New to Haiku: Advice for Beginners–Laurie Greer

Today at New to Haiku, let’s welcome Laurie Greer. Since starting down the haiku path in 2018, Laurie’s haiku have appeared in such journals as The Heron’s Nest, Frogpond, Modern Haiku, Under the Basho, Wales Haiku Journal, and tinywords, among others. She won The Haiku Foundation’s Touchstone Award for Individual Poems in 2023 for her haiku “cathedral vaulting.” Thank you for sharing your haiku journey with us, Laurie!

In Advice for Beginners posts, we ask established haiku poets to share a bit about themselves so that you can meet them and learn more about their writing journeys. We, too, wanted to learn what advice they would give to beginning haiku poets. You can read posts from previous Advice for Beginners interviewees here.

Welcome to New to Haiku, Laurie. How did you come to learn about haiku?

I’ve known about haiku since elementary school, but never wrote much of it, gravitating to the longer forms I studied in college and grad school, like sonnets, sonnet sequences, sestinas; I always liked working within constraints to stretch language in every possible way.

I came to haiku actually through running. Or to be accurate, through [not] running due to injuries. I took up walking, which was nice, but not fun/exhilarating as running had been. One morning I noticed something in passing (you notice a lot more when you slow down), and as I turned it over in my mind it became something suspiciously like a haiku. I checked the “rules” and wrote up a 5-7-5 [syllable poem]. I tried another one the next day, and the next. Walking started to be fun!

I was oblivious to how limiting filling a 5-7-5 syllable count was until I sent off a batch of my work and had it returned at the speed of light. I took a closer look at the journal—and suddenly got it. It was truly a haiku moment. I’d been thinking along the right lines—nature, juxtapositions, immediacy—and once I got away from the syllables, I was on my way. It wasn’t too much later that the journal that so rightly turned me down accepted something.

Do you have a haiku mentor?

I feel like I have many mentors. That first editor, though he didn’t comment on the poems, taught me a lot. Other editors have been generous in suggestions and have also taught me a great deal (about community as well as about haiku). Any haiku I read that makes me feel/think/imagine—all are mentors. A stray word that sticks in my mind, the many little things that happen during a day that catch my attention—all mentors of a sort. There’s no end to them and the new worlds they show me.

Where do you write most often? Do you have a writing process?

Writing is happening all the time (or I hope it is), through observations and reading and sheer force of will. It’s hard to write a good haiku, and I feel like I always have to be working on it.

The outside/inside juxtaposition of walks and desk work is key. I take at least two walks a day, carrying a notebook to scribble down what I see and hear and think (the random thoughts that pass through your head in even a short time are amazing for range and variety). I hate to miss anything and want to use every detail, though of course that’s impossible.

Sometimes I collect unusual words or just a word that strikes me for some or no reason and mull it over until something happens. This way I always have something to work on—little prompts suggested by serendipity. Concrete nouns work the best, but it could be anything—a weird color, the weather, something associated with the date.

Congratulations on your 2023 Touchstone Award for an Individual Poem for “cathedral vaulting…”! Could you describe the process of writing your award-winning haiku?

cathedral vaulting
the centuries
of whale fall

—Laurie Greer, Kingfisher #7

Thank you! I never even hoped for this and it set off my imposter syndrome big time. The poem is the confluence of two experiences, one outside, one inside: I walk to the National Cathedral frequently and admire the Baroque architecture, which includes magnificent vaulted ceilings. That was the image that came to mind when I read about whale falls. Then it took days or weeks to put the two together as a haiku, even though they were right there.

You’ve joined in The Renku Sessions at THF in the past. What do you enjoy about writing renku?

As a lifelong introvert and committed non-joiner, I never would have thought these renku sessions would appeal to me as they have. They are thoroughly energizing. The imagination and range of the other poets is amazing and stirs parts of my writing I didn’t know were there. As John Stevenson (I think it was) said, renku is a game for poets. If so, it’s a serious game—demanding revision and craft and attentiveness to a sometimes staggering number of rules—but it’s also whimsical, magical, and constantly surprising. It keeps all the haiku muscles limber and toned.

How do you approach reading haiku?

Eagerly! I jump right into new journals and books, reading around randomly, letting myself be awed, and then I reread—sometimes at length, other times just for a jump start before a walk.

For those just starting out, what advice would you give?

Don’t foreclose anything. Write even what seems trivial or commonplace and see what happens. If nothing else, it’s good practice and keeps you flexible. Be patient with images and ideas; haiku has to seem immediate, and a poem can come in a flash, but usually they take a while, growing at their own pace. You have to recognize and respect that. I’m always grappling with my own impatience. Luckily, poems will bide their time and strike when I least expect them, sometimes months after I’ve forgotten the initial impulse.

Anything else you’d like to share?

Yes. I’ve been avidly reading these interviews and have gotten a lot out of them. I love getting a glimpse of how people integrate writing with living. Haiku, made of daily moments, is of course ideal for uniting creativity and the everyday. I often contemplate what makes a moment: both how much can one hold and how thin can you slice one?

But I started out just to say that two remarks I read here have really stayed with me. One involved writing a lot and giving yourself permission to fail. Another poet said something about recognizing that, as much as writing haiku is an act of joy and celebration, it’s also hard and even terrifying. Until the poem is there—well, it can be tormenting.

Laurie Greer has an MFA in creative writing and completed most of the work for a PhD in English. She lives in Washington, DC, where she dodged academia for work in an independent bookstore. The bulk of her time goes to writing and walking in DC’s wonderful Rock Creek Park.

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