Global Haiku • Fall 2023
Dr. Randy Brooks

Haiku in Emotion

by
Anna Quick

This semester has been hard for me. I lost my dad, I had hard classes, and my mental health tanked. Haiku has been a phenomenal outlet for me to express my emotions. My title haiku is:

my childhood
lays with tubes attached
keeping him alive

My title haiku is one of the first haiku I wrote this semester, and it describes how my semester has gone. After my father passed, it felt like my whole life fell apart. But life doesn’t stop for someone’s death, so I had to push through. Even though I had to push through, it felt like my childhood self had died with him. It was the end of an era, and this haiku captures the emotions I was feeling.

My title haiku sets the tone for the rest of my haiku. I have grown accustomed to writing sad haiku to allow my emotions to flow. When I wrote:

setting up
the dinner table
one less plate

It was clear I was thinking about a lost family member or a lost friend, but I found that after I wrote haiku like that I felt lighter. I write haiku with emotion, and the haiku I picked for my collection showcases that. Many of the haiku I picked are recent haiku, and that is because I found a method to write haiku. To write haiku, I have to be feeling a strong emotion or listening to music that evokes emotion. The haiku in my collection is full of emotion, and I hope that they evoke emotions for you as well.

her white picket fence future
crumbles to what-ifs
it was always him

it’s not one-sided
he has to
say goodbye too

~ from the song,"Cancer" by Chemical Romance

hometown grocery store
his mom
asked who I was

my childhood
lays with tubes attached
keeping him alive

falling identities
form
a snowman

routine becomes
auto-pilot
walking ghosts

unsaid words
hang to dry
until next summer

setting up
the dinner table
one less plate

exchanging spit
a calculated connection
short-lived

~ from the song,"Spit" by Carr