Hi to Haiku

Within the Tree Workshop of introduction to haiku, I shared some links to get to know the form.
Haiku history domestically. It entered English 100-150 years ago as Japan opened up internationally in modernism. There was a translation biggie in 50s, it went kinda viral thru 60s and 70s, restarting a boom now.
haiku customs according to the British Haiku Society include: (A) spirit, (B) ‘presence’, (C) accepted writing conventions, (D) choice of appropriate subject matter, (E) poetic taste, sense of proportion, structure.
It is a thought form more than syllable form. If it were syllable form, the 100 trillion haiku generator would make good poems instead of the worse kind of verse. the 5-7-5 rule is unfortunate. It makes for baggy haiku. Syllables don’t translate well across languages. It is one breath within one pivot of attention. 10 syllables might be a better guideline.
Season words matter, these kigo are indicators of the outside world. Haiku isn’t solely observation without insight but aren’t introspection without outward look either.
Is it senryu or haiku? If there’s no season except human nature’s, it’s senryu. Haiku is marked by brevity, clarity, balance, subtly, minimalism, two parts that pivot with a more objective point of view. Haiku and senryu are oen breath poems.
If it has more material and more presence of the narrator, it might broach into the realm of tanka. For a century in Japan there has been urban haiku of political unrest and direct experience in cities. Any form or time is not monolithic.
Some haiku writers see it not as literature but as a by-product of meditation with verbal husks of that experience to pass on. For this reason literary devices are inappropriate. One composes self and form but it is to be practiced as inner work, not as outer works.
There are many related forms, each taking their own path, such as linked haiku, renga, haibun and where it hybidized with American forms in visual poetry, beat, avant-guarde and mnmlst, such as Sandra Fuhringer following Saroyan’s 1969 lead, all in the haiku community. There are many branches from the trunk. If it is photo and typing, not ink-brush and painting, it’s not haiga but shahai. Historical women were composers of haiga and tanka.
In literary theory: disjunction and juxtaposition, for haiku, there has to be a pivot, a lack of flatness where there’s a juxtaposed subtle connection.
Michael Dylan Welch on doing craft in small box transfers to larger sized lit, for example, distinguish between description and Inference, concrete immediate senses.
There is a haiku comic strip: Old Pond, a podcast series: Haiku Chronicles for haiku and its related forms including senryu, renku, tanka, haibun, haiga. There’s a contest calendar, an app for that.
There are organizations/conferences such as Haiku Canada with an annual weekend conference. This time it is in Toronto, May 19-21. There’s Haiku North America. It also swings its conference location annually so it can be fair to members scattered around the continent. This year’s HNA conference takes place in Seattle, Washington, August 3-7, 2011. There are groups world wide, Haiku International is based in Japan, l’Association Francophone de Haïku in France. Translation of classics and new writing happens in many languages including Hindi, Punjabi, and Russian
There are print magazines: Modern Haiku, Frogpond, Acorn, Mayfly, Shamrock, The Heron’s Nest, Roadrunner, Haiku Canada Review and digital magazines/blogs such as Tiny Words Haiku Notebook, Haiku KaDo, World Haiku Review and Daily Haiku
There are various anthologies, including Carpe Diem: Anthologie Canadienne Du Haïkus/ Canadian Anthology of Haiku, edited by Francine Chicoine, Terry Ann Carter and Marco Fraticelli, Haiku Anthologie Canadienne, Canadian Anthology ed. Dorothy Howard and André Duhaime, The Haiku Anthology by Cor van den Heuvel is a classic. Lighting the Global Lantern: A Teacher’s Guide to Writing Haiku and Related Literary Forms by Terry Ann Carter is a good orientation.