HoF: Hi Maureen, Thanks for agreeing to this.
M: You’re welcome. Thanks for the opportunity.
HoF: In the State of Western Australia you have a very public role in promoting poetry. Could you tell us a little about that – what position/s you hold, and what they involve?
M: Phew! Where do I begin?
I’m a committee member of WA Poets Inc, which hosts the annual WA Spring Poetry Festival and National Poetry Week events here in WA. I was also a co-founder of WA Poets Inc in 2006 and the WA Spring Poetry Festival in 2005. One of my roles as a committee member is as editor/selector for the haiku section of Creatrix Poetry Journal, which is published online quarterly.
I’m the Poetry Co-ordinator for Creative Connections Art and Poetry Exhibitions – artworks by artists with disabilities and poetry by WA poets, which I co-founded in 2007. Creative Connections holds public exhibitions at least every year and sells artworks and accompanying poetry (not for profit).
I’m also currently on the poetry sub-committee for the Peter Cowan Writers Centre.
I’m the HaikuOz regional representative for WA, which involves promoting haiku and anything haiku related in WA, and trying to re-educate people about haiku, or in other words correcting some of the myths surrounding haiku.
Apart from that, I’ve been involved in organising poetry events/readings, etc since 1996 in WA (and in South Australia 1997 and 1998). I worked at the Fellowship of Australian Writers of WA for a year or so. I’ve been on the Katharine Susannah Prichard Writers Centre committee in WA and Friendly Streets Poets in SA. I guess you could say I’ve been a community writer since 1996. I strongly believe that poetry is as relevant today as it has always been, and is very much a part of our lives. So one of my goals is to work towards reuniting the public with poetry and poetry with the public.
I’m website manager/administrator for WA Poets Inc
www.wapoets.net.au and Creative Connections
www.creativeconnectionsaape.net.au.
HoF: I know that you are a respected haiku poet, and that you write other kinds of poetry besides haiku. Do you regard yourself as a haiku poet primarily, equally or secondarily?
M: At the moment I would say equally, but I have a feeling that haiku (and related forms) are moving up to primary position.
HoF: Do you even regard haiku as poetry? (I know some writers differentiate and want to see it as a distinct genre.)
M: Now there’s a good question! Even though haiku writing doesn’t use most poetic tools, like rhyme, alliteration, etc., I think haiku is poetry because it uses so few words to capture an image, and to suggest that reverence of nature. I think haiku is one of the most difficult forms of poetry to write. The brevity of haiku takes a lot of skill.
HoF: How long have you been writing poetry in general?
M: Since around 1971 when my first child was born and I began writing personalised nursery rhymes and lullabies. I didn’t consider publishing any poetry until after I started studying towards my BA degree in Writing, from which I graduated in 2005.
HoF: And how long have you been making haiku?
M: I thought I was writing haiku from as far back as 1995, but after completing a mentorship with the very well respected Australian haiku writer, John Bird, in 2007, I realised that I wasn’t writing haiku at all. So now I would say I’ve been writing haiku since 2007.
HoF: What drew you to haiku in the first place?
M: Through the first WA Spring Poetry Festival in 2005, I got to know a wonderful haijin (haiku writer) here in WA, Nicholas Barwell, who is now 90 years old. Since then, Nicholas and I have been talking about haiku around once a week. He’s the person who set in place my mentorship with John Bird. Once I learned what haiku really was, I fell in love with it, with the meditation of it. Haiku makes me stop and focus on the moment, to appreciate what I would so often miss because I was always too busy and never slowed down enough to really see. Haiku also helps remind me of our interconnectedness with nature, something I believe in very strongly.
HoF: Who are the haiku writers you personally most admire?
M: There are so many, that’s difficult to answer, but a few names that would have to be there are: John Bird, Nicholas Barwell, Janice Bostock, Beverley George, Lynne Reeves, Graham Nunn, and of course Basho, Issa, Buson, etc.
HoF: Who are the writers about haiku whom you have found most useful? (Can you
give us online links?)
M: Again I would be naming all of the above haijin, plus many other people (links to the websites below).
Haiku Oz: The Australian Haiku Association -
http://www.haikuoz.org John Bird, Australian Haiku Dreaming -
http://users.mullum.com.au/jbird/dreaming/ozku.html Haiku Society of America:
http://www.hsa-haiku.org/ http://www.millikin.edu/haiku/ Robert Brewer, Writer’s Digest/Poetic Asides:
http://blog.writersdigest.com/poeticasides/ Ray Rasmussen,
http://raysweb.net/haiku/pages/haiku-definition.html and
http://raysweb.net/haiku/ Ferris Gilli,
http://www.theheronsnest.com/ Timothy Russell,
http://shachihoko.homestead.com/1exercise.html Edward Weiss,
http://www.wisteriapress.com/haikureport.pdfWilliam Higginson,
http://books.google.com.au/books?id=tVJCs7kV5YUC&dq=William+Higginson&printsec=frontcover&source=bl&ots=KUYcPYP8UZ&sig=MPVBwmUA1BQhqmArLPKvLIFOjF4&hl=en&ei=E0XsSvXKMZPKsAP_ucT1Aw&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=7&ved=0CBsQ6AEwBg#v=onepage&q=&f=false HoF: Contemporary haiku in English often depart from the formal traditions we associate with Japanese haiku. For instance I notice that you yourself use very short lines rather than the well-known 5-7-5 syllables. What would you say are the essential criteria for haiku in English?
M: I think brevity is one of the most important criteria for haiku! The 17 syllable haiku (5-7-5) is one of the myths I was referring to earlier. It’s true that haiku written in Japan was traditionally in 5-7-5 syllables, but because of the difference in the Japanese and English languages, a 5-7-5 syllable haiku written in Japanese would translate to approximately 12 syllables in English. So if we write 17 syllables (5-7-5) in English, it’s much longer than it would be in Japanese, which of course is moving away from one of the most important criteria, that of brevity. The shorter a haiku is, while still having that impact on the reader, or ‘aha’ factor, the better it is. Or as Graham Nunn says, “Don’t count the syllables, make the syllables count.”
HoF: Is it always necessary to have a kigo (seasonal word)? Why / why not?
M: I think a reference to nature is essential in haiku, unless you’re writing a senryu, not a haiku. However, whether or not it is a kigo is another matter. A kigo is a seasonal word taken from a saijiki – a dictionary of season words, which unfortunately centres around the Northern Hemisphere, so most of the words don’t apply to us here in the Southern Hemisphere. So I don’t worry about using a saijiki, I just use general nature reference words, unless I’m writing specifically for a Northern Hemisphere journal or readership.
HoF: Haiku are supposed to be more than mere descriptive verses, aren’t they? What is it they are supposed to be/do? What is your definition of haiku?
M: A lot of people have tried to define haiku, and it’s not easy. But I would say haiku provides an awareness or illumination of something which may otherwise go unnoticed and is suggested to the reader in as few words as possible. It is a moment in time, captured in few words, revealing a connection, a reverence of nature. A moment of awareness!
HoF: Do you have any helpful tips for creating good haiku?
M: Yes, read a lot of haiku by skilled haiku writers. Only read those in well known and respected haiku publications. Join a group of haiku writers that share their work with each other and give good feedback. Ask yourself, does this haiku have the ‘aha’
factor?
HoF: What pitfalls should we watch out for, so as not to create bad haiku?
M: Don’t tell the reader too much – show the reader. Don’t use rhyme or ‘poetic trickery’ (poetic tools or cleverness). Don’t use capitals or punctuation. Remove yourself and your opinions or comment from the haiku. Write in present tense and capture one moment.
HoF: What books of yours (of haiku or anything else) are available? Where could one obtain them?
M: My books are available through my website:
www.maureensexton.com.au.
HoF: I recently came across this:
Basho on haiku.
Answering a question by Romaru, Basho explains his art:
"...this way is a haikai where, waiting for the cherry blossom or their scattering, the moon becoming cloudy or clear, freely I simply state what I feel in a single verse.
Nothing else is there to learn."Reading this, I wonder where all the “rules” came from. Do you have any comments?
M: On one level, haiku is simple, as it is about a simple moment or observation, but to write it in a way that is not telling but showing the reader, is a skill that needs to be learned – like any skill needs to be learned. The first thing though is to be able to observe, to notice, that is the first step. I think in today’s rushed society, that first step is much harder than it was in Basho’s day. I think that is something we also need to learn.
HoF: Thank you again, Maureen, for a fascinating and illuminating interview!
If anyone would like to ask Maureen further questions, or to elaborate on some of these answers, please use the Comments to this blog post.