Haiku and Haiga

Basho’s most famous haiku might be ‘The old pond, a frog leaps in, the sound of water.’
  Probably the most well-known haiku is Basho’s poem about a frog and a pond. See Rexroth’s translation at right or 31 translations on the Bureau of Public Secrets or Chad Sweeny’s 33 translations.  

Over the past couple of years I’ve been collecting haiku resources on the web, and, since hearing this talk, haiga as well. Here are some recent finds:

  • Daily Haiku, “a print and online literary publication that exists to promote and preserve the written art of haiku.” One haiku is published every day on their website.
  • John Hockensmith, like me, tries to write a haiku every day. His blog is no more moon poems. He also suggested Issa’s Untidy Hut, a blog by Don Wentworth, who publishes a small-poetry magazine called The Lilliput Review.

  • Lidia Rozmus’ haiga, with brush strokes and caligraphy.
  • Lastly, because I like found poetry: I recently found Haiku DB, which scours the internet for unintentional haikus. The about page says

    take lots of data
    look for five seven and five
    use a cursive font

    and here’s an example:
    Sample from Haiku-DB

Hidden Books

My first bookmaking class was with Kumi Korf. She lives in upstate NY, and when I lived in California I looked forward to visiting with her when she came to the SF Center for the Book to teach. Sam Hampton has made a documentary about Kumi. Here’s a trailer for it, and this website gives a schedule of screenings around the country as well as more information about the documentary.

[youtube a60qsfzwf0I]

New in my shop: Ampersand Note Cards

Ampersand NotecardsThis is a set of 4 flat (A2 or 5-1/2″ x 4-1/4″ or 42cm x 59.4 cm) note cards. Letterpress printed by hand on my 1890s vintage press on thick off-white paper, using wood type and photopolymer. Three of the cards have ampersands in red, green and teal, the fourth a question mark and exclamation point in sky blue. Click here for more information.