New to Haiku: Polishing Our Intent–A Collaborative Essay on Revising Haiku

Today, the Noodle Bowl Haiku Group shares their tips for revising haiku. My thanks to Mimi Ahern, Jennifer Burd, Deborah Burke Henderson, Laszlo Slomovits, Kathryn Liebowitz, and Brad Bennett for sharing this collaboration with New to Haiku. Enjoy!

Polishing Our Intent: A Collaborative Essay on Revising Haiku

The authors of the mini-essays below are all part of a haiku workshopping group — we’ve fancifully called ourselves the Noodle Bowl. Facilitated and mentored by poet/teacher, Brad Bennett, we’ve been meeting roughly once a week for the past few years. Each session begins with Brad bringing us an inspiring poem by someone from the greater haiku community as well as a quote by an author (in any genre) on some aspect of writing.

Recently, we decided that each of us would use one or more of the quotations as starting points for these essays on the process of revision. Our hope is that, in the range of our reflections, you will find something that speaks to you and helps you in your revision process, whether you’re revising alone, with a friend, or in a group.

We’ll start with Mimi Ahern’s essay, because she selected the first quote Brad brought to us when we started meeting. Its guidance — remaining loyal to the intent of each poet — is what we try to keep in mind when giving feedback.

Mimi Ahern

“. . . all voices in a workshop can help, by knowing the language, and by a generally good-spirited attitude, which is patient, absorbed, and especially loyal to each writer’s intention.”

—Mary Oliver, A Poetry Handbook, p. 116

These words express the help I would like when I bring a haiku to be workshopped by others. When sharing a haiku that may need revision, I am so thankful for friends or members of a workshop who try to understand my intention and support it with thoughtful, sensitive suggestions.

Workshops I enjoy and find most helpful follow this outline:

• The poet reads their poem without explanation.
• The other poets listen, pause, and then comment on what they like and how the haiku is resonating with them. They then may ask questions for clarification.
• After the initial responses and suggestions for revision, the writer may describe the moment. Often the words the poet uses to describe the moment can help others with suggestions that support the intent.

Here is a haiku in which I had help from a sensitive friend as well as a supportive workshop group. My original was:

shades of grey
in the summer clouds
kokoro calligraphy

My friend, after listening carefully to what I was trying to express, suggested the word “swirls” for the first line—a word that captured the interwoven nature of the feelings brought out by the image I’d seen. Furthermore, she said, “shades of grey” has already been used a lot. After suggesting “calligraphy of kokoro” for the third line, she still felt it needed clarity and tweaking.

swirls of grey
in the summer cloud
calligraphy of kokoro

So, I brought the haiku to a workshop. After members of the group commented on this haiku (i.e. how well one could visualize the image), and I then explained what I was trying to convey, someone in the group suggested “the spirit of kokoro” for the third line. Bingo! This offer of the word “spirit” captured my thinking about the meaning of kokoro and the complex mixed thoughts and emotions I felt when I saw a summer cloud (beautiful but ominous). “Spirit” not only held my intent, but it elevated the sound of the haiku, with both first and last lines beginning with “s” and the middle line repeating it in the middle! The craft of revision in the service of art . . . the art of haiku.

swirls of grey
in the summer cloud
spirit of kokoro

As Mary Oliver says: “all voices can help . . . “

Note:

Kokoro (心)  “encompasses a multifaceted concept that goes beyond a simple translation of ‘heart’ or ‘mind.’ It represents a person’s thoughts, feelings, the essence of their inner self.” (Source: Google)

Mimi Ahern’s lifelong interest in the creative process is now focused on color and emotion in haiku. Playing with watercolor ensos (and the emotions evoked by color) she creates haiga, using haiku of poets she admires (and some of her own).

Jennifer Burd

“You must be very careful not to deprive the poem of its wild origin.”

—Stanley Kunitz, The Wild Braid, p. 57

You’re going about your day and suddenly you see or hear something . . . or smell, taste, or touch . . . in a way you have never before experienced. An everyday moment comes alive for you. Maybe your heart beats faster, a flutter rises in your belly, your brain prickles . . . You feel a sense of delight and connection-making, and you can’t wait to express it. You reach for pen and paper and start putting down words, ideas, images. It’s an instance of pure creativity—the moment of original inspiration for a piece you will write.

I experienced such a moment when taking a walk in a woodland preserve near my home and happened to look up right when a piece of a bird’s nest broke off and fell gently to the snowy forest floor. It was a moment of wonder as well as enjoyment of the winter silence that framed this occurrence. It was also a moment illustrative of the Japanese aesthetic of zoka, or the dynamic energy of nature. I ended up writing the following:

winter gust
a piece of nest
falls from the branch

I brought the poem to my weekly haiku critique group, and one of my colleagues made the great suggestion to change “the” in the third line to “a,” so as to keep the nest (which was what I wanted to highlight) as the primary focus, rather than bringing the reader’s attention to a specific branch, which would compete with that focus. I adopted the revision:

winter gust
a piece of nest
falls from a branch

—hedgerow: a journal of small poems #148, April 2025

Though I often try to avoid repeating articles (e.g., “a,” “the”), I thought this change was a wonderful suggestion. It not only preserved my original or “wild” moment of inspiration but brought the poem closer to it by virtue of keeping the main focus on the nest—a good example of a revision that can further bring out the observed moment.

Stanley Kunitz’s advice not to “deprive the poem of its wild origin” helps me think about how to write and revise a poem in a way that honors the creative energy of the haiku moment — and thereby the poem’s own pure voice.

Note:

Zoka (造化) “is the Japanese aesthetic that refers to the dynamic spirit of creation and transformation that permeates the natural world and the universe. It’s not just about the individual objects in nature, but the mysterious process that brings the landscape itself into being.” (Source: Google)

Jennifer Burd loves how haiku can contain the local as well as the universal—and the liminal spaces in between. In addition to writing, she enjoys playing the bowed psaltery and hiking in local parks.

Deborah Burke Henderson

In Favorite Haiku (Red Moon Press, 2021), H.F. Noyes describes two “great secrets” of haiku:

“1) ‘simplicity, simplicity, simplicity!’—the advice that Thoreau gave to would-be writers; and 2) rather than attempting—with our inherent duality and bias toward ‘the significant’—to choose the moment, let the moment choose you.”

—H.F. Noyes, Favorite Haiku, p. 63

As I experienced the passing of my beloved older sister, Robin, on the morning of the Strawberry Moon (June 24, 2021), the significance of the moment inspired me. As amateur birders, we were always fascinated by our feathered friends. It seemed appropriate that Robin’s frail body now looked bird-like and that birdsong filtered in the open bedroom window facing her backyard. As a tribute, I penned the following at her bedside.

first migration
flying to a home
never seen

I went back to the poem this past year and revised it as a one-line haiku, or monoku—a form which might suggest a gentle breeze as it disappears through an open window:

first migration she slips away to a home never seen

This haiku was submitted to and accepted by Kat Lehmann and Robin Smith, editors of whiptail: journal of the single-line poem. The editors proposed a small edit for my consideration, suggesting that substituting “unknown” for “never seen” would “maximize the desirable qualities of euphony and rhythm.”

As I considered the edit and slowly read the haiku aloud a few times, I could, indeed, feel how the flow of this one change enhanced the piece, contributing to a more natural and fluid reading while retaining my original intent. I was pleased with the result and think my sister would be pleased as well.

first migration she slips away to a home unknown

—whiptail: journal of the single-line poem, Issue 12, February 2025

I appreciate Noyes’ admonishments that the secrets of simplicity and allowing for the “aha” moment to present itself are core tenets to a well-written haiku. I felt grateful that this combination came forward and honored that the poem was selected and found a home, paying further tribute to my loved one.

Deborah Burke Henderson’s cup is filled walking New England coastlines, exploring old-growth forests, and bird watching. Writing—haiku and children’s books—is her ikigai [passion].

Laszlo Slomovits

“See revision as ‘envisioning again.’”

—Natalie Goldberg, Writing Down the Bones, p. 175

One of my first haiku to get published was this:

unclouded full moon
a swan asleep
on the pond

—Acorn #31, Fall 2013

I still vividly remember the “moment” that prompted me to write this haiku. I’d played an evening concert about an hour from where I live and was driving home in that somewhat altered state I often enter after playing music. My mind was quiet, and I felt contented both from the beauty of the music and the sense that I had given my best to the audience. As I drove along the highway I noticed a small pond, in the middle of which was a white swan with its head and neck tucked under a wing. It felt like a perfect outer reflection of the peace I was feeling.

When I got home, I wrote down the phrase “a swan asleep on the pond” but could not come up with a fragment to pair with it. I was still quite new to haiku writing so I started with things like “inner peace,” “profound contentment,” “deep serenity,” and other vague, abstract words and ideas, but a part of me knew those weren’t right. I knew, from reading the haiku of the masters, that a poem is more powerful when both the fragment and phrase contain concrete images.

I also knew from songwriting that sometimes you just need to let things rest a while — so I went to bed.

The next day I found the scrap of paper on which I had written the phrase and decided to just put myself back into the scene from the night before. In my visualization I saw the pond, I saw the swan — and then I saw the light that had illumined the scene. And suddenly I remembered coming out of the coffeehouse after the concert and looking up at the full moon in a totally clear sky. While driving home, I had not seen the moon overhead because of the roof of the car. But here, the day after, suddenly I could “see” it — how the fragment and the phrase reflected one another, both in their unblemished images and in the feelings they each evoked. My mind hadn’t been able to manufacture a good fragment, but through “re-vision” I returned to the original state of wonder that had led to the haiku.

In our haiku critique group, we sometimes assist each other in this “envisioning again” by asking the author to tell us about the original moment, to help them uncover a fragment or the essence of the moment.

As the poet Lucille Clifton said, “Poems come out of wonder, not out of knowing.”

Laszlo Slomovits is a full-time musician, singer / songwriter. He writes haiku and other forms of poetry to say what he can’t with music.

Kathryn Liebowitz

“One of the most difficult tasks of rewriting is to separate yourself sufficiently from the origins of the poem – your own personal connection to it.”

—Mary Oliver, A Poetry Handbook, p. 109

For a long time, I felt drawn to write about a barely discernable wooded path that led to a stonewall and wild orchard tucked out of view. How to convey the uncanny sense of déjà vu this place evoked? Early attempts led nowhere transformative, lacking emotional depth and sensory detail:

light abrasions
on the threshold stone
echoing birdsong

Time is the great curator. Late one autumn afternoon, I returned yet again to the narrow leafy way. This time, I had to cultivate detachment, to step aside, to surrender to the place as if for the first time. For once, I didn’t hesitate on the threshold, keeping a foothold in each world, but finessed a creek to enter the field beyond. Here, that haunted feeling fell away: the autumn dusk came alive in a flash of recognition. The resulting monoku spoke of myths and fairy tales, their fresh way of cutting narrative corners:

the cadence of fairy tales thistle dusk

—The Heron’s Nest Volume XXVII, Number 1, March 2025

I liked the simplicity of the monoku: in fewer words it caught the season and the sense of time slowing down in the half-light. For me, haiku is often about taking such imaginative leaps by following the senses (and intuition) rather than the mind’s sense-making.

Poetry comes from within, from a wild, often unknowable place. Even as we look at our work critically when we revise, we need to honor the surprises—that is, the unpremeditated word, association, or image that slips into place without conscious plan.

Haiku’s understated brevity and spaciousness speak to Kathryn Liebowitz‘s love of poems that change in the light of each reading. Her best days begin and end with haiku.

Brad Bennett

“. . . the search for the exact word in haiku . . . is a careful and quiet search, more in depth than breadth, more in spirit than in language. It demands opposite qualities sometimes—penetration and whimsy, passive waiting and mental exploration, constraint and freedom.”

—Paul O. Williams, The Nick of Time, p. 88

Searching for the exact word: the word that brings freshness, the word that illuminates, the word that resonates. That’s what we all crave.

I think of haiku writing as being comprised of two major processes: (1) the actual writing about the haiku moment’s essence in a first draft, and (2) then the revising of the poem. Finding the exact word for a haiku is a vital part of the revision process. But we don’t want that search to yank us away from the original moment. We want that search to help inch us closer to that moment. The perfect word reveals the moment’s essence. As Williams implies, we want to dive deeply into the moment. It’s not a simple, straightforward process. It’s not an as-the-crow-flies kind of journey—it’s more of an as-the-hummingbird-darts exploration. Williams gets it right—it’s a search that requires many qualities all at once.

Here is a recent haiku of mine that required some hummingbirding toward better words. The original moment led me to this first draft:

fading mackerel sky
an osprey flies away
from the pond

I quickly realized that “flies away” was accurate but uninspiring. I then thought of other options, like “flies off” and “leaves,” but continued to find those wanting. I consulted my trusty thesaurus and considered “quits” before settling on “abandons.” I thought the act of abandoning something vs. just leaving added more emotion. And that word led me to consider options for “pond.” I ended up choosing “reservoir” for its added meaning: it can be a place where water is collected, or it can mean a reserve. I thought “abandoning the reservoir” felt more connected to the word “fading” on line one. Hopefully, it also allowed more dreaming room for the reader. Because the haiku moment originally included thoughts of climate change and diminishing resources, I felt that my new words better expressed the moment’s essence:

fading mackerel sky
an osprey abandons
the reservoir

Ours is a search for the exact word: the word that slides silently into the oiled lock and we get to hear the soft click of the haiku as it opens.

Brad Bennett is gaga about haiku. He lives for haiku moments and he has grown to love revision.

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