Woking Writers Circle’s longest-serving member Liz Lennie has been making waves in our local newspaper, the Woking News and Mail, with her haiku inspired by our local waterway. Following the publication of Liz’s five haiku about her lockdown walks along the Basingstoke canal near her home in St John’s, the newspaper republished them on its Letters page. It has now gone further and published an article by Liz about haiku in its 29 June edition, also on its Letter page. This is Liz’s article, headed ‘Focus on a water lily’:
“What’s a haiku? That’s what readers have been wondering since Woking News and Mail published my set of five haiku about the Basingstoke Canal a few weeks ago, writes Liz Lennie. Since then, hundreds of extra hits on our Woking Writers Circle website have confirmed the local lockdown fascination with this gem of a poetic form from 17th-century Japan.
The traditional structure is three lines, with a total of 17 syllables. I enjoy dividing the syllables into those three lines, of five, seven and five, as I can often use too many words when writing.
The other tradition I like to focus on is Nature, especially over our four seasons, using it to suggest thoughts and feelings. This forces me to be observant and precise, deleting every inessential word or idea.
It’s like a close-up photo making the reader concentrate on my subject and theme. For example, to pluck a wonderful flower from ancient Asia, the serene lotus is rooted in, and blooms from, mud. An uplifting image for our troubled times.
The lilies between the Hermitage bridges are surprising me by arising early this year – so I’m penning this haiku in June.
Water lilies rise
Slowly from roots in deep mud
Reaching for the light.
As I wrote this haiku, in my mind’s eye, I was standing still to stare at our calm corridor of a canal – then suddenly, a flash of insight … or was it the bright zoom of a kingfisher?”
Woking Writers Circle 