Writing as grazing

An equestrian-inspired metaphor for the work we do as "an act of vigilance," a question to ask yourself this season, and a poll about something fun.

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under one willow
horse huddles—half shaded,
half casting shadows

-Michael J. Rosen

Our local library—across from my son’s elementary school—knows their audience. There are two shelves dedicated to Minecraft books, and I’m often asked to swing by on the way home so we can see if there’s anything new.

During a recent visit, I grabbed The Horse’s Haiku from the shelf and added it to our pile. It’s a beautiful children’s book filled with exactly what it sounds like. I included one of my favorites above, but I especially loved what the author, Michael J. Rosen, wrote at the end of the book.

“Horses are grazers: they continually eat in the same area before moving on to the next. (Creatures who are browsers, by contrast, move around, eating a little of this, a little of that.) So, too, the art of haiku is standing right here, seizing a fleeting observation, and then mulling words over and over until a poem emerges.

Horses are prey animals. With eyes on the sides of their face, the collective alertness of their herd’s sense, and the ability to sleep standing up in case danger requires them to flee, horses are finely tuned to the noises, scents, and motions in their environment.

Similarly, I’ve come to see haiku as an act of vigilance.

Vigilant grazing: Haiku is the practice of seeing still. (Yes, think “sitting still,” but applied to the mind and senses.) So while such sustained attention might pertain to many forms of writing, what’s unique to haiku is that there’s no browsing onto something else. Each poem stays here and now. The challenge is finding words to suspend one instant of awareness within a poem’s sparse lines.

Basho, the Japanese writer who inspired much of what we know about this poetic form, said that a haiku lives on the tip of the tongue … So a haiku requires you, a reader, to recognize what’s being suggested. Seen in that light, haiku is an interaction between a writer and a reader. Through a shared language, both experience a particular moment. A similar interaction exists between a rider and a horse: they share a language—their immediate circumstances, their history of practice, their knowledge of each other—that permits a profound partnership.”

I’ve been thinking about the topic of freedom recently. How the feeling of driving away, flying away, is something that fills me with so much lightness. Yet this isn’t my daily reality.

So I’m asking myself: How can I bring more freedom into my routine so I’m not constantly longing for what’s out there, but present to what’s right here?

I don’t have a fully formed answer yet, but I know that writing is always one way in.

Sometimes one haiku a day is all you need.

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A *Possible* Literary City Guide Revival

Now, the poll! Some of you might remember a beloved project, Literary City Guides. These started around 2013 or 2014 and were a true group effort combining books, travel, and food. I wrote a few myself, but the majority have been written by members of this community who love their town and want to share what makes it special.

During the early years of the pandemic, a few things happened. First, I stopped blogging on EatThisPoem.com (the blog is still active but will likely be archived later this year). Second, large amounts of links broke when restaurants, bookstores, and other small businesses closed their doors. Without the bandwidth to reach out to everyone and make updates, travel being at an all-time low for most, and no longer using the website where the project was hosted, I decided to hide the pages.

Fast-forward a few years, and my recent adventure to Italy reminded me that the world is still out there and that maybe, there might be interest in seeing this project come back to life. Let me know if this piques your interest!

One *important* caveat: This will probably take a while. There are at least 100 guides and I’ll need to transfer them all to my author website, make spreadsheets, update links, reach out to the original authors, and so on. Before doing that, I need to finish my manuscript. So, TBD on when this might actually happen—you know we’re slow around these parts!—but I wanted to gauge your interest.

Until next time,
Nicole

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