New to Haiku: Moments in Haiku
When you are new to haiku, you may hear poets refer to “the haiku moment” or “the aha moment.” While these terms may describe the same event, they do not necessarily mean the same thing. In my opinion, the haiku moment is something that happens when you write haiku; the aha moment (hopefully!) occurs when you read haiku. When you are writing the poem, these two events may occur simultaneously.
The Haiku Moment
The haiku moment is your impetus for writing a haiku—the observation, feeling, or experience that led you to put pen to paper (or fingers to keyboard). Often these moments are keenly perceived, observations that make you feel more connected to the world around you.
“You’ll know it when inspiration strikes. Something moves you in a way that it hasn’t before, or you see something in a light you’ve never before considered. It sticks in your mind’s eye, and insists that you look at it . . . If we are able to come to terms with our moment, literally, we have probably written a haiku.” — Jim Kacian in How to Haiku
When critiquing haiku in Towpath (a local haiku group I’m part of here in the DC region), we often remind poets to go back to the haiku moment when they are having trouble editing their work:
- What did you see, touch, taste?
- How did you feel?
- Why did you write this down?
- Why is this singular moment so important?
Touching back in this way can lead you to write richer haiku.
The Aha Moment
The aha moment is akin to unlocking a puzzle. You are reading a haiku and suddenly, it takes a left turn, leaving you someplace unexpected, yet everything completely makes sense now. As a reader, you may be delighted because you’ve seen the world through new eyes. It’s a fun and somewhat addictive feeling in which you sense that you “get” the poem.
My first aha moment occurred with a scifaiku (science fiction haiku), and I wish I could find the poet and thank them, because that was my gateway into haiku. I remember that the poem seemed somewhat ordinary until I hit line three—eye to eyestalk—and I realized that the subject of the poem was talking to an alien. My second realization was that all haiku could be making me feel this way—surprised, delighted, maybe even shocked.
That’s the power of the aha moment. If your reader knows where a haiku is headed throughout the poem, they may not be as engaged. This is why haiku poets are often advised to flip lines around—to see if you can add surprise and delight nearer the end of the poem.
But Wait a Moment!
In his essay, “Aha Moments and the Miracle of Haiku,” Michael Dylan Welch points out that haiku poets don’t have a consensus on what the aha moment and the haiku moment mean. He writes:
“So there are perhaps three sorts of ‘haiku moments’:
- The original moment of inspiration that motivates the poet to write.
- The ‘moment’ depicted in the poem.
- The moment of realization that the reader experiences on reading the finished poem.
References to the ‘haiku moment’ or ‘aha moment’ are often confused as to whether they mean the original inspiration, whatever is presented in the poem itself, or the effect of the finished poem (usually the feelings that it creates). In a way, the haiku moment is all three, but some people think it’s only one of the three possible options: the moment that inspires the poem, the moment in the poem, or the moment of realization created by the poem.”
Does the haiku moment even need to exist as a tangible entity? In their essay, “Reading One-Line Haiku: Feeling the Real within the Impossible,” Kat Lehmann and Robin Smith, co-editors of whiptail: journal of the single-line poem had this to say:
“One thought about haiku is that of the ‘haiku moment’—a mindful, meditative practice that captures ‘a moment’ that happened. But does a haiku moment need to be something tangible, that physically occurred? Or can a haiku moment be internal, a wordless shift, or an epiphany that happens inside? Can a haiku moment be imaginative or based on our memories or feelings? There are as many types of haiku moments as there are types of haiku. Just because something that happened cannot be touched or seen does not make it less ‘real.'”
Just how many moments are there in haiku, anyway? Well, that depends on how you look at it. Your readers may experience more than one moment as they read your haiku. Alan Summers, in his essay “Taking Out the Important in Haiku,” writes:
“What we mustn’t forget is that the reader is a creative force in their own right, and if we laid everything out, supplied all the answers to the crossword, there would be no journey for the reader as well as the writer.”
So, how much control do we, as haiku writers, have over the journey our readers take? Not as much as you might think. Jane Hirshfield, in The Heart of Haiku, reminds us:
“To read a haiku is to become its co-author, to place yourself inside its words until they reveal one of the proteus-shapes of your own life. The resulting experience may well differ widely between readers: haiku’s image-based language invites an almost limitless freedom of interpretation.”
What About Resonance?
As you might imagine, not all haiku poets find the aforementioned descriptions of aha and haiku moments to be a useful model. Robin Smith, THF President & co-editor of whiptail: journal of the single-line poem, shares their thoughts on the topic:
“I personally prefer to think of my understanding of poems not as ahas (though there are those occasionally), but as deepening into the poem to try to feel the author’s experience. I feel like it is a more enriching reading experience. I almost feel like ahas can be superficial whereas poems written with many layers pull the reader in more to linger and really absorb the poet’s experience . . . There is nothing wrong with aha poems, of course. It’s just a matter of preference. I guess I feel we don’t hear enough about finding numerous possibilities within a single poem. While newcomers may not be writing complex poems, they are likely reading the work of more experienced haiku writers and maybe another way of reading can be helpful when they approach those more complex poems.”
In writing a strong haiku, a poet needs to move past the aha moment model of unlocking the door to a haiku puzzle. We need to be asking ourselves what is on the other side. Is the haiku worth visiting and revisiting? In other words, does the haiku have resonance?
What do you think? Do haiku need an aha moment? Do haiku with resonance have multiple aha moments? (My husband wants to know!) Are definitions of moments in haiku useful or confounding? Let me know in the comments!
For More Reading:
Haiku and the Brain, The Haiku Foundation. This fascinating ongoing study seeks to find out whether we can quantify the aha moment by looking at brain scans as people read haiku.
Hirshfield, Jane. (2011) The Heart of Haiku. Kindle Single.
Kacian, Jim. (2006) How to Haiku. Red Moon Press.
Lehmann, Kat & Smith, Robin. (2022 & 2023) Whiptail Monoku Series (3 essays). New to Haiku, The Haiku Foundation.
Summers, Alan. (2018) “Taking out the important in haiku,” Area 17.
Welch, Michael Dylan. (2017) “Aha Moments and the Miracle of Haiku,” Graceguts.
Welch, Michael Dylan. (2016) “Taking a Bite: The Haiku McMoment,” Graceguts.
We’d love to hear from you in the comments. The Haiku Foundation reminds you that participation in our offerings assumes respectful and appropriate behavior from all parties. Please see our Code of Conduct policy for more information.
My thanks to Robin Smith and Kat Lehmann for reviewing an early draft of this piece and to John Kelsey for catching typos. Any remaining errors are mine.
Comments (8)
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The haiku moment is when you first experience the feeling of connection and wonder…the eternal now and universal truth. The secondary, and to a degree lesser moment, is when you try to put it into words, It’s always been that way with me. I always carry a haiku notebook that allows me to put down immediate impressions so I don’t lose them I can rework them later but I haven’t lost the immediacy of the moment. Funnily enough,my best haiku occur and form complete in my head as soon as the moment occurs…..
I kind of agree with Robin. While I love a good aha haiku—one in which a lightbulb moment of epiphany occurs. Sometimes, to me, they can lack subtlety and, paradoxically, seem forced. A simple, beautiful poem, in which the writer pulls me into and invites me to share in their experience, is often just the moment I need.
Great article, Julie.
Great article. I can’t write haiku without having an aha moment beforehand!!!!
Thanks for a great article and good perspectives to think about. I would, however, be careful not to ‘throw the baby out with the bathwater’ (if I’m allowed the cliche). One of the facets of haiku that newcomers to, and casual observers of, haiku is the aha moment. That sudden realisation of the beauty in the obvious can be the very thing that attracts people into the art form. Some of the more subtle pieces can generate a “so what”? for the uninitiated. I absolutely get the need for subtlety and a slow opening of understanding or appreciation, but sometimes it is good to see a firework go off.
John—good points. When reading journals early on, there were a lot of haiku that I read as “so what” haiku because I did not know how to read it properly. Jane Reichhold’s “Bare Bones School of Haiku” helped me to understand how to read and appreciate haiku in different ways.
I agree, both subtle and “fireworks” poems can be affective.
Great article.
I am certainly aligned with Robin Smith and Kat Lehmann on this. The so-called “haiku moment” or “aha moment” is a valid way to think about haiku, but it is not the only way to think about haiku. When I first started writing haiku, I remember doing a lot of reading which clearly prioritized the “haiku moment.” It’s a great starting place, but there is so much more. I’d hate to think of all the great poems that the writer didn’t keep or publish because they were “desk haiku.”
I totally agree. A haiku moment can occur in the imagination. That doesn’t make it any less real or poignant.