An Experiment: Writing Haiku with Accompanying Watercolor

I have always been fascinated with the short poetic form of Haiku and how much meaning can be put into just 17 syllables.  During the pandemic I took a weekend Haiku workshop at Upaya  Zen Center via Zoom.  I had fun exploring the form and enjoyed reading Natalie Goldberg’s Three Simple Lines. However, it wasn’t until we began the Atenas Writers’ Group in Costa Rica that I was motivated to write Haiku on a regular basis.   At the same time, Tricycle: The Buddhist Review was offering a six-week online Haiku course, “Learn to Write Haiku: Mastering the Ancient Art of Serious Play,” taught by Clark Strand.  I quickly signed up.  Most sessions were prerecorded but a few were live sessions where we could ask questions.  Clark encouraged us to have a daily practice and to write lots each day!  What a great opportunity to learn from Clark, as he is totally dedicated to Haiku, with a big commitment to write Haiku himself, translate classical and contemporary Japanese Haiku and to encourage others to write Haiku.  Here is the bio that Tricycle has online:

Clark Strand is a former senior editor at Tricycle: The Buddhist Review. His books include Seeds From a Birch Tree: Writing Haiku and the Spiritual Journey and The Way of the Rose: The Radical Path of the Divine Feminine Hidden in the Rosary, which was co-authored with his wife, Perdita Finn. He teaches the popular group “Weekly Haiku Challenges with Clark Strand” on Facebook and leads Tricycle’s monthly haiku challenge, as well as the Tricycle Haiku Challenge Facebook group.  (From Tricyle.org ‘s website)

The medium of watercolor has always both challenged and fascinated me so I decided I would choose the best Haikus that I wrote each week and do small watercolor paintings including the text in the painting.  Since mid-August I have completed 35 painted Haiku ranging in size from 6” x 8” to 9” x 12”.

I also made the decision that the Haiku had to be inspired by what I saw in my own backyard.  Living in Costa Rica, that’s not a problem.  My husband used to say that we were living in our own National Park.  In Clark’s course we were not only to follow the form of 3 lines with 5 syllables in the first, 7 in the second and 5 in the last, but also to include a seasonal word.  I decided to follow the traditional style as much as I could, including a seasonal word as it related to Costa Rica.  I also thoroughly enjoyed the different samples of classical Haiku that we were exposed to.

It has been great fun to do this practice, and I have been quite consistent until recently, when I started writing prose to share with the Writers’ Group.  I look forward to getting back to my Haiku/watercolor practice on a regular basis.  Meanwhile, here are eight favorites. To see more, visit my Facebook page – JoAnne Tucker Art – where you can see all 35.

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