Poem Series with Poetry-Art Collaboration
by Samantha Klesko (age 5)
Louisiana, USA
Introduction by Karina Klesko
Comments by DW Bender

Samantha loves purple. While eating purple Popsicles one night, she had fun creating little purple stories or scenes she and her brother giggled over.

Here are her words, and as she played with the computer art program, working with soji's rose, she picked her favorite colors and swirled and painted away. She collaborated with Naia, who has more experience in haiga, and they put together the final poem with words from her thoughts and art. She had fun shuffling around the different combinations - KK:

purple universe
soft clouds
and popsicle drips

sleepy purple universe
soft clouds
dancing

the sun swirls
a sleepy purple universe
day dreams

the sun dances
in a purple universe
popsicle drips

purple puffs of clouds
and popsicles drip
the sunrise

5-year-old Samantha has sent an imaginative "series" of poems and artwork for us to enjoy a purple-colored experience with her. The last poem in the series, because it is the last one in the series, almost drips from the page and our thoughts, just like the end of the popsicle drips juice.

Sometimes haiku poets enjoy writing a series or sequence of haiku. A series is a group of poems written on a theme. Samantha has made a series of poetic verses on a combination theme of "purple" and "popsicles." In addition, she made digital "poetry-art" on the computer with one of her poems. In Japan, haiku combined with a certain kind of ink painting or drawing is called "haiga." Haiga have decorated fans and scrolls, and have illustrated books. Sometimes a slightly longer different style of poems called "tanka" are combined with art.

In haiga, the poem creates a visual image in the mind while the picture is a different visual image on the paper, and both can make us feel what the author and artist was feeling. Most often, the poem in a haiga does not "illustrate" or have the same theme as the drawing, but relates to it in a different way. They can be connected by the season suggested in both (example: an autumn haiku about a pumpkin and a painting of falling red maple leaves). Or the two can be connected by mention and use of color, a feeling, or some other thing. The poem and the picture "complement" each other, which means they enhance the enjoyment and/or meaning of each other by appearing together, just like certain foods taste good together—like peanut butter with jelly, toast with butter or chocolate cake with milk. -DWB

5 Haiku by Kayla Kohlmaier
Age 12
Florida, USA
Comments by DeVar Dahl

after school—
long-leaf pine needles to braid
into a bracelet

A very fine haiku from a young person as it captures the pleasure a young person has in using products from nature to create a work of art. -DD

a snakeskin
or a cast-off rope
spilling its guts?

Even though Kayla is a young person, she has developed a haiku poet's eye and sense of wonder. She has written her haiku so that the reader sees the same image and wonders the same thing. -DD

camera ready
for winter photos, we check
the weather

Kayla shows some understated humour in this one. Everything is ready for winter pictures but now the weather has to cooperate. -DD

Christmas shopping
Grandma and I buy baby clothes
for my doll

Kayla again shows the haiku poet's skill in this one with her last line. We are surprised and amused to see that a doll, and not a real baby, is going to benefit from the grandmother-granddaughter shopping trip. -DD

so curious
but he falls asleep in my lap—
the boy-kitten

Kayla shows the pleasure of having a kitten for a pet. It is always amazing that a little animal so full of life and activity can fall asleep and become so still. This is a wonderful picture that Kayla shows us. -DD

('a snakeskin' was published May, 2002 in Asahi.com for Children's Day edition; 'a worker bee' was published in Wild Flowers, New Leaves: a Collection of World Haiku, 2002)

Looking into haiku

Japanese haiku are traditionally written in a fixed-form of "go-shichi-go" (five-seven-five), which refers to the "sound units" of speech, which are not exactly the same as syllables in English or other languages. Most of us learn about haiku in our school days through examples of haiku written in 17 syllables with a reference to the season. Often, classic haiku are written in two "parts" with one image, while many examples very often have two individual images which may not be related, but which are compared or contrasted (juxtaposed) to each other in a way that a new association between them is recognized. The "spark" of connection between these two parts can cause the reader to feel what the author experienced, emotionally and visually, such as in Basho's famous haiku:

kare-eda ni kasrasu no tomarikeri aki no kure

A crow
has settled on a bare branch—
autumn evening.

(translation by Robert Haas)

With simple language, Basho compares the way a black crow settles on a bare branch to the swiftly settling darkness in an autumn dusk. Basho can be said to have used "hidden" or "indirect metaphor" in this haiku because the crow could be understood to actually represent the action of evening darkness. But this is "revealed" to us by very subtle suggestion, and not directly "told" to us. A feeling of "ephipany" or revelation sometimes occurs while reading good haiku, when the reader suddenly "sees" and realizes the hidden connections. -DWB

2 poems by Yu-Chi Kuo
Ontario, Canada
Age: 16 when the poetry was written (2002)
Comments by DW Bender

Here are two creative poems from one of our young-adult readers which might be considered "avant garde" (a new style which is inspired by, but different from the traditional) haiku, or short poems written with the shape of haiku, in that the verses are composed similarly to, but departing from traditional haiku. Yu-Chi Kuo has arranged the English syllables in a 5-7-5-syllable style with a seasonal reference, whereas the poems are about what she imagines nature to be doing, using the poetic device of "personification", instead of writing about "things as they are". This makes the poems different from "traditional" or "classic" haiku, and is why they might be considered "avant-garde" haiku, or "short verses" inspired by some characteristics of Japanese haiku. Traditional and avant-garde styles are important to all poetry because traditional styles preserve a way of expression, while avant-garde poetry experiments and incorporates different ideas to create new kinds of poetry and styles out of traditional ones.

stringing pearls of dew
the icy cold runs away
...here, Persephone


long wispy fingers
the Japanese maple sighs
seeing autumn's face

In the first poem, she makes a reference (alludes) to a story found in the European myth of Persephone, the Greek goddess of the underworld (Hades) who was apparently kidnapped by the god, Hades to be his bride. Some interpreters of the legend suggest that the goddess ran away from her mother and home. Yu-Chi Kuo compares the movement of cold dewdrops to Persephone by using "direct metaphor" which is known as a Western poetic device.

Traditional Japanese haiku sometimes include allusions and references from their own and China's culture, poetry or other literature, most often hidden in the verse as borrowed phrases, words or implications which would be recognized and understood by well-educated readers. Often, classic haiku express a melancholy (sad, lonely or thoughtful) feeling—in the second poem, Yu-Chi Kuo captures the melancholy of autumn. In both poems, Yu-Chi uses personification or anthropomorphism (the icy cold "strings pearls" and "runs away", the maple tree has "fingers" and "sighs" and the autumn has a "face" in the manner of people or other animals.) Direct metaphor and personification make the poems different from traditional, or classic haiku, which do not usually use them, while some avant-garde haiku poets sometimes do.