Haikumages are original words, images, haiku, senryū, and other short-poem musings, from the twisted brain, blurry eyes, cracked lens, and bleeding heart of The Haikook (aka Russ Murray).

Why — if haiku and senryu are intended to stand alone as self-contained poems — do I add images? Because I was a photographer first. I started writing poems formally only after I realized I was posting images with captions, which were essentially haiku or senryū anyway!

See additional “definitions” below or visit the “Forms and Syllables” page of this site for more information about haiku, senryū, forms, and syllables.

How did I get here? After fancying myself a wordsmith from childhood, inspired by my father, and beginning to dabble with haiku posts between 2010-2011, I decided to undertake a year-long, post-per-day project  for 2012, inspired by a high-school friend who was haiku-posting regularly on Facebook. Once I announced my intentions, I was afraid it would not be possible to write something worthwhile every, single day, but I committed and began on 1/1/2012…

It turned out to be a beautiful, creative exercise, an emotional outlet, and lots of fun, connecting me to many new people around the globe! Along the way, I discovered it was not impossible to write daily, but it was quite challenging, exhausting, and ultimately unsustainable. As you can imagine, I was relieved when 2012 ended and I could return to a more relaxed posting regimen.

At the end of 2012, I had published roughly 400 short poems with images on this blog. Since then, I’ve written 3-400 more, captured gigabytes of photographs, and life keeps presenting me with new subjects, observations, events and feelings to write about and capture. My writing is always changing, filtered through life experiences and influences, but has evolved into a recognizable, personal style, which may not be everyone’s cup of tea. Periodically, I’ll revisit the ancient Japanese and contemporary English masters of the haiku / senryū forms, after which I’ll re-infuse classic elements, reapply traditional rules, then break them (again), and continue to explore alternative syllable structures.

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Definitions:

hai·ku [noun \’hī-(,)kü\] [plural: haiku] An unrhymed verse form of Japanese origin having three lines containing usually five, seven, and five syllables respectively. Senryū is similar, but more ironic/satirical, with less emphasis on nature or season elements.

i·mage [noun \’i-mij\] [plural: images]  A visual representation of something: as (1) a likeness of an object produced on a photographic material (2) a picture produced on an electronic display (as a television or computer screen).

haikumage: [noun \’hī-(,)kü-mij\] [plural: haikumages]  An inspiring and/or provocative combination of a haiku (or senryū) with an image, carefully selected to be greater than the sum of its parts.

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Disclaimer: many of my haiku are not in the traditional form and are missing one or more of the classic elements (seasonal note, cutting word, etc.). Some are traditional, but the rest have been subjected to my daft, deft, demented manipulations, with liberal amounts of artistic license, wordplay, humor and punning (the lowest form of humor). No offense is meant to any haiku or senryū purist who stumbles across this blog.

Invitation: please do not complain that my haiku or senryū is non-traditional, or that it’s depraved, misfit prose, or that I am a poseur — it is, I am, and I already know it! However, please DO COMMENT if you are a lover of words, poetry, photography, beauty, and silliness in all its forms. If you are such a person, I welcome your meaningful, thoughtful commentary, and look forward to exchanging words with you.

Haikumages in a book? One day there may be one or more books of original haiku, senryū and images by Russ Murray aka Haikumages…