on haiku:
"It can be elevated as the ringing of a temple bell, or as simple as the sunlight catching a bit of silverware on your table: as isolated as a mountain top, or acknowledging the ugly. What unifies these (haiku) moments are the wax they make us pause and take notice, the way we are still recalling them hours later, the feeling of having had a momentary insight transcending the ordinary, or a glimpse into the very essence of ordinariness itself " —a.c. missias
"a poem of one to four lines I about a moment in time I allowing us a glimpse I of the eternal" —ai li
"Perfection in haiku, or as close to it as we flawed haiku poets can get, is achieved not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing else to be eliminated . . . the best haiku are barefoot; next, the sandale4 and least, those with shoes." —robert spies
"Real haiku is the soul of poetry. Anything that is not actually present in one's heart is not haiku. The moon glows, flowers bloom, insects cry, water flows. There is no place we cannot find flowers or think of the moon. This is the essence of haiku. Go beyond the restrictions or your era, forget about purpose or meaning, separate yourself from historical limitations-there you'll find the essence of true art, religion, and science." —santoka taneda
"A haiku is the expression of a temporary enlightenment, in which we see into the life of things." —r.h. blyth
"Haiku are serenely vibrant. Although they seldom are concerned with grand or marvelous events, or employ highly charged language, or possess startling qualities, they nonetheless are intensely alive in their quiet and deep evocation of aspects of life and the world, aspects that can easily be overlooked. In and through these haiku we are able to live more fully and with a non-exclusiveness that lets us participate in and appreciate multitudinous event-experiences . . . a haiku should be like water pouring into water." —robert spies
"You must live in the present, launch yourself on any wave, find your eternity in each moment." —h.d. thoreau
"The now-moment is boundless and (an) inexhaustible eternity. Millennia, centuries, days, hours, are all intellective concepts of persons who love to gauge everything by numbers. True eternity is the now-moment. And it is the now-moment from which haiku are created." —philo
"To generalize is to be an idiot. To particularize is the alone distinction of merit." —blake
"Haiku are to be appreciated not by "knowing" but through understanding, for knowing (knowledge) comes about by reasoning, by the intellect, whereas understanding is a function of intuition . . . in haiku the words should be so exact that the reader forgets them and only the intuition remains . . . the haiku poet does not need ego in order to be self-aware . . . a haiku's coherence lies in its being aesthetic, not intellective." —robert spies
"I propose that 'Western Haiku' simply say a lot in three short lines in any Western language. Above all, a Haiku must be very simple and free of all poetic trickery and make a little picture and yet be as airy and graceful as a Vivaldi Pastorella." —jack kerouac
"Haiku slips beneath our immediate consciousness and plants a moment of fidelity and perpetual agreement. With an eternal integral truth about something quite ordinary they render, thru delicacy and nuance, an extraordinarily unanimous harmony with everything. Haigin, indeed all artists, must, or perhaps should, in practice:
...sketch the scene
— suggest a narrative
— deliver the experience ...”
—b. brady