REVISITING & REMIXING HAIKU

Day 14 Prompt – REVISITING & REMIXING HAIKU

Sometimes the last line of a haiku inspires me to continue the story with another haiku; otherwise, I may choose to pivot in another direction and recreate a new version of the poem from another perspective. In the past, I have participated in numerous haiku “chains” in which one poet posts a haiku, then the next poet comes along and takes the last line (5 syllables) and makes it the first line of the next haiku. The next poet comes along and would take my last line, and make it the first line of his or her haiku, and so on….

When the creative process unfolds, I am often inspired to reorder lines or phrases of haiku. This can happen when I am rereading haiku I wrote many years ago, or someone else’s haiku that I really like. I will alter the topic and replace words, either to edit or expand upon the original haiku with a new angle, or create a new one. Taking a line or phrase that strikes me as strong, I will begin to create a new scenario around it.

If the last line is what I’m using as the basis for a new poem, I probably chose it because it was the strongest or most poignant part of my previous haiku. So, building something new from it will require me to write something even more compelling or powerful.  It is highly likely I will place the phrase in a different part of the new haiku.

Much of my creative process involves giving myself obstacles, restrictions and hurdles. Often, I will set a minimum number of letters per word for each word in my haiku. Sometimes, I will ban a certain, popular letter and write an entire poem without the letter “A”, for instance. These tasks force me to work harder and require me to spend more time thinking about and arranging words in my haiku. When I continually challenge myself, I feel like I am growing and improving.