Haikus for Women is back.
I created this project in 2019 as an intuitive collaboration between my original haikus and your photos. I’d receive a photo or find one myself to use as my muse, sit with it, and write whatever it evoked in me and what I imagined the woman in it might need to hear.
I never used any background information beyond the photo itself. In fact I preferred not to know who she was, what was happening when the photo was taken, why she chose it, or what she wanted me to see. Without the story attached I could follow my own response to the visual instead of someone else’s explanation of it.
I found myself drawn to the details that could easily go unnoticed like the tension in a mouth, a hand resting somewhere absentmindedly, the particular kind of tiredness behind someone’s eyes, or the way a woman could look completely composed and still seem to be carrying an entire weather system beneath her skin. Those details were often where I found the poem and the more I worked this way the more I realized how closely it matched the way I naturally write.
What began as an experiment became one of the clearest expressions of my craft.
That’s also what made it difficult to leave this project behind. I stepped away from it several times over the years partly because I wasn’t always sure what to make of it. There were moments when I wondered if it was meaningful work at all or if other people would look at it and think it was silly, indulgent, or just plain stupid. I questioned whether something as small as writing a few lines in response to a photo was worth taking seriously but this project matters to me and I don’t think I can dismiss that anymore. Poetry is my first love and I’m not finished with it yet.
That also means I want to honor the art I make from it so I’ve decided to bring it back as paid commissions. I’m at a point in my life where I can recognize the value of my work as a writer without feeling the need to apologize for charging for it. I’m not charging for three lines of poetry, I’m charging for the years of instinct and practice that taught me how to distill observations into something worth reading.
This is for the raw edges of womanhood we’re so often told to smooth over and a way for me to further showcase my ability with words through storytelling.