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I’m still very new as a haiku poet, so it is with caution that I’ve ventured out to try an actual haiga. A haiga combines art and a haiku. Since I lack all painterly skills, I’m combining my haiku with a photo that I love. I’ve done this in a slightly similar way on my blog with tanka and some autumn haiku. However, I consider this to be my very first true haiga.

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What is Haiga?  

“Haiga is a Japanese concept for simple pictures combined with poetry, usually meaning haiku. In Basho’s time, haiga meant a brushed ink drawing combined with one of his single poems handwritten as part of the picture. In our day and age, haiga can be watercolor paintings, photographs or collages with a poem of any genre that is integrated into the composition. Sometimes the poem is handwritten or it can be computer generated, depending on the artist’s taste.”  (This definition of haiga is by the poet, Jane Reichhold on her website,  Ah Ha! Poetry.)

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Note on Photograph:

This beautiful photograph is by an Icelandic photographer known to me only as KariK on Flickr. It was posted and thus copyrighted in (c) 2011. It has been posted thousands of times online and almost never with an attribution to him. By doing a ‘backward’ image search I was able to find him on flickr. His photographs, most of nature, are magnificent.  This is what he wrote for this particular picture (translated from Icelandic):

Reykjanestá:  This location is unique for the fact that there can see the ocean ridge walk on 1 and, Mid-Atlantic Ridge, which separates the prefabricated North America and Europe.

KariK, (c) 2011