First off, it's haibun, not hair bun. I suppose you could write a haibun about a hairbun, but they are two very different things.
Now that we've cleared that up, let's explore what a haibun really is, rather than what it really isn't.
Haibun is a form of Japanese poetry. It is comprised of sparse, yet detailed prose paired with haiku. It's a place where prose and poetry meet, intertwining to create a written work of art.
I admit, I'm a bit unsure how I feel about the haibun form. It is strange, oddly alluring. As I've been reading and researching the basics of writing haibun, I have read examples that make absolutely no sense to me. I can't see how they are truly art. I have read a few that really drew me in and fascinated me. While I'm not sure that the haibun form is something I will regularly engage in writing, I figure I might as well give it a go, in part to say that I did, and in part because I've found a poetry contest specifically for the haibun form.
I'm intrigued. The haibun form has caught my attention, so I am going to give it a try, and I'm bringing you along for the ride! Be warned that this is my first time, so if you're a haibun expert, you'll likely want to skip along to a more accomplished poetess' blog. If you are a curious poet or poetess with no more of an idea what you're doing than me, welcome. I'm glad you are here so that we can learn together!
Here's the gameplan: I'm going to write and share my first haibun below. Then, I'll break down the different aspects of writing your very own haibun. Finally, I will leave you with a few fun prompts to get your creative haibun juices flowing!
Acquiescence
Ducks float, peaceful, leaving rippled v's behind. A breath of wind teases my hair, sings through the treetops. I smell autumn on the breeze. Pale, peachy clouds, like so many pieces of fluffy cotton candy, pile high in the sky. I dip my canoe paddle slowly, silently, in and out of the water. In, out, in, out. My breathing is slow too. In, out, in, out. It is as though I am one with this tranquil fall evening. As though I am in sync with nature and the God who created all. Moments later, I shiver, my body acqueiscing to the chilly fall air. Time to go in where it is warm.
Colourful leaves crunch,
Reminders of fall beauty.
Yes, Lord. I see it.
Let's break this haibun down into different parts and examine each of them one at a time:
Title:
Acquiescence
Prose:
Ducks float, peaceful, leaving rippled v's behind. A breath of wind teases my hair, sings through the many-coloured treetops. I smell apples on the breeze. Pale, peachy clouds, like so many pieces of cotton candy, pile high in the sky. I dip my canoe paddle slowly, silently, in and out of the water. In, out, in, out. My breathing is slow too. In, out, in, out. It is as though I am one with this tranquil fall evening. As though I am in sync with nature and the God who created all. Moments later, I shiver, my body acquiescing to the chilly fall air. Time to go in where it is warm.
Haiku:
Colourful leaves crunch,
Reminders of fall beauty.
Yes, Lord. I see it.
Prose
From what I've read, travel writing is a popular theme of the haibun. Essentially, this is just describing places you've been. It doesn't have to be some exotic, faraway place. The spot you choose to describe could simply be your backyard, so long as you can find words to describe it. The haibun I wrote above is me imagining a peaceful pond in fall. While the pond itself is imaginary, I was thinking of a nearby lake as I wrote.
Here are a few theme ideas for you: Changing seasons, travel writing/nature (mine was a bit of travel writing/nature as well as changing seasons), emotions, senses.
Theme isn't all that is important to this part of a haibun. Your goal is to identify and describe the theme and setting in as few words of sparse prose as possible. Haibun are typically detail-heavy, so, although there aren't usually a lot of words, there should be lots of detail contained in one small packet. You want to place the reader right where you are, right in the moment. Using lots of details to create vivid imagery will help you do that (bonus tip: so will writing in present tense). Involving all or some of the five senses will also help immerse the reader in your haibun.
Make your words matter. Cut out any extra that don't absolutely have to belong. Make your prose sparse. It's like refining silver. Melt it all down and skim off the dross, the useless words. You don't have a lot of time to immerse your reader, so make your words matter!
I've created a colour key to help you pick out some of the different tools I employed in my own haibun prose. Take a look at this to get a sense of how you could employ these tools yourself.
Touch/Feel
Smell
Description & Detail
Poetic Imagery
Ducks float, peaceful, leaving rippled v's behind. A breath of wind teases my hair, sings through the many-coloured treetops. I smell apples on the breeze. Pale, peachy clouds, like so many pieces of cotton candy, pile high in the sky. I dip my canoe paddle slowly, silently, in and out of the water. In, out, in, out. My breathing is slow too. In, out, in, out. It is as though I am one with this tranquil fall evening. As though I am in sync with nature and the God who created all. Moments later, I shiver, my body acqueiscing to the chilly fall air. Time to go in where it is warm.
Haiku
Haiku is a form of Japanese poetry, just like haibun. It's based mainly off of syllable counts. Three lines, 5/7/5. Let me show you:
(5) Colourful leaves crunch,
(7) Reminders of fall beauty.
(5) Yes, Lord. I see it.
Line one has five syllables, line two has seven, and line three has five. I wrote and posted a short haiku guide here on my blog. In it, I go over different ways to count syllables, show you some of the haiku I have written, give you a few other helpful links for more information, and leave you with some fun haiku prompts. Make sure to check it out if you've never written haiku before.
When writing haiku for your haibun, you want to have some sort of thread that connects it to your prose. In Acquiescence, the connection is obvious. My prose and my haiku both give clues about the season (autumn). But the connection doesn't always have to be really obvious. Perhaps you wish only to evoke an emotion that ties back into your prose, or maybe you want to make the reader stop and look a little harder, pondering where/how you tied the haiku in. Or perhaps you want to give them a little bit of a surprise, as I do in the haibun below, They Wouldn't Die.
They Wouldn't Die
Breathe in, something catches. I cough. Again. And again. And again. My whole body is shaking, trembling. Phlegm catches in my throat. It feels like it is closing off my airway. The wheezing begins as I struggle to breathe, struggle to suck in a full breath of life-giving oxygen. I sound like I am dying as I wheeze through the phlegm, eyes wide, afraid. Breathing shouldn't be this hard. If the world weren't so broken, this would never happen. People wouldn't get sick. They wouldn't choke. They wouldn't die.
The earth convulses, quakes, rolls, shifts, splits, collapses, causes fear.
Earth and I relate.
The ending haiku in They Wouldn't Die doesn't immediately seem to make any connections with the preceding prose, but I look at the word convulse, and I think of what it's like to be in the middle of a coughing fit you are struggling to control. I look at the word fear, and I think of the times I have coughed and coughed, expelling more air than I could take in.
Earth and I relate pulls all of the ends together and ties them in a beautiful, complex little knot.
Title
We're on the homestretch now! Title is the last thing we need to cover.
Mr. Ray Rasmussen of Alberta, Canada has written a much longer essay on the importance of a haibun's title than I am likely to ever attempt. I will link to his article a bit later on, but for now, I'd like to go over the two main title categories he lists. These are connotative and denotative titles.
Connotative titles hint at other things. Rasmussen says that they could contain a "reference to another writer’s work, to a significant place or time, or to symbols or archetypes." A connotative title can add a whole new layer of interest to your haibun.
Readers may not always catch the connotations you intentionally place in your haibun title, or they may see connotations you did not intentionally place, simply because they come from a different environment or see the world differently than you do.
Denotative titles directly relate to the piece. One way to do this is to simply state the scene of the haibun. For example, I could have titled Acquiescence as Autumn Pond, or something of the sort, to give indication of where my haibun is set.
Another way to do this is to include a key word or phrase from your haibun in the title, as I did in They Wouldn't Die.
I'm honestly not quite sure how to classify Acquiescence's title. I leave you with a challenge: If you are interested in learning more about how to craft a really good haibun title, read Ray Rasmussen's essay, and see if you can figure out for yourself how to classify Acquiescence's title.
There you have it. The basics of how to write your very own haibun. I have chosen to include links to some of the webpages that helped me in the crafting of this blog post, in hopes that you will not only glean helpful information from my haibun guide but also from the links below.
I only just found this page, so I didn't actually reference it, but it has piles of links to haibun guides. Articles about Writing Haibun & Haiku
Prompts
Write a haibun about your backyard. Better yet, go write a haibun about your backyard while sitting in your backyard. This way, you can engage your five senses and more easily incorporate them into your writing.
Write a haibun about a place you've been or a place you really want to visit.
Write a haibun about an emotion you often experience. Let your haiku stir up this emotion without ever mentioning it. See if you can make imagery and other words do the work for you.
Happy writing, friends. Thanks for joining me on this haibun journey!