By Michelle Corbin
To survive the COVID-19 pandemic and all its social distancing and isolation, I turned to my crafty endeavors. I knit scarves—yes, only scarves, because anything more complicated was just too stressful. I also create quilts—from simple, traditional blocks and patterns, because that’s enough creativity amidst all that math. However, neither yarn nor fabrics can compare to my favorite artistic medium: Words.
My undergraduate degree is in English, and I took two independent study courses in British poetry and the Romantic poets. I loved writing sonnets, but also writing free verse, filling many notebooks with my angst and my musings. Unfortunately, as I fell into my technical communication career, I found it very difficult to write poetry. Focusing on writing for users to help them achieve their goals and get their job done, and focusing on all that technical jargon, just drained the creativity right out of me.
Enter haiku, the perfect poetic form for technical communicators. In traditional Japanese haiku (not the Americanized 5-7-5 version you’re sometimes taught in high school), every word must sing. Haiku poets choose every single word carefully, agonizing over the parts of speech that they use, agonizing over nuances of the words that they use, and analyzing their favorite dictionary and thesaurus to see if a related word just fits better. You have three lines, with three or four words on each line, to try to capture the perfect “haiku moment” (or Zen moment).
The following is one of my haikus that I wrote in January of 2021, as I sipped a hot cup of tea, looking out my home office window (can you guess what I was really supposed to be doing?).
a light dusting
of bright white snow —
the blank page
In the summer of 2020, I took a free online course on writing haiku, which really helped me learn more of the writing conventions. I still found myself breaking the rules, which I admittedly do in my day job, as well—being a technical editor means that I know what the rules are and can choose when and how to break them effectively for my reader. This is a haiku that I wrote as homework for that haiku course that broke the rule of not using punctuation other than the dash.
dandelion “flowers”
break through clover “grass” —
perspectives
My experiences as a technical communicator—editing user interfaces and error messages, writing and editing topic-based online information, and analyzing and applying all kinds of style and word usage guides to any form of technical communication—have greatly enhanced my crafty endeavor to capture the Zen moments of my life in haiku.
MICHELLE CORBIN (michelle.l.corbin@gmail.com) is officially a senior software engineer at IBM, although she claims senior technical editor and information architect as her title (self-proclaimed “content ninja” after a manager said she could use any title). With over 25 years of experience as a technical communicator, she has an unwavering passion for technical editing, a penchant for information architecture, and a continued interest in online information design and development.
Resources
These four resources are among my favorite online resources for learning more about writing traditional Japanese haiku and capturing your own Zen moments.
- Shirane, Haruo. 2020. Beyond the haiku moment: Basho, Buson, and modern haiku myths. Haiku Poet. Accessed 14 February 2021. http://www.haikupoet.com/definitions/beyond_the_haiku_moment.html
- Haiku Zen. n.d. North Carolina Haiku Society. Accessed 14 February 2021. https://nc-haiku.org/haiku-zen/
- Why No 5-7-5? n.d. National Haiku Writing Month. Accessed 14 February 2021. https://sites.google.com/site/nahaiwrimo/home/why-no-5-7-5
- Welch, Michael Dylan. n.d. Haiku checklist. Graceguts. Accessed 14 February 2021. https://sites.google.com/site/graceguts/essays/haiku-checklist
