When I first read about the #100happydays challenge via Facebook, I was immediately hooked. I also knew that I wanted to incorporate my love of the Japanese haiku into the project. I have been writing haiku for over 10 years. Since a certain man let me borrow a book called The Haiku Year, a book of Western haiku with contributions from Michael Stipe and other American writers and artists. It totally inspired me to start writing haiku. I basically decided to write this man haiku on postcards, and he reciprocated. Sometimes on the back of bus tickets or theatre tickets or sometimes in Dave’s case bits of cardboard with paperclip art stapled on. I still have some of these, and I may take a few snaps to add to the bottom of the post.

So, I digress… The #100happydays project was always to me about capturing the simple pure unspoilt moment that brings a smile. This is also the essence of haiku so it made sense to tie the two together. Although I knew sometimes I wouldn’t have an image to match the haiku, both moments would exist in the same day. Some have followed my #100happydays on Facebook here.

Let me explain briefly what a haiku is. Like I mentioned, it originated in Japan as an ancient form of poetry consisting of just three lines, traditionally with the syllables of each line being 5/7/5. The short poem is meant to capture a pure almost Zen-like moment of enlightenment for the writer. It is free from the metaphors and embellishments of western poetry as we know it and is thus more immediate. Haiku also often reference the seasons to give a time and place to the poem. I immediately fell in love with the form as soon as I discovered them. I love reading them and writing them, and have notebooks upon notebooks and postcards a plenty with hundreds of haiku from my life.

An example from basho (famous Japanese Haiku poet)

a peasant’s child
husking rice, pauses
to look at the moon

My 100 haiku pictures: