with real haiku aficionados, helped me shape my own approach to poetry.
I also happen to be sorting spiders (see below), while listening, and I just heard Cor van den Heuvel read this amazing poem:
turning over the rock
quickly replacing it
Amazing! And so relevant to my upcoming field season. (More on that later.) It’s at 8:30 in Episode 1 – The Lost Tapes if you want to hear it read by one of the greats. It’s apparently from an unpublished manuscript called “The Sun Comes and Goes”.
I definitely feel a growing inspiration, with the weather heating up, the insects flying again … What inspires you to write haiku? We’d love to read them as part of this year’s Hexapod Haiku Challenge!
Leave a Reply