Tar River Writing Project

Title: Japanese Art, Japanese Haiku

Goals:

To read and identify the elements of Classical haiku,

To slow down the process of seeing,

To use sensory images and apply knowledge to write a Haiku poem,

To become familiar with Modern haiku,

To create a Haiga

Timeline: 15 minutes for 1^st section, 30 minutes for 2^nd and 3^rd sections

I.  Review of Classical Haiku

We read this Haiku by the 17th century poet Basho outloud. The haiku is the Poet’s First Impression.

"In the moonlight a worm…

silently

drills through a chestnut"

“The great Japanese poet Basho invented the haiku as we know it: a tiny poem filled with a love of nature. He said,’Go to the pine if you want to learn about the pine, or to the bamboo if you want to learn about the bamboo. In doing so, you must leave your preoccupation with yourself. Otherwise you impose yourself on the object and do not learn. Your poetry issues of its own accord when you and the object have become one – when you have plunged deep enough into the object to see something like a hidden glimmering there..."

1. Is there a season-word in the poem or a feeling of a particular season?
2. What moment in time did the poet describe?
3. Is there a center of interest in the poem?
4. Is there any period, exclamation mark, or a dash, or a comma in the poem? Notice what function this mark plays in the poem .
5. How many sounds can you count in each line?
6. Has the poet used a present tense verb?
7. Notice the poet’s attitude. “His attitude to nature was humble, selfless, and deeply respectful… Cruelty, violence and sensationalism have no place in haiku poetry. The natural processes of suffering and death do, but the attitude to creatures that suffer is compassionate.”
8. Notice the first line has 5 sounds, the second line has 7 sounds, the third line has 5 sounds.
9. Notice there is no title for this poem.
10. We pass out other examples of classical haiku and read those outloud, noticing whether or not the 5-7-5 pace exists following translation from Japanese to English.

 II. Pre-writing exercise: Reading Images: Hiroshige’s woodblock prints

Collaborative Work – Seeing, Information Gathering

Hiroshige lived at the same time as the poet Basho, both were Japanese. Hiroshige was a woodcut artist. My goal is to slow down the process of seeing, which is why the print is covered in black construction paper.

A. Open the top window. Leave the rest of the picture hidden. Let your eye rest on the top part of the picture. Place your forefinger somewhere on the picture to mark a starting  place. Use a blank sheet of paper to write a list of what you see.

 1. Objects/Colors you might notice.

2. What sounds can you imagine hearing?

3. What smells can you imagine?

4. What season of the year is it?

5. What time of day is it?

6. What do you think this picture is about?

7. Could you give this picture a name/title?

B. Open the bottom door and repeat the noticing, listing.

C. Open the middle door and continue the noticing and listing.

D. Working in groups of two or three, compose a haiku using the information you've just gathered. We'll try to keep to the 5-7-5 sounds on each of the lines. Then we'll read these outloud.

E. After reading the haiku, look again at the whole woodblock print. In the print is a red vertical rectangle and perhaps two. Embedded in the rectangle is a haiku written by the artist. So the artist was a poet as well, interesting!

III. Now go to your computer and do an Image search on Google, type in “Haiga”

A. Explore the images you see there, print out one or two and bring them back to the group to share, compare and comment on.

IV. Conclusion:

We’ve compared Classical Haiku to Modern Haiku. Follow up exercise: Students could bring in a photograph, make a collage by collecting objects and picture to write anothe kaiku. 

Resources

In the moonlight a worm…silently drills through a chestnut, Self study Haiku Lesson, page 2. http://www.haiku.insouthsea.co.uk/teachbasho_self2.htm

To search for more information on how to write a haiku, go to http://www.about.com or www.wikepedia

http://www.toyomasu.com/haiku/

Various Hiroshige’s Woodblock prints were taken from, “One Hundred Famous Views of Edo.”Introductory essays by Henry D. Smith II and Amy G. Poster; Commentaries on the Plates by Henry D. Smith II, Preface by Arnold L. Lehman. Published by George Braziller, Inc., New York, Brooklyn Museum of Art