About This Web Site

This page is a collection of my digital art- and photo-haiku images--images coupled with haiku poems. The haiku are my own in the modern English haiku format.

Haiku:

As it has evolved, the modern English haiku is a short poem constructed with three lines in the following structure:

L1: 5 or less syllables
L2: 7 or less syllables
L3: 5 or less syllables

A typical haiku will carry a reference to nature, although some haiku focus almost exclusively on human settings and sentiments [with humour or irony the latter variation is called a senryu].

Haiga:

Traditional Japanese haiga involved brush art work coupled with a haiku - done in brush calligraphy.

Digital art-haiku and photo-haiku are two forms of modern haiga. Other forms include modern forms of art coupled with haiku. Of course, traditional brushwork haiga is still practiced.

Juxtaposition:

The haiku form often contains a juxtaposition between two of its lines and a third line - a subtle association between two things observed in nature and/or human settings. Similarly, some modern haiga contain a juxtaposition between the content haiku itself and the digital art work or photograph. In short, the art work does not necessarily directly represent the images presented in the haiku.

Acknowledgments:

My special thanks to Debi Bender whose work was and continues to be one of my inspirations [see Paper Lanterns] and to the members of the Multimedia E-Forum of the World Haiku Club for their feedback on preliminary versions of these images and haiku.

Ray Rasmussen: email