Advanced Studies in Poetry: Global Haiku Tradition
EN 340 PACE
July-August 2011

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 Sunday (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.

Required Books Week One (in class reading - these books will be brought to class by Dr. Brooks)

To Hear the Rain by Peggy Lyles, 2002 Brooks Books

Handout of haiku by George Swede (download)

Millikin University Haiku Anthology, 2008 Bronze Man Books

Mayfly magazine gift (from Brooks Books)

Required Books Week Two to bring to class:

The Haiku Anthology by Cor Van Den Heuvel, 2000

To Hear the Rain by Peggy Lyles, 2002 Brooks Books

Millikin University Haiku Anthology, 2008 Bronze Man Books

Required Books Week Three:

Matsuo Basho by Makoto Ueda. 1983) Kodansha International; ISBN: 0870115537

Required Books Week Four:

The Wordless Poem by Eric Amann. (handout copy download)

Love Haiku: A Lifetime of Love by Masajo Suzuki (translated by Lee Gurga & Emiko Miyashita), 2000 Brooks Books; ISBN: 0929820003

Matsuo Basho by Makoto Ueda. 1983) Kodansha International; ISBN: 0870115537

Required Books Week Five:

Millikin University Haiku Anthology, 2008 Bronze Man Books

Week One

1. Sharing and discussing haiku from Mayfly & Lyles' To Hear the Rain.

2. Introduction to the history of haiku and haiku poetics.

3. Haiku writing and editing workshop.

in class reading: Lyles' To Hear the Rain

in class response writing: select 4 favorite haiku from each poet and briefly write your imagined, felt response to 2 favorites by Lyles. Be ready to discuss why you like them.

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:

email your in class response writing: we wrote 1 paragraph response to a Lyles haiku. send it to me

email your in class haiku writing where you went into more depth describing a memory from your own life (one page) and wrote 2-3 haiku which captures some moments from within that memory. send it to me

haiku writing for next week: write 6 additional haiku based on memories rising up in your mind from reading haiku. send me at least 6 new haiku.

reading for next week: The Haiku Anthology and prose introductions from Peggy Lyles and the Millikin University Haiku Anthology writers (note your questions about haiku from the introduction), and read the handout sample of haiku by George Swede.

response writing for next week: write imagined response paragraphs for 3 favorite haiku from The Haiku Anthology and 2 favorites from George Swede (get the handout from the web site or Moodle) and 2 from the Millikin University Haiku Anthology.

EMAIL your paragraphs & haiku by midnight Sunday to me at: rbrooks@millikin.edu

Class Two

1. Sharing and discussing favorite haiku from The Haiku Anthology & Millikin University Haiku Anthology.

2. Critical reading discussion on haiku poetics from The Haiku Anthology, MU Haiku, Swede & Lyles.

poetics statement: characteristics of best, most effective haiku "things found" in the best, most effective haiku. Characteristics the students in that group like, with a couple of haiku for examples.

3. Kukai 1 selection of favorites by each other.

4. Haiku editing workshop from attempts. (email due midnight two days before class)

5. Brief introduction to tan-renga and rengay.

assignments for week three:

reading for next week: Matsuo Basho (chapters 1-3) and handout essay by Huruo Shirane "Haiku Myths"

(1) response writing for next week: select 3 favorite haiku by Basho (from Ueda's or Shirane's book) and write your imagined response to each of those 3.

(2) response writing: write a short response to one of the renga in the Basho book. write short paragraph responses to 1 of the most interesting links from the renga

(3) response writing: write short response paragraphs to two of your favorite haiku from Kukai 1

(4) tan-renga writing: writing a capping verse to 2 favorite haiku from Kukai 1. (add 2 lines to make a new 5 line poem)

(5) haiku to edit: send me 2 alternative versions for at least 2 haiku from Haiku to Edit 1

(6) haiku writing for next class: write 10 or more seasonal based haiku (deliberately include nature or an image that places us in a seasonal context). write about the heat, the sun, summer, swimming pools, picnics, baseball, vacation, the beach, summer nights. try some from childhood memories and some from now

EMAIL your writings to me by midnight Sunday at: rbrooks@millikin.edu

1. Sharing and discussing favorite haiku from Matsuo Bashô.

2. Critical discussion on history of haiku and haiku poetics from Traces of Dreams.

3. Collaborative haiku writing (haikai no renga).

4. Download and read: How to Rengay (handout).

ninjô verses—people or emotion verses (self, other or both) (I, you, us, he or she, they perspectives)

ninjô -nashi—non-people or place verses

We will write a 36 link kasen renga (mixing ninjô and ninjô-nashi verses with no more than three links being ninjô and ninjô-nashi verses in a row):

(1) hokku—sets tone, greets all, establishes season, quiets guests to join in
(2) wakiku—builds on unstated elements of the hokku and maintains season. ends in a noun
(3) daisanku—ends with open-ended image (often transitive verb ING)
(5) usually moon shows up here for the first time
(6) concludes the first page (jo) often written by the official scribe
(7)-(29) heats up the links and leaping (intensification)
(13) moon appears again
(17) blossoms usually show up here
(29) moon’s third and final appearance
(30)-(36) kyû—the slow down finale (quiets back down into calmness)
(35) cherry blossoms always here
(36) end with openness and reverberation

4. Kukai selection of favorites by each other.

5. Sharing short form essays on contemporary authors.

assignments for week four:

reading: Matsuo Basho (chapters 4-5) and Traces of Dreams: Landscape, Cultural Memory, and the Poetry of Basho (handout chapters 1 & 4) and Love Haiku: A Lifetime of Love

(1) response writing for next week: select 3 favorite haiku by Masajo and write your imagined, felt response to these three.

(2) response writing: write short response paragraphs to one of your favorite haiku from Matching Contest 1

(3) email Kukai 2 voting: send me your top five picks and write a reader's response to 1 favorite from Kukai 2

(4) response writing: find an example of a favorite haiku in English by fellow student or from anthologies that demonstrate each of the following three types of linking:

(1) word links--puns, objects
(2) content links--narrative, scene, progression
(3) scent links--emotion, atmosphere, social status

(examples highlight linking or movement between the two images of the haiku)

(5) rengay writing for next week: write 2 rengay (one with family or friends) and (one with an email partner from this class or previous haiku students) follow the principle of no more than three links being ninjo or ninjo-nashi verses in a row.

(6) haiku writing for next week: 5 haiku attempts writing about things that are better because they are not perfect, are somewhat worn out, are broken but still valued, etc. (the Japanese aesthetic of wabi-sabi)

EMAIL your writings to me by midnight Sunday August 14 at: rbrooks@millikin.edu

1. Sharing and discussing favorite haiku from Love Haiku

2. Critical reading discussion on history of haiku from Basho & Shirane.

3. Send/give me the name of the author you are studying for your contemporary author study, unless your name and author are listed below:

4. Favorite rengay & matching contest kukai selection of favorites by each other.

assignments for week five:

reading: reading and response on your author for your essay

reading: The Wordless Poem (handout)

(1) response writing: write short response paragraphs to one of your favorite haiku from Matching Contest 2.

(2) response writing for next week: find 3 matching pairs of haiku from any of your sources (6 haiku) and write a comparison of 1 pair (write about 1 match)

EMAIL these two assignments to me by midnight Sunday at: rbrooks@millikin.edu

1. Sharing and discussing favorite haiku from comparisons of Japanese and American authors (emailed responses due midnight the day before the class).

2. Critical reading discussion on history of haiku and haiku poetics from The Wordless Poem (see Moodle download).

3. Sharing final collections and essays.

assignments due:

for week five--haiku projects due for class presentations

(1) haiku author study: an essay on a particular contemporary author, discussing their approach to writing haiku, including response-discussion of 5-10 examples. this can focus on one book by the author in the form of a book review essay.

o focus on a point of insight or question about that author's unique contribution
o include response discussions of 5-10 haiku by the author
o may include interview questions & poetics from author's prose work

(2) haiku writing for next week: Ginko or haiku project--a haiku walk by a group of friends in which everyone just enjoys the walk together, stopping to notice things and to write haiku from shared experience. write at least 10 on-the-spot Ginko walk haiku by you and your friends. (It can take the form of rengay if you'd like.)

Questions about the haiku project? The haiku project can be a series or sequence or rengay of haiku on a single topic (snow, divorce, marriage, school, civil war, etc.). OR you may do a Ginko (haiku walk with friends where you write haiku that come from perceptions and feelings from the walk). OR you may write 2 more rengay or a Kasen-no-renga with friends or classmates or family.

(3) haiku collection: your best haiku and renga from the course, collected with a preface about your understanding or approach to writing haiku. Download the guidelines for the final haiku collections.

(4) signature haiku gift: (usually a bookmark, signed, with one of your best haiku) please bring a copy for each fellow student and the teacher (23 copies)

(5) submission ready haiku: five of your best haiku typed on a page with your name & address in upper left-hand corner, folded and inserted in a number 10 envelope, with another number ten envelope folded in third inside, two first class stamps included loose in the envelope

• • •

NOTE NOTE NOTE NOTE NOTE that you need to email me versions of your haiku essay, the contents of your booklet of best haiku written this class, your preface to your booklet, and the haiku in your final writing haiku project. Due by midnight Tuesday.

BRING your physical booklet, your essay, MY BOOKS YOU BORROWED, your haiku project, your signature bookmarks for exchange, and your submission ready haiku. Books won in kukai are yours to keep!