haiku

How to Create Haiga (With Paint Blots)

| Danna Smith

Often called Zen Art, Haiga (hi-gah) combines Haiku and drawings on the same page. The poetry and the images work together to strengthen one another. Japanese poets often created Haiga in ink with simple brush strokes. In my book, How Do You Haiku? A Step-by-Step Guide with Templates, we explore Haiga through paint blots. A swipe of paint on paper feels much like the brush stroke the masters used. This project is fun for the whole family or classroom! Enjoy!

Continue reading →

Picture Haiku: Tomato Leaf Massacre

| Danna Smith

My garden has been kindly offering all kinds of veggies, zucchini, peppers and yes, fat juicy tomatoes for months. But as we near the end of summer, the snails have been enjoying the fruits of my labor as well! So today, I’m sharing a picture haiku inspired by the nibbled on (and apparently very tasty) tomato leaves I discovered this morning.

Continue reading →

Travel Haiku: Lake Davis, CA

| Danna Smith

Haiku is about paying attention to a moment in nature and capturing that moment, like a snapshot, on paper with words (before it disappears). 

My husband and I recently took the jeep up to Lake Davis near Portola, CA in northern California to celebrate our wedding anniversary. Rather than keep a written journal or take a ton of pictures, I like to poetically record what I see in my travels. I’m sharing some of my travel haiku here today. Some attempts are better than others but hopefully, you can “see” what I saw through the imagery in these poems.

Continue reading →

Blog Hop: Happy International Haiku Day!

| Danna Smith

Occasionally here on Poetry Pop, you’ll see a Poetry Pop Blog Hop post. This is when we take a field trip and hop over to another blog to see what’s going on. Today we are hopping over to CELEBRATE PICURE BOOKS blog where we are celebrating International Haiku Day and my newly released board book, Peek-A-Boo Haiku. Please come join us!

Continue reading →

Celebrate National Poetry Month with “H Is For Haiku” (with lesson plan)

| Danna Smith

Today, I have the pleasure of introducing you to H is For Haiku, a beautiful book on Haiku written by the late Sydell Rosenberg (1929-1996) published by Penny Candy Books. Syd was a charter member of the Haiku Society of America in 1968. She wrote and published her work over a literary career spanning roughly three decades. On this, the first day of National Poetry Month, I can’t think of a better way to celebrate! (And for dessert, we’ll be enjoying a mother-daughter haiku collaboration in a special book below by Syd and her daughter, Amy Losak.

Continue reading →

Paint Chip Haiku

| Danna Smith

The other day I met with writer friends on Zoom to catch up and talk books. After chatting, we took ten minutes to write a paint chip poem from the colors and prompts below. I ended up with a haiku (without a prompt) and a free verse (with a prompt) which I’m sharing today. Having only ten minutes, they are not perfect, but it was fun! I hope you’ll give it a try. Pick out some colors (any number) and….go!

Continue reading →

How Do You Haiku? #7 Best Books on Haiku

| Danna Smith

UPDATE 8.19.23: DUE TO POPULAR DEMAND, THIS HOW DO YOU HAIKU BLOG SERIES IS NOW A BOOK! AVAILABLE SEPT 1, 2023. 🙂

Welcome to the seventh and final post in our How Do You Haiku?© series! Last post we created a haiga (haiku with illustration)! Today, I’m sharing some of my favorite books on haiku for readers of every age!

Continue reading →

How Do You Haiku? #6 Haiga

| Danna Smith

UPDATE 8.19.23: DUE TO POPULAR DEMAND, THIS HOW DO YOU HAIKU BLOG SERIES IS NOW A BOOK! AVAILABLE SEPT 1, 2023. 🙂

And here we are, nearing the end of our How Do You Haiku?© series with the sixth of seven ways to write and share Haiku! Last week we created a Saijiki (season word dictionary)! Today, we’ll have fun with Haiga.

Continue reading →