Digital Haiku

This is an interdisciplinary lesson inspired by 17^th century Japanese poet, Matsuo Bashō, and his quest to capture a sense of sacred place through words and images. Students use digital photography and simple editing software to create images from nature, compose haiku, and combine text and image into a multimedia presentation. A brief journey and discussion of World Heritage sites and Japanese National Treasures provides an entry into the Japanese culture and their appreciation of nature. Through photography and haiku, students explore the relationship of image and words to find the sacred in the mundane.

Resources

102 Haiku in Translation: The heart of Bashō, Buson and Issa. Translated by Takafumi Saito and Willima R. Nelson. BookSurge, 2006.

“Approach to Haiku” and “Basic Principles”, Yasuda . Japanese Aesthetics and Culture, edited by Nancy G. Hume, State University of New York Press, Albany, 1995.

The Haiku Handbook: How to Write, Share, and Teach Haiku. William J. Higginson with Penny Harter. Kodansha International. Tokyo, 1985.

The Narrow Road to Oku.Matsuo Bashō. Translated by Donald Keene. Kodansha International. Tokyo, 1996.

Ordinarily Sacred, Lynda Sexson. University Press of Virginia, Charlottesvill and London, 1992.

http://www.cranberrydesigns.com/poetry/haiku/examples.htm