18 November 2019 (winterberry)

winterberry

decorating for Christmas

a month early

17 November 2019 (ice)

ice on the pond

the ways we harden ourselves

before winter

16 November 2019 (moon)

daytime moon

driving more slowly

past the lake

Happy 10th Anniversary, Book of Days!

I meant to mark a couple of weeks ago the 10th anniversary of this blog, which I started on 1 November 2009, inspired by the movie “Julia & Julia” in which a woman blogs daily about her experiences cooking from Julia Child’s cookbooks—but I forgot. So here it is now!

I’ve learned a lot in the past ten years about how to write a haiku; it’s been a very long apprenticeship to the form, informed by friendly fellow poets (especially haijin Peter Newton) and many many books on the subject, as well as anthologies and haiku journals. When I started, I thought a haiku had to be 5-7-5 syllables. I don’t think it was a bad thing that I adhered to this form for so many years before learning that most contemporary English-language haiku poets are not (generally, a haiku in English is 10 - 15 syllables, or no more than 17). It helped me hone my attention to rhythm, as well as sharpen my senses for appropriate haiku moments. And it’s provided me with literally years of material to go back to and revise! In just the last couple of years I feel like I might finally be getting the hang of this haiku thing. And I’m more obsessed with the form than ever!

You can read that very first post here.

In honor of this milestone, if you send me a message about this blog through my Contact Me page, including your mailing address, I’ll send you a fun little haiku/photo card thing I had made up this summer. Hope to hear from you! Thank you for reading.

15 November 2019 (lichen)

reindeer lichen

seeing the forest

in spite of the trees

14 November 2019 (ice)

black ice

trying to be open

to sudden change

13 November 2019 (cat)

frozen moon

the cat in her basket

curled in a ball

12 November 2019 (snow)

what dogs hear

the silence

of falling snow

11 November 2019 (gull)

chance of snow

on one foot a gull

weighs its options

10 November 2019 (bearberry)

I’ve been working on an essay about berries this week, hence the recent profusion of berry images in my haiku. There’s something inspiring about working a theme from many different angles, finding diverse paths to the heart.

bearberry

the small beautiful things

we step on

9 November 2019 (winterberry)

winterberries

in love again

with the color red