Haiga = haiku+image

[Lois Richter]

Does anyone else here do Haiga?

Most folks have heard of Haiku -- where three lines provide a snapshot of a moment in time -- but few know of Haiga -- where a fourth element (an image) is added to the work.

A haiga is NOT an "illustrated haiku" because the understanding CHANGES when the image is included.  So if you read the haiku part separately, you would NOT have the same impression as you would with the image included.

Here, for example, is one of mine. First the haiku part:

     summer gold

     cerulean blue

     sun power

The completed haiga can be viewed at

http://lois4atcs.blogspot.com/2009/10/haiga-3.html

Wishing you all a great new mail-art year! -- Lois Richter

[Valentine Mark Herman]

This is intriguing. I'd never heard of Haiga's before. The image certainly adds another dimension to the Haiku.  My (feeble) attempts to write Haikus almost always attempt to form, in the reader's mind, a visual image or association. I wonder what happens when I add an image as a Haiga -- is the Haiga similiar/identical to the Haiku image, and, if so, in what ways can/does it reinforce it? If not, how can, or even should, the 2 images -- one visual and explicit, the other poetic and implicit -- be reconciled?

This has  given me something to think about this Sunday.

[Valentine Mark Herman]

Hi!

Or Hai!

OK, Theresa, I'm hooked -- what's a haibun?

I'm sure it's not someting like a cinnamonbun, so do tell, please.

[Lois Richter]

Here's the image;  perhaps haiga will make more sense when you can see all four parts.