This week: Jack Kerouac's Haiku Edited by: eyestar~*  
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  Hey everyone. I am back as a guest editor this week! I love haiku and am ever a student of this art! I had time to cruise and was reading my Haiku daily contemplation and saw one by Jack Kerouac! So.... let's look at his style. Tabbed as American Haiku!
Then I’ll invent
The American Haiku type:
The simple rhyming triolet:--
Seventeen syllables?
No, as I say, American Pops:--
Simple 3-line poems
From “Reading Notes 1965”
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The Haiku of Jack Kerouac (12 March 1922 – 21 October 1969)
Jack Kerouac is considered a iconic Beat Poet, controversial and best known in his time with his "on The Road" book published in 1957. Ann underground celebrity involved in the hippie movement, his themes were Catholic spirituality, jazz, promiscuity, Buddhism, drugs, poverty, and travel.
no telegram today
only more leaves
fell
We all know the traditional Japanese style of haiku 5-7-5 and I have written about how in English the count may not be as effective for the meaning and form. There have been evolutions over the years since we began translating and using the unique art. In the 1950's and 60's Reginald Blyth introduced Haiku to the English speaking world. In 1949 Blyth Haiku book brought the traditions of Zen and Buddhism. It was in the early 50's that Jack Kerouac turned to Buddhism and immersed himself in Blyth's commentaries. He studied with other beat poets interested in the oriental cultures, like Ginsberg and Gary Snyder. He found that the western languages did adapt well to the syllabic Japanese, so he tried to redefine the genre. He developed what is now called "American Haiku". He studied the masters Basho, Buson, Shiki and Issa and experimented to take it beyond the strict syllables to the essence of haiku. He added his haiku in novels, letters, journals and recordings. Quite a master in his time!
Kerouac explained:
"The American Haiku is not exactly the Japanese Haiku. The Japanese Haiku is strictly disciplined to seventeen syllables but since the language structure is different I don’t think American Haikus (short three-line poems intended to be completely packed with Void of Whole) should worry about syllables because American speech is something again…bursting to pop…. I propose that the ‘Western Haiku’ simply say a lot in three short lines in any Western language. Above all, a Haiku must be very simple and free of all poetic trickery and make a little picture and yet be as airy and graceful as a Vivaldi pastorella."
The last part of the quote captures the essence of less is more...observe the moment and state simply what is there without all the English extra adjectives etc. that want to fit the 5-7-5!
nightfall,
boy smashing dandelions
with a stick.
April mist –
under the pine
at midnight
I enjoyed these ones as it reminds me of Issa's interest in insects.
bee, why are you
staring at me?
I’m not a flower!
in my medicine cabinet
the winter fly
has died of old age
Haiku's power comes from the juxtaposition of contrasting elements and Kerouac caught that essence. He was able to show his melancholy, silliness, humour in a light as air way simply.
drunk as a hoot owl,
writing letters
by thunderstorm
frozen
in the birdbath
a leaf
Book of Haikus is a collection of haiku poetry by Jack Kerouac. It was first published in 2003 and edited by Regina Weinreich. It has 500 poems selected from nearly 1,000 haiku jotted down by Kerouac in small notebooks. It is said he came closer to the essence of haiku than other beat poems.
I can't imagine the time when Haiku was basically unheard of! These early haijins did a great deal to bring the essence of haiku to our language. I recall reading Jack Kerouac in school and yet not his haiku!  The focus was on his book I guess!
Thanks for reading!
Haiku on!
eyestar
Sources
Interesting discussions on Kerouac Haiku and those who follow.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=poDR4w0jK0k
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xwErvahlYho
https://anyportinastorm.proboards.com/thread/3089/jack-kerouacs-haiku
https://terebess.hu/english/haiku/kerouac.html
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZqFN8w8qQy0
https://humorinamerica.wordpress.com/2015/06/15/jack-kerouacs-american-haiku/
https://livinghaikuanthology.com/index-of-poets/livinglegacies/2650-jack-kerouac...
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Thanks so much for your sharing responses for my last newsletter "Poetry Newsletter (April 27, 2022)" on childhood poetry memories. 
QueenOwl ~ A New Day Dawns 
Yes. There is a poem I memorized in Second Grade that I can still recite today.Here it is:
The Owl
Of all the queer birds I ever did see
The owl is the queerest by far to me
For all day long she sits on a tree,
And when the night comes,
Away fly she.
My love for owls lead me to collect owl knickknacks and things. When my collection grew massive, my family called me the QueenOwl.
How cool is that.  Thanks for sharing how you got your muse name. A wise one!
Cathryn
Thanks for the lovely stroll down memory lane. Mother used to read Cooper's poem Come, Little Leaves, from a book in the My Book House collection of poems and stories.
I will add the poem to my portfolio of poems I have memorized (or plan to memorize).
Finally memorized the rest Of R.L. Stevenson's poem, The Swing.
Cathryn
Oh so sweet. Glad you could join my memory lane! 
Elfin Dragon-finally published
I credit my dad who got me reading all sorts of things when I was very young. I always thought Hemingway's "The Old Man and the Sea" was like a large poem. But then I loved reading "The Illiad" and "The Odyssey" by Homer as well. But my favorite poem has always been "The Raven" by Edgar Allen Poe.
Oh I loved those too and even read some of the Illiad and Oddyssey in the ancient languages of Greek and Latin. Probably couldn't interpret a line now! LOL
Monty 
"The Leak in the Dike" by Phoebe Cary: The good dame looked from her cottage door at the close of a pleasant day and cheerily called to her little son who was outside the door at play. I was 7 years old when I wrote my first poem that won a contest in the New England Homestead. A long forgotten publication but one all our neighbors read.
Wow! That is cool! Famous at 7. |
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Poetry: August 17, 2022 Issue [#11509]
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