Saturday, October 21, 2006

Bit of Haiku Writing History:

The Haiku Middle Passage collection of poems came from a self-challenge. The 15 Haiku in the collection took over two years to complete. I did lots of research and was extremely exhausted by the time the first 13 were completed. The idea to try and create haiku around the Middle Passage experience came when I was a teaching assistant at Pennsylvania State University. I had the opportunity (not the experience or patience) to teach a creative writing course. My students belly-ached so much over how easy writing Haiku’s were that I lost all sense at being able to communicate to them the essence of this form. I now know that was because of my lack of personal experience with the form itself.

So I challenged myself to try and embody the elements of nature the form establishes – that’s why all the Haiku have settings on ships making their way through water (except number #1). Originally, I planned on writing 13 Haiku, one for each of my siblings including myself. Haiku’s 14 and 15 were added this year (2006) as an attempt to get crew member perspectives.

I made an important and conscious form change from the traditional syllable per line order of 5, 7, 5. With the exception of the first Haiku, all the others are 7, 5, 5. My decision to begin all subsequent Haiku with the middle represents the disruption caused by the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade in the world. In short, the Haiku form can not mesh with the experience of the Middle Passage (like the people involved) without being some how changed.

The number associated with each poem only represents the sequence in which they were written. The poems are not meant to be listed in numerical order. I hope that seeing the numbers out of order helps to see the disruption of the experience.

These Haiku were an obsessive passion for me and when I was done part of me asked “Ok now what?” This collaborative project put a big dent in answering the “now what” question.

Well that’s the poet’s spill on this collection! They are my children and I’ve love them dearly, but I look forward to them leaving home.

My overall spill on poetry: Poems are visual art with the power to be exhibited like other forms of visual art.

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