Haiku Theory

What if a haiku isn't just a poem—but a living concept? Come along as we dive into haiku as conceptual experience: a compact, electrified Now where language, memory, and experience collide. By reimagining haiku as dynamic conceptual events, we uncover how these tiny poems don't just describe moments—they create them.

What if a haiku isn't just a poem—but a living concept? Come along as we dive into haiku as conceptual experience: a compact, electrified Now where language, memory, and experience collide. By reimagining haiku as dynamic conceptual events, we uncover how these tiny poems don't just describe moments—they create them.

Deleuze and Guattari's What is Philosophy?

Richard Gilbert's Plausible deniability: Nature as hypothesis in English‑language haiku

Jim Kacian's Haiku as Anti-Story

Keiko Imaoka's Forms in English Haiku

Charles Trumbull's An Analysis of Haiku in 12-Dimensional Space

Italo Calvino's All at One Point To contact the podcast EMAIL US

Introduction recorded by Graham on June 11, 2025 in a Toykyo Subway Train

Think haiku is all about simple language? Come along as we unpack how the juxtaposition of poetic and common diction energizes haiku, and how 20th-century English-language poets got it wrong by mistaking the poetic for the prosaic.

Contact the Haiku Theory Podcast by Emailing Us Here. This episode's soundscape was recorded by Graham on a subway car in Tokyo, Japan in June 2025.

Is haiku bound by the rules of everyday grammar, or does it operate on its own terms? In this episode, we explore how haiku breaks away from the structures of normal sentence-based language. From notions of spontaneous grammars to the disruptive grammars of the "Cut" in haiku, we question why readers and editors often impose standard grammatical expectations on a poetic form that may not want them. Through examples and thought experiments, we ask: If a haiku isn't a sentence, what is it—and what kind of grammar does it create?

Haiku expectations dictate what it is we think haiku should be doing. In this episode, we dive into the expectations surrounding haiku and how they shape our experience of the form. We explore the common belief that haiku should evoke profound moments of clarity or connection with nature, and why this expectation often leads to disappointment. From the historical influence of Western interpretations to the rise of prescriptive rules about the "haiku moment," we examine how these expectations have shaped both the writing and reading of haiku. Join us as we unpack the assumptions that guide our approach to haiku and rethink what this poetic form is truly meant to do.

A 'Careful Poetics: Caring Imagination, Caring Habits, and Haiku' can be read in its entirety by Clicking Here.

The interplay of meaning and experience in haiku both captivates and frustrates readers and writers alike. In this episode, we delve into Richard Gilbert's concept of Collocation and Roland Barthes' Narrative Codes, examining how these theories illuminate the structures of language—and what they reveal about the life and death of haiku.

Meaning and Experience

The interplay of meaning and experience in haiku both captivates and frustrates readers and writers alike. In this episode, we delve into Richard Gilbert's concept of Collocation and Roland Barthes' Narrative Codes, examining how these theories illuminate the structures of language—and what they reveal about the life and death of haiku.

Click Here for a link to an incredible discussion and analysis of Peter Newton's 'beam by beam' haiku.

Click Here for a brief description of Roland Barthe's five language codes.

To contact the podcast Email Us Here.

The audio of this episode was recorded by Graham at a publicly performed Christmas pageant.

Within haiku is a tension between silence and expression that mirrors the complex relationship between desire and its unattainable fulfillment.

In this episode, we delve into Ian Marshall's essay, Jouissance among the Kire: A Lacanian Approach to Haiku, to explore Jacques Lacan's concept of Jouissance and its connection to haiku's emphasis on the ineffable, the unsaid, and the fragmented.

Dwelling beneath the formal aspect of Juxtaposition is the force of Disjunction, a force that disrupts perception and challenges the very notion of what a haiku is.

In today's episode, we explore Richard Gilbert's essay The Disjunctive Dragonfly, which shifts the conversation about haiku from what haiku is, to how haiku work. Gilbert argues that the true power of haiku lies in the concept of "disjunction," a force that disrupts readers' perceptions and challenges our understanding of how meaning arises within haiku.