Haiku for Healing – The Role of Haiga

Haiga as a Healing Practice 

A recurring question in our times is how do we find equilibrium in our daily lives when faced with the vicissitudes of illness, bereavement, estrangement, displacement, isolation and loneliness? More specifically in the context of Haiku for Healing, can haiga, a related poetic form, offer us an outlet to find our inner core of calmness, harmony and peace?

This Haiga as a Healing Practice feature has two parts. The first is an interview with the award-winning haiga poet, and editor, Lavana Kray. Lavana shares with us her discovery of this poetic form and how it sustained her as she dealt with the aftermath of a crippling accident and later, the isolation of Covid. The second part is a 6-weeks Haiga Photo Prompts element using Lavana’s hauntingly evocative photos to explore the theme of healing. This will commence on Monday, 9th February. Please look out for further details on how to participate.

The Role of Haiga – Interview with Lavana Kray

Thank you, Lavana, for agreeing to this interview feature of The Haiku Foundation’s Haiku for Healing project and also for providing your amazing black and white photographs which will provide the prompts for the Role of Haiga as a Healing Practice.

When did you first discover haiga?

More than ten years ago, I found a photography website called comunitatefoto.ro. The challenge was that we had to use our own photos to illustrate a number of haiku proposed by the poets. My images were judged to be good as I suggested rather than described the poems. I had done this without knowing that this was actually the definition of a haiga.

Are your haiga solely based on nature?

Yes, usually, but I am also inspired by emotions, the inner seasons, as it were.

What themes in haiga do you use?

I don’t usually have any theme, I pick ideas and emotions that come to me at a particular moment. I seem to feel comfortable among the fallen trees and also, the snow which makes everything around look clean. The child and the old man amidst nature are also present in my poems.

Has haiga helped you in any way during times of illness or accident or some other difficult situations?

Fifteen years ago, I was in a car accident and suffered serious cervical spine injury. It took me a long time to recover.  Again, during the pandemic, I got the virus, not a severe infection, but enough to keep me indoors for a while. The times that I spent in isolation and recovery were perfect to reflect on life, write haiku and work on images in my haiga folder.

I found that looking for suitable photos and texts to accompany these images distracted me from the pain and stress. It usually takes a long time to compose a satisfactory haiga but the process helps me to concentrate on something other than the physical or emotional agony and distress.

You have won several awards for your haiga. Which of your haiga are your favourites? Please share a few.

I have many favorite haiga, but the particularly special ones are those that were awarded first place in Prix André-Jacob-Entrevous 2023 Canada. Here are four of these:

What would you say to a poet who is looking to haiga as a healing art?

Like any form of artistic expression, haiga facilitates the processing of experiences such as accidents, deaths of loved ones, breakups, disillusionment, loss of trust, war, etc which leave residues in our lives. It’s a healing art. It’s like a psychological serum that you should have at hand. It will help you not to lose complete hope. Look for what is beautiful inside and outside yourself, put them together for a haiga and you will get something that will help alleviate the agony and the isolation of suffering.

The final update of the H4H Google Classroom organised by Geethanjali Rajan is coming up on Monday 2nd February.

Bios

Lavana Kray is from Romania. Over the years, she has won various prizes in haiku and tanka competitions. The World Haiku Association awarded her the title of Master Haiga Artist. Her work has appeared in many print and online publications, as well as in Haiga Exhibitions organized by the World Haiku Association in Japan and Italy.  The Laval Literary Society from Canada awarded her the André-Jacob-Entrevous Prize 2023, for a literary text (haiku) combined with an artistic visual. She currently serves as haiga editor for the online journal of Japanese short forms, cattails. She has published five photo-haiku books, one tankart collection and a photo-haibun book.

She is owner-editor of https://ourbesthaiga.blogspot.com/
https://thehaikufoundation.org/thf-galleries-photo-haiku-of-lavana-kray/

Sonam Chhoki finds the Japanese short-form poetry resonates with her Tibetan Buddhist upbringing. She is inspired by her father, Sonam Gyamtsho, the architect of Bhutan’s non-monastic modern education and by her mother, Chhoden Jangmu, who taught her: “Being a girl doesn’t mean you can’t do anything.” She is the principal editor, and co-editor of haibun for the online journal of Japanese short forms, cattails.

Her chapbook of haibun, The Lure of the Threshold was published in May 2021. Mapping Absences, a collaboration of haibun, tan bun and tanka prose with Mike Montreuil was published in 2019. Another collaboration with Geethanjali Rajan: Unexpected Gift was published in November 2021. She organised a year-long email course in 2024 for The Haiku Foundation’s Haiku for Parkinson’s project.

If you have any questions about Haiku for Healing, please use the Haiku for Healing contact form on our Contact page.

Read past Haiku for Healing posts here.

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