My Heart: Haiku

This is the Open Write, a place for educators to nurture their writing lives and to advocate for writing poetry in community. We gather every month and daily in April — no sign-ups, no fees, no commitments. Come and go as you please. All that we ask is that if you write, you respond to others to mirror to them your readerly experiences — beautiful lines, phrases that resonate, ideas stirred. Enjoy. (Learn more here.)

Our Host

Mona Becker lives in Westminster, MD, about 25 minutes south of Gettysburg, PA and 40 minutes northwest of Baltimore. She is the Science Department Chair at Westminster High School and teaches Honors Physics, Honors Chemistry, and Advanced Placement Environmental Sciences. She has been writing poetry since she was a young child and recently found a renewed interest in the art – thanks in part to this wonderful group! When not teaching science in the classroom or greenhouse, she serves as the Mayor of the City of Westminster, MD and champions small businesses, innovative technology, and community involvement. She has served in municipal politics for over 8 years and was recently re-elected for her second term as Mayor. She and her wife, Melanie have two wonderful cats, are heavily involved in volunteer work, and love to travel. 

Inspiration 

My father passed away a few years ago from a rare form of dementia called Posterior Cortical Atrophy (PCA); it was an early onset diagnosis, and I was blessed to have almost six years with him after the diagnosis, before he passed. PCA affects an individual’s literacy skills, among other things, so as the disease progressed dad quickly lost his verbal capabilities. One of my favorite memories during this time was when I had logged him onto his virtual support group; dad hadn’t talked all day but as he sat there looking into the camera and seeing his friends he blurted out with much effort, “My daughter is the mayor, so you better do what she says.” I miss him to this day. As he was struggling with his disease I was writing poetry. I wrote a small collection of haikus titled “Haikus for my father with dementia” in a small notebook I carried around with me. Even though haikus are small, they easily captured the essence of what I wanted to say through poetry.

Process

A haiku is an unrhymed, short poem consisting of 17 syllables arranged in three lines of 5, 7, and 5 syllables respectively. As stated by Robert Spiess, a notable haiku poet and editor of the Modern Haiku for 24 years, “(A) haiku is an up to a breath-length poem in which two, rarely three, objects in a now-moment of awareness are juxtaposed so that each enhances one’s appreciation of the other and together they evoke a felt depth, insight, of intuition of the suchness of things.” Haikus emerged in Japan in the 17^th century and the poet Basho is credited with developing the haiku we love today.

Haikus are about connection and appreciation for the “suchness of things”. Everyone at some point in their lives – most likely multiple times – feels a depth of connection to a person, a process, nature, or other events. Think about a time in your life when you felt that connection. I often feel connections when I am outside in nature; I definitely felt a connection when I was with my father. Does the connection you have bring joy? A sadness? A frustration? Or are you simply feeling connected to the larger picture of life? Haikus combine contrasting images, often two elements that work together to evoke a specific mood or emotion – but the reader makes the connection.

I have included a few of my haikus I wrote for my father below as inspiration.

Mona’s Poems

#1

I see your lips move
But between us is a screen
The words become stuck

#9

As we sit outside
I see a fleeting smile
Your eyes on the bird feeders

#13

A long time to go
Things we have long since done
Crowd the edges of my mind

Your Turn

Now, scroll to the comment section below to write your own poem. (This is a public space, so you may choose to use only your first name or initials depending on your privacy preferences.) Not ready? That’s okay. Read the poems already posted for more inspiration. Ponder your own throughout the day. Return later. And, if the prompt does not work for you, that is fine. All writing is welcome. Just write something. Also, please be sure to respond to at least three writers. Oh, and a note about drafting: Since we are writing in short bursts, we all understand (and even welcome) the typos and partial poems that remind us we are human, and that writing is always becoming. If you’d like to invite other teachers to write with us, tell them to subscribe. For suggestions on how to comment with care, see this graphic: