tl;dr: Come to my haiku workshop May 13 in SF: Haiku Happiness Hour!
This newsletter has swung between the two poles of my writing life for the past two years: The leadership writing for tech companies and executives that is the foundation of my leadership communications consultancy, and the creative work that is the heart of my writing practice.
Perhaps this seems a bit mixed-up. But the two are actually deeply connected. Yes, the business writing is more focused, the creative work more expressive. The business writing is more about tech and AI; the creative writing is about presence and not at all AI.
These two types of writing inform and enhance each other.
If you are writing for business, a creative writing practice can help lift your copy out of the bland, soulless, fake-upbeat style that is increasingly ubiquitous online.
If you are a creative writer, learning to write more clearly and effectively can help keep your writing from becoming too divorced from its audience. (If that’s what you want!)
For example, when I am stuck in my work writing or looking for inspiration, I turn to poetry. I read poems, and I write drafts of poems, to rejuvenate my sense of the possibilities language contains.
I read and write poetry to rekindle my sense of myself as a human being, speaking and writing, not a mere creator or consumer of content. Poetry recharges me.
But, as I admitted in my last newsletter on finding your flow as a writer, it has not always been easy for me to write this way.
Haiku, as it turned out, were the wedge that reopened my mind’s door to the poetic world. And they also opened the door to a deeper appreciation of the world. They’ve made my life richer.
Deeply infused in Zen, but with a humble, unassuming form that tends to undercut any pretensions of enlightenment or specialness, haiku cut straight to the chase. They are all about appreciating the mundane world in its ordinary, miraculous, beautiful, ugly, tiny, grand details. Merely noticing and pointing out, like a friend saying: Look, over there. Isn’t that cool?
Over and over, haiku have been the sleeper agents that snuck past my prosaic, practical mental censors, only to activate themselves within my (sub) consciousness as representatives of another world: The one outside my head. The world of stars, autumn leaves, dog fur, green tea, and grasses. The world of rounded rocks and tumbling water, of echoing urban canyons and deserted suburban intersections.
The best haiku are like that. Like stones, they drop into your consciousness with a little splash, making a few ripples and then leaving nothing behind as the surface returns to glassy calm. (Or whatever your consciousness is doing, which is probably not calm at all, come to think of it.) But meanwhile, the stone sinks to the bottom of the pond, solid as anything, bringing news of the world out there to the submarine life forms that populate the bottom strata of our minds.
And yet — haiku are far more accessible than that. I’m making them sound magical (and they are), but haiku are also supremely easy to write or read. They are useful. And they are fun!
Haiku helped me become a better headline writer. They have helped me write better subject lines for emails. But most of all, they’ve helped me enjoy and appreciate life more.
The haiku journal I started 26 years ago, tinywords, has over 3,000 subscribers and has published over 4,400 tiny poems from almost 1,000 different poets. It’s been years since I was its primary editor — that job is handled superbly by Kathe Palka and Peter Newton — but I continue to maintain the infrastructure and collaborate with Kathe and Peter. One of the reasons for its longevity, I think, is its accessibility. One haiku per day is not a big commitment. It doesn’t take long. You can read haiku on the web, on BlueSky, or via text message on your phone. No problem! I have heard about people reading haiku aloud every day in their school’s cafeteria. Fun!
Now I’m excited to share haiku with you another way: Next month, on May 13, from 5:30-7:30pm, I’ll be offering a haiku workshop / party in San Francisco.
I’ll explain a little bit about the history of haiku, and I’ll share a new approach to writing haiku yourself.
Then we’ll share our poems with each other in a way that’s inspired by the people who invented the form in 17th-century Japan. We’ll listen closely, write tiny poems in response, and create some longer collaborative poems together. It will be collaborative and entertaining. Think of it as a tiny poetry party!
Even if you’ve never written a haiku before, you should be able to have fun with this and walk away with a new way to read and write haiku, a poem or two in your pocket, and some new friends.
I hope to see you there!
Click here to register: Haiku Happiness Hour
Field Notes
Mythic poetry: It’s Poetry Month, and Moist Poetry Journal has been publishing a series of poetry prompts. I shared this one by Jennifer A. Sutherland during the writing circle I host on Wednesdays. It was a fun one!
Wednesday Writers: Speaking of Wednesdays, I host a weekly lunchtime writing circle, in person and online, at the Mechanics Institute Library in downtown San Francisco, noon-1:30pm PT every Wednesday. This is not a workshop but a chance to write together and support one another in our writing projects. Join us!
