The morning sun is just touching my canoe, suggesting a promising midsummer day canoeing in Algonquin Provincial Park. But until it warms up, I put it out of mind, pour coffee and read the morning email. One is from a writer interested in haibun, one of those little bright spots that comes with being a journal editor. Having read it, I ask my partner, Nancy, to join me for coffee. “I want to read this to you,” I said.

Hello Ray,

After a walk with Rufus, my border collie, I returned home to find an envelope you had sent containing Harriot West’s collection of haibun, “Into the Light.” I remember you and I discussing haibun, but until I read her book, I didn’t have an appreciation for the sort of personal memoirs one finds in that genre. I took it to our dining table and read a few pieces to my wife, Joan, and we had quite a discussion.

It clearly requires a person of both courage and great honesty to author such a book. I am sure that reading her work will invite others to be more reflective of their life experiences, as it did me. Having read her offerings, I felt as if I was a bit dead to the world and asked myself, “Have I lived life asleep at the switch?”

In my undergraduate years, a philosophy course I took was taught by a man I much admired, Professor Samuels, a bright and warm person, an ex-Marine who wore wide brimmed hats and a funky vest, his black Labrador always at his side. As it happened, I and another chap received the top marks on an assigned paper. Going over mine, Samuelson mentioned that the other student and I had different strengths, mine was logical analysis whilst his was more a poetic or literary bent.

I’ve always thought of myself as linear, logical thinker, rather than an insightful type. I wish I had better capacity to see and express what I see in the world—in writing, photography and art.

When I finish reading it, she looks up and says: “He writes beautifully, Does he know that?”

“He seems not to and I’m going to try to set things straight.”

We further discussed James’ writing, noting how he moved from Rufus’ walk to West’s courage to his philosophy class and Professor Samuels’s black Lab to Samuel’s pronouncement James is a literal, and not a poetic thinker. The sequence illustrated the way memory works, one concrete thing leading to another, sentences carrying the weight of twenty years since that comment and the ache of roads not taken.

Hi James,

Your email reached me this morning at our rental cottage on Harp Lake. Nancy and I read it over coffee, and she looked up and said, “He writes beautifully. Does he know that?”

I agreed with her and I’m going to try to convince you to drop that idea that you lack a poetic mindset.

Your line about feeling “dead to the world” after reading West’s poems … I’ve been there. Last month I picked up E.B. White’s One Man’s Meat and felt the same kind of sting, watching his sentences flow like water while mine stumble along like old dogs.

It struck me that the details of your philosophy course with Professor Samuels remained in your memory after all these years. That’s not logical analysis—that’s a writer’s eye for the detail that makes a good story.

Your letter itself moves the way memory and haibun memoirs work—Rufus’s walk leads to West’s book and then leads to that undergraduate moment when someone decided to divide his students into categories: linear and poetic. What you’ve actually done in a few succinct sentences is poetic: you caught the texture of an afternoon, the weight of a professor’s casual pronouncement, the particular ache of wondering if you’ve been asleep at the switch.

You already know how to see and this was a good start at expressing what you observed about the class and the impact on you to this day. The question isn’t whether you can write—it’s whether you’ll trust what you’ve already written, and do what we writers all must do, polish it up some more, and if you want to publish it as a haibun, you’ll need to add a title and a haiku. These aren’t easy tasks, not for experienced writers, and especially not for writers new to the haibun memoir genre. This is a great start, don’t give up on yourself now. Gitting a start is a big first step and too often is the place where new writers get stuck.

I’m enclosing an offer. Send me a redraft and let’s go back and forth on it. And, start a personal journal. Try capturing one moment each day or the most memorable moment of the last week—just note what happened, what you noticed, what memories were associated, how you felt. Also consider more reading of other’s haibun. After West’s minimalist haibun, try David Lanoue’s more expansive pieces in “My Journal with Haiku Sprinkled in.” Look closely at how he writes about each of his days while traveling through Japan and Bulgaria. In return, if you wish, I’ll send you a draft of one of my working ideas, and you can provide me with comments. You’ll also develop your writing skills by critiquing the work of other writers. Every writer should have at least one working partner and one person who is a good reader offering their views on what works for them, and what doesn’t.

Best, Ray

About the Author

Ray Rasmussen resides in Edmonton, Canada. His haibun, haiga, haiku, articles and reviews have appeared in the major print and online haiku genre journals. Ray presently serves on the editorial staff of contemporary haibun online. In the past, he has served as part of the editorial/technical teams for Drifting Sands Haibun, Notes from the Gean, Simply Haiku, A Hundred Gourds, the World Haiku Review and Haibun Today. Ray’s Blog is “All Things Haibun” and his haiku-genres website is “Haiku, Haibun & Haiga.”