Reflecting on a Year of Daily Haiku

Author's note: This blog entry has been ported from another blog, and minor content edits have been made for clarity. The "tweets" mentioned herein are only discoverable on the Wayback Machine by the Internet Archive, because the author's Twitter account has been deleted since 2017. This was back when Twitter was Twitter. As such, links to twitter.com/x.com have been removed. Other dead links have been updated to their most relevant contemporary counterpart. Thank you for your understanding of the limitations of preserving the World Wide Web.

It's been a year since I've taken on the challenge to write a haiku everyday. Before 2014-11-19, I was only writing a haiku tweet about once a month. I had only starting writing haiku tweets in 2014 after my grandpa passed away. On 2014-10-01, I wrote my first haiku tweet in over 10 months.

Vast air shuts my book/
They say that, "The wind rises! /
We must try to live!"

The haiku was a reference to the poem The Graveyard by the Sea and the movie The Wind Rises, which I had recently seen. The passage I sampled from had to do with living even in the face of death, which was salient with losing my grandpa.

The wind is rising... We must try to live!
The vast air opens then shuts again my book,
The waves dare surge in spray above the rocks!
Scatter, pages dazzled by the light,
Break, waves! Exulting waters, break
This peaceful roof where sailboats dipped like doves!

See https://newcriterion.com/article/the-cemetery-by-the-sea/

I followed the 2014-10-01 post up with one on the first of November, 2014-11-01, all about visioning.

Go The Artist's Way/
"Where will you be in five years?"/
Answer truthfully

Then on 2014-11-19, I decided to write haiku daily, or at least try to meet that goal. For a month up until that date, I had much lower energy than I was used to. I was, in parallel, facing the aftermath of losing my mentor and patriarch, feeling the pressure of a new job, and reeling from a relationship that didn't work out. I needed something to do that would keep my brain busy. I needed a creative outlet that could help me find my voice again. I already had the haiku Twitter, and I'd written a number of haiku as a fundraiser, so it was familiar enough to keep going, but challenging enough to increase the frequency.

Writing 5-7-5 everyday is hard, at least to write haiku that mean anything. I could have cheated and just assembled random seventeen syllables each time, but I wanted each poem to represent something I'd seen or felt. I think some of the haiku turned out beautifully, and some are a stretch. I found that several haiku talked about the same subjects and ideas. Sometimes I had to resort to clip shows.

As of today, I have written 301 haiku on the daily cadence. There are a few more I squeezed in the next day after I missed a day, but I'm not counting those. I'd like to share some of my favorites from the exercise below. They aren't ranked, and they may not even be the best of the batch. But I think they're worth sharing.

1. This haiku (2014-12-20) is a translation of John Steinbeck's letter to his son and some thoughtful advice on relationships. This advice has helped me get through some seemingly rougher times.

Main thing: not to hurry/
If it is right it happens/
Good won't get away

The original words:

And don’t worry about losing. If it is right, it happens—The main thing is not to hurry. Nothing good gets away.
—John Steinbeck, to his son Thom

2. This haiku (2015-01-05) was my reflection on the book Player Piano by Kurt Vonnegut. I volunteer as a store clerk in a fake robot store that is actually a nonprofit tutoring and writing center. This haiku made the newsletter there.

Robots don't need sleep/
They can do your job, better/
Player Piano

3. In this haiku (2015-01-08), I was upset about the relatively low temperature outside.

Check if Fahrenheit/
Indeed, still zero degrees/
My scarf needs a scarf

4. This haiku (2015-02-15) turned out to be advice, as I found several others in this series to be. They feel kind of like fortune cookies. This is advice about learning.

Slow cook mastery/
Broil not, lest lesson be singed/
All good things take time

5. This haiku (2014-02-17) is about a quiet, starry night.

No wind, stars are loud/
Gripped by wonder, vast blackness/
Ghosts of long dead suns

6. Two pieces of advice within a week. Maybe I needed some inspiration and comfort when I wrote this haiku (2015-02-21). I get some comfort in reading it again.

Move at your own pace/
Be good at being alone/
Then it's not lonely

7. I wrote this haiku (2015-03-05) on the day I celebrate as "my favorite day of the year". (There's no particular reason it's my favorite date of the year. I do think it's important to have such a date. For some people it's Halloween or Christmas or the first day of summer.) It's about timeless moments. Note that I accidentally put the line break after the last line. Is there more to this poem?

Short breathlessness, peace/
Rare bird spotted once in life/
Elusive feeling/

8. I wrote this haiku (2015-03-08) about winter's retreat, which seems nice given that I'm currently looking out at the first snowfall of the year as I write this.

Chrome sky, soft mauve, blue/
Air thick, sweet with snow's retreat/
Dripping percussion

9. This haiku (2015-03-09) sampled from A Tribe Called Quest's track Push It Along, which itself sampled from Grover Washington, Jr. It's about keeping at it, like Sisyphus. I read Albert Camus' The Myth of Sisyphus that winter, and I had learned to appreciate tenacity even in the face of futility. The absurd hero pushes the boulder along.

In my way, a boulder/
Strength in character, not arms/
Just push it along

10. This haiku (2015-03-18) is about naked trees and their gnarly branches. I see in trees a lot of personality, mostly in their shape and not actions.

Inverted talons/
Witchy claws scrape baby blue/
Begging for new leaves

11. This haiku (2015-03-20) creates a metaphor out of dealing with difficult situations. [Author's interjection: I wrote this before we knew about Louis C.K.'s sexual misconduct. In the interest of preserving history, the text that follows is the original text verbatim. The author in 2024 does not support the author's 2015 text for bullet #11. The author still likes the haiku.] Louis C.K. is very good at observing true things (and thus very funny), and he advocates that knowing how to sit with pain and sadness is how to be a person.

Acceptance as moss/
Sit with it and it's pleasant/
Know your own way north

12. This haiku (2015-04-04) is about the rise of spring and the surprises buried beneath the snow. When I first learned about haiku, the samples I read were usually about seasons and nature. I think these are important ones to highlight in this series.

Branches a-dancing/
Rich spring soil beneath leaves/
Wind blows fall away

13. I wrote this haiku (2015-04-19) while feeling sad during my road trip through the southern United States. I had stayed in some hotel rooms by myself, with very populous cities outside. I thought about the millions of people surrounding me and how I didn't want to meet any of them. I looked out my hotel window at a skyline I didn't recognize, and I hated the skyscrapers I saw. Conceptually and architecturally they were impressive, but by that time I'd seen building after building in different cities, and they were all starting to look the same: just metal, concrete, and glass. My best friend P says, "Home is the skyline you smile at." This wasn't home.

City far away/
Buildings are generic blocks/
Hotel room quiet

14. I wrote this haiku (2015-05-25) about a stunning mutt named Zeke.

Soft, cool plot of grass/
Gallop gives to gravity/
Dog day afternoon

15. I wrote this haiku (2015-06-22) in thinking about the joy of exploration. When I was little, the forest outside my grandparents' cottage seemed to unfold larger and larger as I walked through it. That forest is now someone's property with dusty driveways and not the fresh, untrodden paths I once knew and still yearn for.

Loamy, twiggy floor/
Soft, wild, and new to the step/
Undiscovered glade

16. This haiku (2015-06-26) is about Lake Michigan at night, to my left as I was driving to my grandparents' old cottage. The moon had risen white, and the small waves on the lake were picking up its quiet, clear light.

Licorice lakeshore/
Ripples like vigil candles/
Soft and sure in dark

17. One common trait among haiku in this series is the subject: clouds. I hadn't before recorded how often I look out windows at clouds, for significant lengths of time, and it became very clear that's my most practiced hobby after writing so many haiku about it. This one (2015-07-17) is one of my favorite "cloud haiku", in that it doesn't have the word "cloud" in it, and it doesn't need a picture of a cloud to support it, but a nice picture is attached anyway. (Most of these cloud haiku have an associated cloud picture attached, but I think the haiku should stand on its own.)

Turquoise shines from soot/
Late day sky ponders next move/
Lumbering liftoff

18. This haiku (2015-07-29) is another "cloud haiku" that doesn't mention "cloud", but finds ways to express what I'm seeing in metaphor.

Suspend in gray clay/
Sun is somewhere, butter spread/
Ambiguous light

19. This haiku (2015-09-04) is another "advice haiku" about using the right words.

Diction is a knife/
Too sharp, certain injury/
Honed just right, a tool

20. I have a fascination with rivers. When I stopped going to church, my temple became the riverbanks. I wrote this haiku (2015-09-09) to express my reverence.

Rivers never end/
To sea, to rise, and to fall/
Infinity stream

21. This haiku (2015-09-10) is about "the little things". It's also about my grandpa going on a walk with me through the woods on a cool summer morning when I was maybe 8. He told me to look closely at the sparkling morning dew on a spider web below a fern along the trail. I've been looking at those kinds of details ever since.

"Is all common, base?"/
"Have you seen the morning dew?/
There's no rarer gem"

22. This haiku (2015-10-13) is about a dream I had the previous night, where I was lost at sea and questioning some of my values.

Silent sea beckons/
Great water doesn't douse your/
Roaring inner flame

23. I wrote this haiku (2015-10-27) about the impermanence of the beauty of fall. Some people living near deciduous trees make rituals out of seeing them in their traffic light state. I'm one such observer. About 10 years ago I remember falling to the ground as one of my crutches landed incorrectly, and I didn't get up because I was lost in the golden leaves of a tree. I was feeling a similar awe when I wrote this.

Rush and lust for gold/
Great treasure needs reverence/
So impermanent

24. Precisely one year after I started this practice, I wrote this haiku (2015-11-19) about the practice itself. I think to live up to the phrase, "We must try to live!" we have to do more than merely passively survive, but create artifacts, ideas, and practices that can help and inspire others. (The owner of a local bookstore here replies to "That author has a gift!" with "No, he has a practice.")

Create or consume?/
The former a firmer stance/
Against entropy

25. I wrote this haiku (2015-11-21) at the first snowfall of the season, rounding out the weather observances for the year.

Light and sound diffused/
All will be immobile soon/
As silver dust falls

That's it for the highlights, but there are plenty more haiku available at my Twitter page, @ArthurHovinc.

I intend to continue the "daily" haiku practice for the rest of the year. I'll decide then if I want to keep the frequency into the new year, or resume a monthly contribution.

—Art

Insomnia Log 8

There's the whir of air escaping into an abyss in my bedroom. The vent normally blows in cool air this time of summer, but right now air seems to be leaving out through it into nowhere. It's about the same sound you hear when you listen into the deep hole of a composting toilet, which I also think is a portal to the Abyss. As my best good friend P and I know from watching As Above, So Below, there are some unconventional ways to get to the underworld if you only look hard enough. Or listen hard enough.

I think a lot about the legacy we leave when we die. This has probably been amplified by several important family members dying in the past couple years. In my pocket notebook I once wrote, "I always think, if I die, someone has to deal with my Speedy Rewards card." Even trivial things like my about.me website or my unused Wikipedia accounts are digital refuse that live on long after the animate matter of me is gone. Digital ghosts. Facebook offers some feature for others to suggest deletion of the accounts of the deceased. That has to be strange to perform. I don't even tell most people I have four Twitter accounts. How will anyone know to delete those? Or will they just pile up like in the dark memory dump of Riley's mind? I was reading about Frances Cobain tonight, about how former Nirvana members see her dad living on through her, while others idolize him even though neither she nor they really knew him. That's the only form of afterlife that makes sense to me, and it's pretty Absurd.

Sometimes dead relationships also suffer a digital haunting. Two of my friends from Dallas liked each other very much and eventually got engaged. They made a wedding website through a service called The Knot that told their story and details about their wedding ceremony and reception in fabulous San Francisco. I visited that site tonight and read "11 days to go!" there. Except this couple is no longer together. I was one of the last of our friend group to know. One day I noticed one of the people in this relationship was no longer Facebook friends with most of our old Dallas crew (previously our "Mutual Friends" on FB). I remember seeing the wedding site years ago but never got a formal invite. I asked this person what was happening. They ended the engagement. I got more of the story when I visited Dallas this past spring (post coming soon I swear!), and I understood why the old crew detached. How strange that in some digital parallel universe the clock is still ticking for this couple to be wed and I'm probably stressing out about dry cleaning my suit.

Speaking of San Francisco, you should see Inside Out if you haven't already. I can't remember the last new movie I watched that had had me tearing up at multiple moments for multiple viewings of the movie (and it is worth multiple viewings). P changed his shirt that said, "Bring back Bernie Mac" to "Bring back Bing Bong". You'll understand that after watching the movie. Go tomorrow! I used to like WALL•E and Up the most of the Pixar crop, but I'm now more aware that I really just love the beginnings of those movies (and their remainders I think are just fine, but not moving). (Somewhere (where?!) I read that the dividing line between mere entertainment and art is in its ability to help us understand the human condition.) I think the beginnings of WALL•E and Up should be their own short films, both pretty tragic. Inside Out, on the other hand, is just as affecting (moving) as the beginnings of WALL•E and Up while still being genuinely funny, smart, relatable, and intriguing for the entire runtime. There are other Pixar films that hold up for the whole movie, but I don't think they have the same poesy as a film entirely about emotions, family, coping, and loss. While other Pixar films primarily focus on the things that bring us joy (a good thing for whole-family movies), Inside Out (literally) turns the spotlight to sadness as an important and neglected emotion that must be felt to be truly human. It helps us connect with the people we love when we need to be loved. I'm going to say this so that it's somewhere on the Internet for those whose search for these kinds of opinions: Inside Out is my favorite Pixar movie.

Blue or Kind Of Blue has a Sunny Border Blue,
Art

Insomnia Log 7

It's that time of the night when the only thing I can think to do is write. This seems to regularly happen after a decent streak of nights of going to bed "on time". Maybe I feel defeated about missing "bed time" one night and just stay up with an attitude of apathy. I don't think that's all of it, because I'm not yawning or feeling that heavy sack-of-sand feeling in my head, so I'm also not physically tired.

I've got The 88 stuck in my head but I'm happy to have them as guests. OC is OK with me. Before that I was listening to how quiet it was in this room. I couldn't tell if what I was hearing was coming from my head or the space around me. Sort of like how when it's dark enough black looks black with your eyes opened or closed. Sort of like how dark it is in the room except for this lighted screen.

A mentor of mine at work reminded me on Monday that it will always take a long time for anyone's impression to change of anyone else. Put another way, trust is built slowly like habits, but it shatters like porcelain with a few mistakes. I won't go into those mistakes here, but I've got some habits to work in that I think will allow my coworkers to trust me as one of their own. These will take time to develop. I think I often want instant results, but there's no magic pill or "program" that I can throw money at. (Believe me, I've thrown some serious money at "programs" before. The lasting effect has always been, "Wow, I guess I really should do that," while leaving it to me to do the work on it. No quick fix.) I think it will work the same way that I don't realize how much my hair grows in a day but notice it over a few months. (I don't cut my hair very often.) And yet, according to Annie Dillard, "How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives."

I realized this the other day: I think it's challenging my ego and self-esteem to have so much "constructive" feedback from coworkers all the time, but I think I prefer it to the non-feedback I used to get on the job. "Yeah, you're doing fine. ["Fine." No better way to sound insincere.] Just keep doing what you're doing." There's no path for growth or mastery there! A book I'm leafing through called Apprenticeship Patterns (appropriate for me as an apprentice in this company) suggests to "Be The Worst". To surround myself with people who are far above my level and gain whatever I can from them. Seems like it would work like learning a foreign language by immersion in another country, immensely stressful at first, but builds a language in my brain out of necessity rather than sheer willpower (which I know is a limited resource I'm good at burning through). I think while I'm still "learning the lingo" I'm going to be stressed because I don't know how to speak yet.

I'll need to accept that I have some shortcomings as a developer. Some are inherent to my character, because whether we call traits "strengths" or "weaknesses" are just labels for perceptions of how common inner mental structures affect other things. In that way, my strengths lead to my weaknesses, and vice versa. I'll do what I can to go further than my short arms can currently reach. Until I've developed confidence in this "pattern language", as the book calls it, I'll look to this image for inspiration.

The sun's the closest star, but it's dang dark,
Art 

Insomnia Log 6

Readers,

I owe you some more blog posts about my spring road trip but you aren't going to get them right away. Soon enough. I've at least been thinking about writing them recently as opposed to not thinking about them recently. Patience.

I wish I had patience. I think at my core is rage that I try to prevent from feeling. I nod and say, "Mm," when I really want to say, "No, that's not correct," or, "That's terrible." My good friend P and I talked on the phone last night and agreed we need to stop more pointless conversation in its tracks. Simply halt the speaker and say, "OK. We can talk more about that after you change your shirt. Why are you wearing that shirt? Why did you think that was a good idea?" Flip something pointless on its head with something equally irrelevant. If they actually change their shirt they care enough to deserve your attention.

I haven't felt so angry in probably months, which might be what is causing this sleeplessness and stream of unedited words. Dawna Markova says, "Rage is passion without choice." It feels like a spit of gasoline into the engine. If Color Theory (more on this another time) is to be trusted, and I think it is, rage is composed of the colors black and red, where black represents one's own ambition and power and red represents one's emotions. We use words like "ardent" to describe someone's passion, and the feel is fiery, which is also very red. Red is about creativity and emotion; I just worry about its pairing with my own ego and power, manifesting in anger. It's a potent fuel, no doubt.

I've continued with my mostly daily haiku on my Twitter. I missed up to five days at a time, but I keep coming back to it. I like the challenge. For my grandpa, for whom we just this weekend held a memorial service, I dedicate every day of the remaining half of the year that I will write a haiku, a poetic (thus red, but controlled, with choice) expression to help channel the anger I have that he's gone. I felt that this weekend. I clutched my magic egg (a lucky charm, more on this another time) as "Taps" played, my throat tight with strained tracheal cartilage and my face a frown canyon. I looked at some of the treasure maps my grandpa and I made year after year for a forest that no longer stands where now rest pole barns and snowmobiles. I miss him so much. I want to live a life as great as his and often worry I won't. I want to walk in the woods again with him, him pointing out the morning dew beading on old spider webs below ferns, white light and long shadows abundant. It can't happen. I remember collapsing in front of an angel statue the last time I saw him, fingernails piercing palms, so angry that anything could take someone so great away. I want to keep channeling this rage in a creative way.

There's another reason I started writing these haiku. One that I'm now ashamed to admit but think I must admit at this point. Most longer term projects of mine kick off because I'm upset that someone doesn't reciprocate my feelings for them. I created Behold The Cheese as a way to cope with longing for someone. I learned Graph Theory and developed Color Theory from it as a way to take my mind off someone else. And I took on the poetic challenge as a way to deal with rage about my grandpa and rage about someone who left me with feelings of withdrawal. I directed so much of the latter anger toward myself for months after I stopped seeing her, after conversation previously held everyday abruptly stopped. I believed that there were things wrong with me that were keeping me all alone, that I wasn't funny enough or strong enough or that I was too obsessive. I compulsively ate and drank without realizing I was over my limit. I sighed, so much. I created such a narrative about this person in my head that thoughts continued on far longer than I expected them to. I felt haunted. I kept thinking of reasons why this person was justified and I needed fixing.

I don't need fixing. I'm not broken. (I sense my own power in writing that.) I don't want to diminish myself anymore. I don't want one person's rejection of me to bring down my esteem and affect relationships that matter far more. I deserve love.

P asked me if this person liked me for the reasons he likes me (that is, for my real self). I didn't have a good answer back then. The answer is probably no. The people who really like me say, "Never change." They tell me they miss me and wish I were there.

I am also angry about some comments I've received on my appearance and beliefs. I received both from a teenager who probably doesn't know any better, but that doesn't defuse my immediate emotional response. I don't like being called "Jesus" mockingly, especially because Jesus probably didn't look anything like my mostly Nordic self. I don't like being called "Sasquatch" while I'm staring at my grandfather's urn about to be buried, the last time I would ever see his physical form, though dust. He said, "Whoa, it's Saquatch! Let me get your picture!" pulling out his phone while I was sobbing and sullen about my fallen hero. I'm sorry, that's disgusting. That's asocial. I don't ever like hearing gay jokes, but especially not from a punk teenager as I'm celebrating marriage equality with my Facebook profile picture. I hope this person reads this when he grows up and realizes what a shit he was.

I have a tendency to get carried away. I can be vocal and loud about things. Some people like it, some people cover their ears. I think it's one of my greatest strengths and a simultaneous weakness (but I believe strengths and weaknesses are intricately tied). It sometimes leads me to think more about another person than can be reasonably reciprocated, which leads to me being alone. But it sometimes also leads to one hundred something haiku produced so far this year, or over 5,000 miles traveled across these United States in two weeks. Sometimes it leads to twenty mile walks which result in deep insights to my brain and brewing of lavish life philosophies. Sometimes it leads me to inexplicable sobbing, or at least looking out windows for hours wistfully. Sometimes it leads to lengthy rants like this one.

The more I use up this anger rocket fuel in creative projects, the better.

Black and red all over,

Art