The day before my birthday, I completed a second round of the Buson Challenge. This time, I had friends joining me via email, Discord, and WhatsApp. Though I had a bigger group of writing buddies, this go-around was a bigger struggle than last year. Winter is not my most creative time, and the state of the world really has me down. Plus, my job is intense (and I’m unhappy in my current role). There’s been a lot weighing on my mind, and that never makes for a smooth writing experience.
But the point of the Buson Challenge, for me, is that it’s a time-bound period in which you commit to showing up no matter what. And as always, such a big project reveals new insights. I’m still pondering some of the ideas that surfaced for me, so more on those later. But I did want to share the reading list I used this time around.
I didn’t go into Round 2 expecting to come up with a reading list. But as I was communicating with my fellow writing buddies, I often found myself referencing texts I thought would be helpful. Many of these are reference texts or educational essays; some are more general writing advice. But they all served a purpose in some way. Some of them might seem out of place for a haiku challenge. I certainly was surprised to find myself reaching for a handbook on metrical verse in Week 2! But when creative intuition calls, you follow.
Almanacs and Saijiki
The Old Farmer’s Almanac (use the one for the current year)
Haiku World: An International Poetry Almanac by William J. Higginson
A Dictionary of Haiku Classified by Season Words with Traditional and Modern Methods by Jane Reichhold. (Available as a PDF at https://thehaikufoundation.org/omeka/items/show/1798)
The Five Hundred Essential Japanese Season Words by Kenkichi Yamamoto (Available as a PDF at https://thehaikufoundation.org/omeka/items/show/821)
Haiku Scholarship
“A Definition of Haiku” by Michael Dylan Welch (Available here: https://www.graceguts.com/essays/a-definition-of-haiku)
“Fragment and Phrase Theory” by Jane Reichhold (Available here: https://thehaikufoundation.org/omeka/items/show/781)
“Beyond the Haiku Moment: Bashō, Buson, and Modern Haiku Myths” by Haruo Shirane (Available here: https://thehaikufoundation.org/juxta/juxta-1-1/beyond-the-haiku-moment-basho-buson-and-modern-haiku-myths/)
Poetry Pea S7E33: Madku Workshop with Bona M. Santos. Available here: https://poetrypea.com/s7e33-madku-featuring-west-coast-poet-bona-m-santos/
Additional Resources
Rules for the Dance: A Handbook for Writing and Reading Metrical Verse by Mary Oliver
“Belief and Technique for Modern Prose” by Jack Kerouac (Available here: https://writing.upenn.edu/~afilreis/88v/kerouac-technique.html)
Bernadette Mayer’s list of journal ideas and writing experiments: https://www.writing.upenn.edu/library/Mayer-Bernadette_Experiments.html
Natalie Goldberg’s 7 Rules for Writing Practice from Writing Down the Bones (Available as a PDF here: https://lauradavis.net/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/Rules-of-Writing-Practice.pdf)
“The Etiquette of Freedom” by Gary Snyder from The Practice of the Wild. (Available as a PDF here: https://bewildrewild.org/wp-content/uploads/The-Practice-of-the-Wild-by-Gary-Snyder.pdf)
