Writing Roundtable: Zen Aesthetics & Haiku
EN 170 Accelerated Format
February - April 2017

All writing assignments are to be submitted by email attachment by midnight on Sunday before each class period. Please save your files as RTF "Rich Text Format" or DOC format documents and include your initials or name with each file sent.

Send them to: rbrooks@millikin.edu

General Weekly Course Structure & Procedures

1. Sharing and discussing favorite haiku from the reading assignments
    (emailed responses are due midnight the day before the class).

2. Collaborative haiku writing (various linked verse haikai traditions).

3. Critical reading discussion on history of haiku and haiku poetics.

4. Haiku editing workshop. E-mail attempts due midnight Thursday (three days before class each week).

5. Kukai selection of favorites by each other.

NOTE: The Millikin Moodle course will provide electronic resources and updates of your grades for the course, and provides a backup of these assignments. This web page provides the most up-to-date current information on assignments.

The course schedule is merely a guideline. The professor reserves the right to alter course content, class assignments/activities, and/or dates, as deemed necessary. The professor will announce assignments and due dates in class, via email, or course web site. The student is responsible for attending class to know what assignments will be required and when. Announcements in class or via email will take precedence over the written schedule.

Week One (out of class pre-engagement assignment)

(1) Go to following Podcast and enjoy listening to it. After listening to it, write a response about your realizations or questions about a life of writing haiku.

<https://www.haikuchronicles.com/podcasts/2012/e23-tea-talk-haiku-a-way-of-life> (26 minutes)

Also answer these questions in your reflection—how can haiku be a means of learning to notice, observe or be more aware of your surroundings? How is haiku an art of awareness? Is haiku a way of life? What is that way of life? The haiku life?

EMAIL your response writing to me by Midnight Sunday, 2/19 at: rbrooks@millikin.edu

Week Two (first face-to-face class)

Sharing and discussing haiku from Mayfly 60 & introduction to Zen Art for Meditation.

Introduction to the history of haiku and haiku poetics & writing haiku.

In class reading: Zen Art for Meditation, tenet 1 – everyday things

In class response writing: select 2 favorite haiku. Be ready to discuss why you like them.

(2) In class haiku writing (with Dr. Brooks' help): go into more depth describing a memory from your own life (one page) and write 2-3 haiku which captures some moments from within that memory.

assignments for week two:

(3) Read the Red Moon Haiku Anthology & write reader responses to 3 favorite haiku

(4) Read ZEN ART tenets 2 & 3 and write a response to a favorite haiku or artwork from each.

(5) Write 3-5 haiku from your readings or the artwork from tenet 2 - perceptions

(6) Write 3-5 haiku from your readings or the artwork from tenet 3 - everything

EMAIL your paragraphs & haiku by Midnight Sunday, 2/26 to me at: rbrooks@millikin.edu

Week Three

Sharing and discussing favorite haiku from The Red Moon Haiku Anthology.

Discuss responses from Zen Art for Meditation, tenets 2 & 3 – perceptions & everything.

Kukai selection of favorites by each other.

Spring Break (no class this week, March 14)

assignments for week four:

(7) Read the Haiku: the Art of the Short Poem & write reader responses to 3 favorite haiku

(8) Read ZEN ART tenets 4 & 5 & 6 and write a response to a favorite haiku or artwork from each.

(9) Write a response to your favorite haiku from Kukai 1 and 1 favorite from Mayfly 59

(10) Write 20 new haiku in your journal

EMAIL your 8 response paragraphs & 20 new haiku by Midnight Sunday 3/19 to me at: rbrooks@millikin.edu

(20) haiku collection: your best haiku and renga from the course, collected with a preface about your understanding or approach to writing haiku.

Guidelines on final collections:

Select and organize your best haiku & senryu & haibun & renga into a collection (with your reading partner's help). You may want to write them in a little booklet, or print them in a binder.

Give your collection a title and a © 2017 page. (often signature haiku are connected to the title)

Include a dedication if you would like to.

Be sure to write an author's introduction to your collection which explains your title and expresses your approach or why these are the ones you have included in your collection (your poetics preface).

Don't forget to e-mail a copy of the preface and haiku in the collection to Dr. Brooks!

NOTE NOTE NOTE NOTE NOTE that you need toEMAIL COPIES of your Author Study, Haiku Project, Haiku Collection (including preface), and Submission Ready Haiku by midnight, 4/3.

Week Seven (out of class post-engagement assignment)

(21) Go for a walk or find a place to sit and observe what is happening around you. Meditate or quietly sit and notice what's going on. Let yourself observe and connect to your own feelings, memories, or thoughts arising from this place and time. And just write. Send me a reflection about your time & place and send some of the resulting haiku from being there.

(22) Also write about what you have learned about yourself through this course from Zen aesthetics and meditation. How will this course help as you develop a life of meaning and value? What have you learned about writing haiku from this course?

EMAIL your response writings by Midnight Sunday 4/9 to me at: rbrooks@millikin.edu