QUESTION #4: HAIBUN FORM

QUESTION # 4: HAIBUN FORM 

I really like the haibun poems I’ve read, but I’m not really sure what to do for the paragraph part of it. Can you give me some tips on how to approach it and how it relates to the haiku?

ANSWER:

Thanks for this question. I absolutely love this form of poem. However, I must admit, from the outset, that I approach it slightly differently from the person credited with establishing this poetic form, the famous Matsuo Basho. Apparently, it originated from something he wrote to a friend while he was travelling, giving it the feel of a travelogue, or diary-style of writing and combining that with a haiku that distilled the essence of the prose in a kind of postscript epiphany of the experience being described.

In my haibun, I have used a prose poem, instead of a paragraph. That means that I have not confined the prose to a descriptive paragraph. Instead, I have written about any subject matter and loaded the prose with poetic devices. Moreover, I have also combined two prose poems and two haiku to create a longer version of a haibun, in poems like ‘Counting the Cost of Covid.’ Here the haiku act as intense distillations of the actions and emotions at the heart of the prose poems, giving different snapshots of the same event. On other occasions, I have used a prose poem describing the atmosphere and emotion of driving on the freeway in fog and I have taken a more philosophical approach in the haiku, using questions that put the immediate experience into a wider perspective of my life’s journey.

There are many different styles of haibun. Mostly they involve just a descriptive paragraph and a haiku that are connected in some way. Enjoy trying this out and don’t be afraid to experiment and give it your own unique stamp.