Since we are still in September it seems relevant to put up this link to Hard Haiku – verses which deal with tough subjects not usually touched while writing a haiku.
Many don’t know that this writing even exists but what can be more relevant in a world turned upside down?
Here is an article from the January 2007 issue. This is the introduction.
Hard haiku is one of the projects pursued at WHCvanguard. It is an area where difficult subjects such as war, atrocities, death, tragedy or natural disasters are treated in haiku.
These are normally outside the traditional haiku which treats such topics, if at all, in an indirect, gentle or euphemistic manner. The apparent inability of haiku to deal with these themes has contributed to the criticism of haiku as inadequate or even inferior which makes it undeserving to be called a genre of serious literature.
Though this criticism is not quite accurate, it has a point. So, at WHCvanguard possibility of writing good haiku poems dealing with hard themes is sought. In this column, we will try to show some examples of that pursuit.
And here is an example of Hard Haiku –
twin towers
repeating their absence
day after day
Bill Kenney
New York, US
To read more follow the link below –
The Quest for Hard Haiku
More exciting Treasures from the WHR Archives will be coming soon.
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It’s also worth checking out the feature I started over at THF that was inspired, thank you, by the World Haiku Review.
“As mentioned earlier, Taoism preaches finding and maintaining the balance in our lives. Though seldom found or maintained, it makes life a continual effort to experience it. This striving allows us to find the harmony between the two extremes and experience the full range, the sweet, the bitter, the happy, the sad – all that comprises life. If we write of the same topics, we have a tool to explore the greater gamut that is our life.”
The Other Side of the Coin:
Haiku and the Harsh Realities
Peter Brady
World Haiku Review, August 2001
The feature I created:
hadaka: all that comprises life
https://thehaikufoundation.org/forum_sm/index.php?topic=2130.0
warmest regards
Alan
Alan Summers
founder, Call of the Page
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Thank you, Alan, very interesting. I will read that whole thread at leisure.
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