The Landscape as Haiku

A new article has been published in On Landscape with the title The Landscape as Visual Haiku. The article recounts the history and characteristics of the haiku form of poem in Japan and its adoption elsewhere, including in the US and Europe. The links between minimalist photography and haiku are discussed, including the Michael Kenna book on Japan where images are linked to haiku from some of the most renowned Japanese poets.

The original idea for the article had begun when I started to put together some words and images in the form of haiku. Some experimentation with the images resulted in using the 5/7/5 form that is the traditional basis for a 3 line haiku. Then it was a matter of putting together images with words that had been written in Mallerstang during the Covid lockdown and finding words to go with images that suited the form such as those below. The article can be found here.

The article led on to the preparation of a book of images on blurb.co.uk called The Landscape as Haiku where many more can be seen in the Preview. The book can be found here.