Haiku for group discussion

This inspiring and elegant little pocket book is by the Institute for Social Inventions director and think tanker extraordinaire, Margaret Chisman. Interspersed with ideographs, the book consists of two haiku for each week of the year, with Margaret's own musings about the haiku as an aid for meditation and discussion.

A haiku is a poem of three lines, without rhythm or rhyme, with the first line having no more than five syllables, the second no more than seven, and the third no more than five again. Margaret composed her haiku over a two year period in which she criss-crossed the UK by train.

The basic haiku form is so simple that there is no excuse for reading Margaret's book without trying your hand at a haiku of your own. Thus here's my example of a haiku in honour of her achievement:

This wheel's on fire!

Sixteen thousand miles by rail

Five hundred haiku

Or again:

Some kind of record?

Just 32 miles by rail

Per haiku written

My favourite haiku in Margaret's book range through every mood. Here, for instance, is sadness coming to terms with transience:

Who will look after

My garden when I am gone?

Photosynthesis!

Margaret comments on this: 'By chance I passed through a village in which I had lived twenty years previously. I stopped at my former house. The garden was quite different - but obviously lovingly kept. Change is what the universe is about.'

Some of the haiku have a scientific flavour:

The table's not there

It's just molecules and quarks

But who cooks dinner?

The predominant perspective is perhaps Margaret's anti-consumerist ethic, often expressed through humour or through noticing incongruities:

The Registrar wore

Carpet slippers. Bride and groom

Sported best Oxfam

Sometimes she comments on our hypocrisy:

For a greener world

We will do anything but

Change our habits

Sometimes she is in open rebellion against our civilization:

Wild Life Park, Theme Park,

Leisure complex, Nature Trail,

Where is wilderness?

There are many more I would love to quote, but you will have to buy the book for yourself. It would make a good present, and there may well be groups who would like to take up Margaret's suggestion of using the haiku as themes to ponder on in advance of their meetings.