The following selected poems explore the nuances of haiku aesthetics or haiku history, and provide an alternate way into haiku as a genre of literature. They are all about haiku in one way or another, or connected to haiku. A few are not much more than jokes (and sometimes even misunderstand haiku), but most of them are serious, mostly written by poets other than me (for other favourite poems, see also Poems by Others). You can also read selections of my own haiku and senryu as well as longer poems. Enjoy, and please let me know if you know of other poems about haiku! After Bashō — Margaret Dornaus + Along the Way — Judy Halebsky And the Gauchos Sing — Mike Puican As the Poems Go — Charles Bukowski Banteay Srei — Terry Ann Carter The Bashō Story — Cid Corman Bashō, Glimpsed — Mike White Bellwether — Ronald Wallace A Breaking Word — Judy Halebsky Brevity — Judith Wright Bristlecone Pine — Judy Halebsky
Captain Haiku vs. the Arch-Villanelle — Ed Gaillard
Changing Genres — Dean Young Confectionery Text — J. I. Kleinberg Conversation with Bashō — Peggy Heinrich
Distressed Haiku — Donald Hall Do You Want to Write a Haiku? — Michael Dylan Welch Falling Apart, or New Delhi Haiku Blues — Kevin Murphy Figures — John Elsberg and Eric Greinke
5 & 7 & 5 — Anselm Hollo
Flowers on the Roof of Hell — Michael Dylan Welch (okay, this is one of my own, but it fits here)
Frightening Things — David Mura Fun-ku — Seren Fargo Great and Small — Milan Djordjevic Haiku — Elizabeth Kirschner Haiku — Ron Padgett
Haiku — James Shea Haiku Degree — Marlene Mountain The Haiku for Me Is — Sonia Sanchez The Haiku Master — Elizabeth SpiresThe Haiku Masters of Japan
Drop In for a Visit — David Lehman Haiku on Haiku — Marlene Mountatin Holding Radium — Diane Ackerman How to Respond to a Haiku — Michael Dylan Welch How to Write a Haiku — Naomi Beth Wakan I found a geophysicist — Christopher Arigo if there is — Stephen Addiss Impossible to Tell — Robert Pinsky
In Haiku — R. D. Armstrong Instructions for living a life — Mary Oliver Issa’s Last Poem — Franz Wright It Is Not Much — Frank Ankenbrand, Jr. I Wrote a Little Haiku — Les Murray
Japan — Billy Collins John Cage’s Mushroom Haiku . . . Mesosticized — Stefano Pocci Knock, Knock — Attributed Knock, Knock — Hoi Sta Ku Contemplator — Terri L. French and Raymond French A Left-Branching Language — Judy Halebsky
Limerick — Alfred H. Marks Little Things — Julia Abigail Fletcher Carney A Long Haiku — Rob Shore Motel 6 — Judy Halebsky
Naming Haiku — Michael Dylan Welch (okay, another one of my own)
Old Pond — Alfred H. Marks Old Pond — Allen Ginsberg On Bashō’s Frog — Sengai On Reading Diane Ackerman — Naomi Beth Wakan On Reading Issa Each Morning — Naomi Beth Wakan Orfordville — Lisa Fishman An Organised Life — Naomi Beth Wakan Passing Scenes (While Reading Bashō) — Franz Wright Poem to Be Entitled Five Haiku — William J. Higginson Poem Written with Issa [“The kids fighting”] — Matthew Rohrer Poor Bashō — Marlene Mountain The Problem with Haiku — Michael S. Glaser [Rain that Imitates Anne Waldman] — John Burgess [poem starts at 6:00-minute mark in video] Reading the Japanese Poet Issa (1762–1826) — Czesław Miłosz
Releasing the Animals (the anti-haiku) — Marsh Muirhead Samurai Angels — Judyth Hill Seven Tanka on Haiku — Naomi Beth Wakan Seventeen Ways of Looking at a Haiku — Michael Dylan Welch (one of my own) Sex After 70 — Naomi Beth Wakan Something Small — David G. Lanoue Song of Myself — Ronald Wallace Songs to Survive the Summer [excerpt] — Robert Hass Summer Haiku Meet — Naomi Beth Wakan Sylvan Pool — Dave McFadden Thinking About Bashō — Bracha K. Sharp
Three Bashō Haibun — Franz Wright Three Brautigans — Richard Brautigan To Look at Any Thing — John Moffitt To the Poet — Marianne Monaco [untitled] — Dave [untitled] — M. Kei [untitled] — Charles F. Kennedy [untitled] — Michael Ketchek [untitled] — Rolf Nelson [untitled] — Nick Smith [untitled] — Margaret Stawowy [untitled] — John Vieira [untitled] — Karma Tenzing Wangchuk Walk the Line — Judy Halebsky What Issa Heard — David Budbill Why Do Haiku? — Steve Zen Monks Talking Big — Judy Halebsky Note: If you know of other poems about haiku, please contact Michael Dylan Welch—thanks!
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