The True Haiku: Exploring the Neo-Classical Haiku

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For years scholars and writers and translators have wrangled about what truly constitutes the poetic form haiku. The short, image-oriented, nature-oriented poems originating from Japan are theoretically well-known in popular culture. Perhaps we were taught in grade school that it had to have seventeen syllables, and counted on our fingers the three lines of 5-7-5. Perhaps we learned to sneer at these conventions in college. Perhaps we bought exquisite books of translated haiku as holiday gifts. Perhaps we recognize the name of Basho. Perhaps not. The truth is that it is nearly impossible to adapt Eastern forms of poetry to English. In an attempt to accomplish the impossible, early translators decided to hold onto the seventeen syllable count and the one-two-punch quality of the Japanese form as well as the overriding requirement to express oneness with the natural world. This is the Neo-classical haiku.

In this workshop, we will explore this anglicized form. We will find ways to bring all our skills to bear on the brief and beautiful haiku, adding our own personal traditions to this utterly different set of poetics that we will make our own while respecting its history. We will use not just image but the music of the English poem with assonance and consonance and alliteration. We can, if we want, use meter. We will not try to be Japanese. We will become English-language poets pouring ourselves into a small, exquisite porcelain cup from which we might even drink sake.

A long-time Colorado resident and graduate of the University of Colorado/Boulder, Katherine West now spends more time in Southwest New Mexico, near Silver City. She has written three collections of poetry: The Bone Train, Scimitar Dreams, and Riddle, as well as one novel, Lion Tamer. Her poetry has appeared in journals such as Writing in a Woman's Voice, Lalitamba, Bombay Gin, New Verse News, Tanka Journal, Splash!, Eucalypt, Writers Resist, Feminine Collective, Haiku Avenue, and Eastern Structures. New Verse News nominated her poem :"And Then the Sky" for a Pushcart Prize in 2019. In addition, she has had poetry appear as part of art exhibitions at the Light Art Space gallery in Silver City, New Mexico, the Tombaugh Gallery in Las Cruces, New Mexico, as well as at the Windsor Museum in Windsor, Colorado.

The True Haiku: Exploring the Neo-Classical Haiku

Saturday Apr 25 2026, 12:00 PM - 2:00 PM
Zoom (register for link)
United States

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