I’ve been experimenting with Haiku recently, a fascinating art form originally created by Japanese poets.

haikus

Essentially Haiku are short poems (fitting with my poetic style perfectly!) that use sensory language to capture a feeling or image.  Often inspired by nature, beauty or a poignant experience, traditional Haiku employs a five-seven-five syllable line count separated by a ‘cut’.  This creates two parts in the poem, with the final line bearing some comment or reference to the statement made by the first two.  And it’s amazing just how much you can pack into such a small space!  I love this technique, developing snapshots of time, place and feeling.   The challenge for me has not been the succinctness but the objectivity – describing without interpretation or analysis, in other words ‘you’ stay away, something often alien to a poet…

However, it has clearly paid off (literally!) as I was delighted to wake up this morning (being 10 and a half hours ahead of the UK) to the news of winning the Little ms February Haiku competition!

little ms

Little ms is Mslexia‘s monthly e-newsletter packed full of inspiration, snippets, quotes, forthcoming calls and comps, and general literary entertainment that I look forward to receiving in my inbox.  February’s topic was hypnotise, and my Haiku was inspired by a large brown snake we saw at the side of the road on our drive to the Flinders Ranges, that was actually reared up and hissing at the traffic, as if it was angry it couldn’t cross!  So thank you Mslexia, for the boost to continue with my Haiku!