pi & anne

Hi. I am currently on holiday, at the North Sea, and I’m writing A TON. I noticed how much kinder I can be to myself, and also more allowing in my writing process, and perhaps this will help you, too … So here we go.

1. I will never master writing haiku. Don’t worry. Stay with me. To me this means there are always new aspects to learn about haiku and poetry in general, and isn’t this cool?! I will always have a playground of possibilities ahead of me! I can allow myself to mess up and write whatever and however I feel like, I can edit anytime, I can throw it away, leave it in the cupboard, submit it or fold paper cranes with it. I can even forget about it, and come back to it years later, facepalm, and finally find the one phrasing which will allow it to shine. And some time after that the whole process starts again. I CAN PLAY ALL THE TIME!
2. The more I know the more I learn there is more to know. My Spongebob brain loves this a lot, and anything which makes me happy, helps me with writing.
3. If haiku writing is about how to write a haiku in a moment (like seeing something, immediately writing it down, perfectly worded, done), then it is just about jumping from moment to moment, enjoying the writing, and writing perfectly. However, we can be left easily disappointed with ourselves, when we don’t manage to create a great haiku within the snap of our fingers (which will happen! Very often!). Let’s enjoy the editing process instead… Let’s write ABOUT a moment. Let’s even write about timelessness or the past, but let’s do it with great care. I humbly want to add that we are all human and the thought of being able to ‘master’ something and staying a master of it is scary for me. We will eventually fall. We will fall for sure. Because this is how we learn. Rubbing ourselves against the realities of imperfection. Let’s allow ourselves to suck and fuck things up, and then to write brilliantly, and after that another weird, incomplete poem which falls short of … whatever. This is totally fine. Write on. Edit. Forget about it. Keep learning.

a crow
fails to swallow
something with feathers
my permission
to fuck things up

Kati Mohr, written 2021.