365 Haiku

 My friend Jennifer Willis in Portland, Oregon has set out to write 365 Haiku!...

Opportunities
abound now. New doors open
unexpectedly.

Why did you decide to do this project? I've known Noah for going on ten years, and have always marveled at his artistic stamina – especially when it came to his Skull-A-Day project. When I first heard about his 365 book, I knew I wanted to get involved but I wasn't quite sure how. I'm not a visual artist. I thought briefly of cooking/baking something new every day, but didn't want to follow in the footsteps of the Julie/Julia Project and didn't want cooking to become a chore. I'm not sure where the idea of haiku came from; I am a writer, but had only once before attempted haiku – earlier this year as part of Michelle Rafter's annual blogathon. I jumped in with daily haiku without thinking too hard about it.



Now I’ve lost my voice.
I sound like a muppet or
cartoon character.




How has doing a yearlong/daily project affected your life? I began this project on October 31 – Halloween is my favorite holiday! – so I'm a far cry from year-long at this point. I cheated at first: writing up a bunch of haiku and pre-loading them to post on different days. I was admittedly intimidated by having to do *anything* each and every day for a full year, especially beginning at the same time as National Novel Writing Month. Now I only pre-publish if I know I'm not going to have internet access for a few days. My daily haiku postings don't have a particular theme as yet; mostly it's just a reflection of what's going on in my life – the weather, flight delays, power outages, going to the rock gym – though these seventeen daily syllables also afford me the opportunity to muse on global events, passing seasons, religion, and more. Being limited to so few syllables poses a daily creative challenge, which is the whole point. I sometimes get so excited that I write four or five haiku in a row – and I now have a running list of options to choose from if I ever find myself stuck.

A power outage
means haiku by candlelight
and a restful night.

Follow Jen's poetic journey on her site HERE.

1 comment:

Jennifer Willis said...

Cool! Thanks for featuring my project today, Noah. Mom still has my copy of your book -- I'll let you know when she starts her own 365 project. In the meantime, keep up the fantastic work! You're an inspiration (and instigator) to many.... :)