One of the key elements in successful prose, fiction, or nonfiction, is imagery—the word-pictures that directly transmit what the writer sees. But while writing students get a lot of help with things like plot and structure, imagery often goes unmentioned, in part because it is so hard to talk about how to make better images. Therein lies the value of haiku for prose writers. The short, imagistic form of poetry imported from Japan offers a clear (and very fun) way to practice making images. In this craft talk, we will read and write haiku together, using the experience to deepen our understanding of what imagery can do in our own writing.
Robert Anthony Siegel studied Japanese literature at Harvard and the University of Tokyo. He is the author of a memoir, Criminals, and two novels, All the Money in the World and All Will Be Revealed. His short work has appeared in The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, Smithsonian, The Paris Review, The Oxford American, Tin House, and Ploughshares, among other magazines. He's been a Fulbright Scholar in Taiwan, a Mombukagakusho Fellow in Japan, a Writing Fellow at the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, and a Paul Engle Fellow at the Iowa Writers Workshop, and has won O. Henry and Pushcart Prizes. He teaches online at the Iowa Summer Writing Festival and Catapult and coaches privately.
Robert will be judging our OCWW Haiku Contest. Please go to the Manuscript drop down on our OCWW website at ocww.info for more details.
