New to Haiku: Advice for Beginners — Bruce H. Feingold

Today at New to Haiku, we are pleased to welcome Bruce H. Feingold. Bruce is a member of The Haiku Foundation’s Board of Directors, Chairperson of the Touchstone Awards, and he has written five books of haiku. His 2022 collection, everything with an asterisk, won an honorable mention in the Haiku Society of America’s 2023 Merit Book Awards. Thanks for sharing your haiku journey with us, Bruce!

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, Bruce! How did you come to learn about haiku?

Before I started writing haiku, I published free verse.  For my fortieth birthday, a friend gave me Basho’s The Narrow Road to the Deep North and poetic lightning hit me, and I thought, “I can write haiku!” At this juncture, my life was full; I was happily married with two young children and immersed in a career as a clinical psychologist, but I was missing the flow and enjoyment of creative expression. With haiku’s emphasis on nature, crystalizing the essence of emotion, being in the here and now and seeing the heart of things, it was a perfect match for me.

Looking back now, it makes sense that haiku found me. At age 11, I was camping at Mt. Lassen in Northern California and woke up in the middle of the night to a sky lit up by the Milky Way, and for the first time I experienced the act of truly seeing. The stars were no longer dimmed by city lights and weren’t the dry facts of the classroom. The sky was alive and vibrant, and I experienced a sense of awe with the natural world which has been a core spiritual reality my whole life. From age 17 onward I became an avid backpacker, fisherman, wildflower man and birdwatcher. I immersed myself in meditation, yoga and William Blake and the Beats; fast forward to my doctoral dissertation which explored mental health and spiritual benefits of wilderness experiences. The stars lined up in an amazing synchronicity for me to discover haiku at an opportune period in my life.

Do you have a haiku mentor? What advice did they give you? Did someone else’s haiku greatly influence your own?

After reading Basho, swept up with naive enthusiasm and knowing nothing else about haiku, I submitted perfect 5/7/5 syllable poems to Modern Haiku. I had no idea that the editor Robert Spiess received thousands of submissions each reading period, yet he was encouraging and generous with his time. From then on, he took me under his wings and rejected all but one poem which was published in 1991:

traveling alone
vultures float in a pale sky
the half moon glowing

He wrote what I’m sure will sound familiar to old timers: “A couple of others were ‘sort of close. What you tend to do in many of your haiku is to intellectualize. D.T. Suzuki said, ‘A haiku should not express ideas but put forward perceptions reflecting intuitions.’”

I still have this hand-written note! I became a voracious reader of the classical Japanese masters, the early American poets and seminal treatises like The Haiku Handbook. From these readings and from Robert, I learned the fundamentals: the centrality of images, brevity, simplicity, resonance, originality, juxtaposition, cutting, rhythm and musicality, the importance of kigo, connection with the natural world, and the value of authenticity.

Joining the Haiku Poets of Northern California enhanced my feeling of community and support, and the importance of listening to poets read their work. Stanford M. Forrester emboldened me to express heartfelt emotion and write about everything and anything. In 2004, Jim Kacian took a chance and published my first collection, A New Moon, and encouraged my service to the haiku community. Along the haiku path, Chuck Brickley, Randy Brooks and Paul Miller inspired me to be fresh and contemporary, yet honor haiku tradition and to develop a critical eye.  The next wave of haiku poets like Robin Smith and yourself, Julie, have kept me up to date with fresh voices and haiku invention. (Thanks, Bruce!) No one wants to be a haiku curmudgeon!

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

I write everywhere, every moment, and nowhere and not at all!

My creative process relies on being open to experience and expressing what is happening in me and around me. Nothing is more satisfying than after an inner, interpersonal, socio-political or natural stimulus, when a haiku miraculously arises from the unconscious: many of my haiku are relatively unchanged from these inspirations. Nonetheless, haiku is also a craft. There are poems which I have tried to write for decades and only later pinpoint the right words, or the correct form, which matches the poem. Playing around with order and syntax, editing extraneous words, stretching the boundaries of language, reading a poem out loud for sound and rhythm, getting feedback from other poets, and experimenting with a haiku as a one-liner versus a traditional three-liner, are all tools of the trade. Several other factors stimulate the creative juices: reading the classics and contemporary haiku, being outdoors, traveling far and wide, being open to the political and social movements of the zeitgeist and being present with family and friends.

How do you approach reading haiku?

I read haiku from the whole spectrum of poets and peruse haiku from many sources such as social media, The Haiku Foundation blog, and online and print journals. A huge fan of supporting haiku writers, I have a vast library of haiku collections, from an old hardbound leather copy of R.H. Blyth’s haiku volumes to contemporary writers. When a new collection arrives, it sits on my bed stand and I might read it three to five times over many months or years! When a print journal arrives, I read it casually and focus on poets who I follow regularly; then I read it cover to cover, let the poems soak in and pick a few to analyze and reflect upon. I study book reviews in journals such as Modern Haiku and Frogpond and the commentaries from The Touchstone Awards and contests. While at this point in the haiku journey I have developed my own haiku voice, I strive to read writers whose creativity and strengths are different than my own which challenges me to keep growing as a person and a poet.

What are some of the fun ways that you have used or experienced haiku?

As you know, haiku was originally a communal event when Basho and his fellow poets shared poems together. I’ve been fortunate to be invited to many haiku events as a guest reader, which I find rewarding and uplifting. I’m especially thrilled when I read in public settings, such at our local library, independent bookstores and at non-haiku poetry events. At family celebrations, like my father’s 100th birthday party and at my children’s weddings, I intersperse haiku to mark the moment, so now when there’s an event, my kids tease me, here comes a haiku!

What are your favorite haiku that you have written? Can you share a story behind one of them?

arrhythmia the unraveling of the republic
– first in Mariposa 37, Autumn-Winter, 2017

In 2016, I was activated by the election, and in December I had a sudden, dangerous arrhythmia and nearly died. This poem was a spontaneous expression of how our bodies, selves and lives are inextricably connected to the social and political environment. When one of us unravels, we all unravel, and when one us heals, we all may heal. I don’t think I could have written this poem without grounding and practice in humanism and Buddhist loving-kindness. While this poem was inspired by a specific event, on the most profound level, I believe our best poems reflect the deepest well of our souls.

Here are a few other favorites:

moonless night
my reclusive neighbor
points out Jupiter
– first in Modern Haiku 41.3 Autumn, 2010

breaking waves
we talk with the children
about our ashes
– H. Gene Murtha Memorial Senryu Contest, 2023 Commended; short-listed for an Individual Touchstone Award

haiku dad
I help my daughter trim
her college essay
– Hawaii Education Association Twenty-Seventh Annual International Haiku Contest, Humorous, 3rd Place, 2004

Egotesticle
– Commended [Innovative], The Haiku Foundation HaikuNow! International Haiku Contest, 2012

a new mountain trail in my chest defibrillator
– tinywords Issue 19.2, January 20, 2020

You’ve recently retired from a successful career as a psychotherapist. What lessons have you taken from your work with regard to the practice of writing poetry? How has your training as a psychotherapist influenced your haiku?

There are many parallels between psychotherapy and haiku. When we tell our stories to another person, we face our lives with honesty and truth. We name the feelings, thoughts and beliefs which confuse, haunt and beguile us which, in turn, helps us understand and accept them, leading to awareness and freedom. As haiku poets, we express perceptions to discover the heart of the matter and speak essential truths. An “aha moment” is like insight in therapy: surprising, simple, and profound. I feel the same rush of delight when I write an authentic poem as I did when a patient and I shared a meaningful moment.

Therapy is also a quiet space to pause, reflect and rejuvenate, and in haiku the unspoken and empty space between words–which Japanese aesthetics describes as “ma”–is similarly an emptiness full of possibilities, like a promise yet to be fulfilled.

Finally, it’s often not enough in therapy to help alleviate suffering; we need to nurture positive experiences of love, joy and wholeness, and haiku has a venerable tradition of beauty, oneness and unity with the natural world.

You serve as a THF board member and currently chair the Touchstone Awards. How have the Touchstone Awards grown since their inception? What changes can we expect for 2024 and beyond?

Mark Harris and Jim Kacian initiated the Touchstone Award for Individual Poems in 2010, and I assumed the helm in 2014. In the first year I was in charge about 600 individual poems were nominated for the Individual Awards and 83 collections were nominated for the Touchstone Distinguished Books Award. The number of nominated books has slowly grown, and now about one hundred books are nominated each year. We’re pleased that the variety of haiku-related books and global reach has expanded. Over the years the number of poems nominated by individuals, journals and contests has grown exponentially. In 2023 we had 1671 distinct poems nominated by 51 journals, 14 contest organizers and 298 individual poets, and we’ve worked diligently to ensure that the panel represents a diversity of haiku voices from different regions in the United States and from around the world.

For many years, I coordinated both awards alone, and then in 2020 Robin Smith joined as assistant coordinator. Robin modernized the Individual Awards nominating process and contributed new ideas and energy. In 2021, Robin assumed the role of Individual Awards Coordinator, and in 2022 Jim Kacian, Robin and I initiated the Touchstone Award for Individual Haibun. Kristen Lindquist jumped in and has done a terrific job as Coordinator. Last year, we had 229 haibun nominated from 36 journals, and the Haibun Awards is now a staple of the Touchstone Awards.

I currently chair the Touchstone Committee which includes Robin Smith, Kristen Lindquist, and Jim Kacian, and we evaluate the awards process each year. While we work as a team on general issues, each Coordinator independently runs their respective Awards. I have continued to coordinate the Book Awards.

In the last several years, the Individual Awards and the Haibun Awards have had a Long List of honored poems. Following suit, in 2024, in addition to the Short List and awarded Book Awards, we will add a Long List of Books.

The Touchstone Individual Poems, Individual Haibun and Books Awards are yearly awards; this year’s nominations are open until December 31, 2024. Please check out the Touchstone Awards on the Foundation website, and nominate one of your haiku and a haibun plus a fellow poet’s!  And, if you have a new haiku collection, please send it in as soon as you can for the Books Awards!

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

I’ll summarize my advice in two phrases: Read, read, read, and seek out haiku mentors and friends.

I encourage you to read the classical haiku poets like Basho, Buson, Chiyo-ni, Shiki, Issa and Santoka and the early American haiku masters like James W. Hackett, Raymond Roseliep, Peggy Willis Lyles, and Charles B. Dickson, just to name a few.

Read the early synopsis of haiku in the seminal The Haiku Handbook by William J. Higginson and Penny Harter, and “how-to guides” such as Lee Gurga‘s A Poet’s Guide (and there are many newer ones as well).

If you can afford it, purchase your favorite authors from the contemporary haiku publishers like Red Moon Press, Brooks Books, Cuttlefish Books, and Snapshot Press. Online resources are plentiful: The Haiku Foundation offers haiku activities for the newcomer and veteran alike. Read our Book of the Week selections or peruse the Touchstone Awards Archive for the honored poems and books over the last decade.

Frogpond and Modern Haiku are musts for the serious haiku poet, and I would add Stan Forrester’s bottle rockets which has its own unique niche.  There are many journals which are free online, like The Heron’s Nest, failed haiku, Prune Juice Journal, and whiptail: journal of the single-line poem.

I highly recommend joining the Haiku Society of America (HSA) and finding a regional haiku group, or joining one of the similar organizations across the globe. Attend as many haiku conferences as you can, and look for zoom readings and presentations so you can hear poets in their own voices. Finally, HSA offers intimate mentor/mentee groups which are supportive, educational and fun.

Bruce H. Feingold, Ph.D., was a psychologist for nearly fifty years in the San Francisco Bay area. His haiku have been published world-wide and have won numerous awards. He is the author of five haiku collections, including everything with an asterisk (Red Moon Press, 2022), which was a HSA Merit Book award recipient and arrhythmia (Red Moon Press, 2020). Bruce is on the Board of Directors of The Haiku Foundation, chairs The Touchstone Awards and is the Vice-President of the Haiku Poets of Northern California. Bruce’s haiku may be found on Instagram (@haikubruce) and at haikubruce.com. Bruce lives in Berkeley, CA with his wife and is fortunate that his two adult children, their spouses and two grandchildren live a few minutes away!

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