Poetry Chaikhana Blog

Ivan M. Granger April 26th, 2009

A quiet weekend, overcast, and I’m feeling inspired to play with the idea of “found haiku.” I stumbled across this notion in R. H. Blyth’s book The Genius of Haiku (though the book doesn’t explore the full creative possibilities).

Here’s the idea: Take lines from a book or magazine, overheard snippets of conversation, words that almost slip by your notice, and use them as found objects to construct a haiku. We’re talking about haiku in the loosest definition, two or three short lines, but not strictly holding to the formal 5-7-5 syllable structure.

Then see what you come up with.

Here are a few I constructed today from some of my favorite novels…

Somehow, it was hotter then:
a black dog suffered
on a summer’s day

- Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird

The short phrasing, followed by an abrupt stop, can make anything sound significant.

drifting down the big
still river, laying on our backs looking up at the stars
and we didn’t ever feel like talking

- Mark Twain, Huckleberry Finn

In fact, this technique often works best when selecting a passage that is more descriptive than self-consciously philosophical.

felt a deep love for this
flowing water and decided that he would
not leave it again so quickly

- Hermann Hesse, Siddhartha

/ Photo by Gilgongo /

What’s interesting is that once something sounds significant, the mind stops and discovers significance there. It raises the question: Is it always important that the author intended a deeper meaning? Or is the goal simply that the mind opens to insight, regardless of what the author intended?

bees were pillaging the jasmine;
a whole bohemian crew of butterflies had
settled in the yarrow

- Victor Hugo, Les Miserables

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Or you can just have fun. Here are a few overheard found haiku:

may have made a mistake -
What gave it away,
the flames?

- overheardintheoffice.com

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It’s a great exercise to free up the mind. You begin to hear words differently. This game starts to open playful spaces in our habitual patterns of thinking. It invites us to notice our world and our words more deeply, finding treasure in the chatter and filler language that occupies so much of the mind’s territory.

Try it. Have some fun. Post your own found haiku here as a comment. I’m eager to read what you came up with!

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