Global Haiku • January 2022
Dr. Randy Brooks

Haiku Collection

by
Tito Graff

When I first signed up for this course, I would’ve never imagined I’d find such a wonderful creative outlet like haiku. Ever since the first haiku I wrote for this class, I absolutely loved the idea that 3 simple lines could explore so many different emotions and experiences. Haiku to me has a strange allure to it in the sense that it plays so much to our human experience–it can relate to so many different people.

Below are some of my favorite haiku I had written for this course. I take a huge amount of inspiration from nature and the environment around me. A lot of my haiku also have to do with very specific moments in my life. I love to romanticize life and the everyday occurrences we find ourselves in. Life is short. Haiku to me was a way of memorializing my own memories of my life, good and the bad.

faded silhouettes
i see polaroids
of their lives

step by step
cigarette ash
leads me home

parents
let me stay home
alone

a starry night
our hands touch
on the cold concrete

two lovers
watch tv
the universe in that screen

alone at night
he looks to the stars
he is not alone

eyes closed
a one way ticket
to the other side

cigarette bud on the porch—
that one night
we shared a kiss

All of my friends
asleep on the car ride home.
I will protect them.