James Roderick Burns’ fifth short-form collection, Crows at Dusk, was published last year by Red Moon Press. He can be found on Twitter @JamesRoderickB
You can read his spring haiku in the April 2024 issue.
Would you like to tell us a little bit more about your poem? For instance, how or why you wrote it, or perhaps provide some extra context?
I have been writing haiku (and related Japanese short-forms (such as tanka and sedoka) for around 20 years, and write them almost every day. These poems came about from a trip to Georgia to see my wife’s family, as well as walking an energetic hound we were dogsitting!
Why was the poetic form the best fit for this particular piece of work?
Haiku seek to capture the elements of a single, small moment that when brought together produce something larger and more resonant – they are perfect for reflecting on the seemingly-passing aspects of our lives that reveal greater truths looking back.
Do you have a collection of poetry or even a single poem that acts as a touchstone?
Probably Basho’s Narrow Road to the Deep North (Oku no Hosomichi), the classic haibun (or travel-related prose with embedded haiku), as well as almost every poem I have read by Issa, another classical haiku master.
If you didn’t write poetry, how do you think you might access the same fulfillments that poetry offers in your life?
I also write short stories and flash fiction, but the satisfaction of those forms is very different!
How do you revise your work?
I usually write out each haiku in a notebook, then revise when transcribing into electronic documents. It’s surprising how often changing a single word that didn’t occur at the time can transform a poem.
As a poet, what does creative success or achievement look like for you?
Haiku are very ‘page based’ (though in Japanese the verse form name means “short song”, and the whole poem is meant to be able to be recited in a single breath). Success is getting a book of haiku into the hands of someone who appreciates and will read and reread it.
We love the artistic underdogs, the experimentalists, the lovely weirdos — who or what might you get creative joy or energy from that others might not be aware of yet?
Flash fiction – it’s haiku-like in its brevity, but as weird, unpredictable and all-encompassing as longer fiction!
What are you working on now?
A longish collection that contrasts poems of the city with poems of the road, mapped out using road names and directions.
How or where or with what does a poem begin?
An observation of something small, almost always – a bird hopping, a broken tree branch, cobbles showing through worn tarmac, and so on. The circumstances of seeing and any other event occurring as you observe then strike together the elements of the poem.
Are there other art forms that inspire or inform your poetry?
Visual art, film, music. Couldn’t live or think without them …
How do you make space for poetry in your daily routine?
Haiku are nice and short, so fit in anywhere and anytime. I’ve lost track of the numbers of times I have written one during an endless work meeting (UK civil service)!
What are you reading or watching or listening to lately that intrigues or inspires you?
‘The Lincoln Lawyer’ series, from the books by Michael Connelly. The atmosphere and visual palette of Los Angeles is very inspiring. I’ve also been rereading Raymond Chandler. I would love to go there one day, and to write about it, but am slightly afraid that the hundreds of books I’ve read about LA have created such a rich mental place it might not live up to it!
Have you ever received advice (or has there been something you’ve learned on your own) about writing or revising poems that has made you a better poet? What was it?
Write, revise, send out, get back, repeat. Never give up – everything has its home, somewhere. You just have to find it.
Do you belong to a writer’s group? If not, where do you find poetry community and feedback?
I attend meetings of the Society of Authors in Edinburgh, but don’t currently attend a writing group.
How did you begin writing poetry? Was there a specific inspiration or reason?
Yes – very specific. On February 26, 2000, I was on the dole in Stockton-on-Tees, and idly looking out of the back window. It began snowing, and I noticed the snow falling through the slack black wires of a telegraph pole. It looked like reverse musical notation on a score, and that thought suggested itself in three short lines which reminded me of a haiku. I looked them up, wrote the poem out, and was hooked immediately. Have been doing them ever since!
In terms of poetic style or craft, is there a big question you are trying to find an answer for?
How can I make fiction sing with the precision and richness of poetry, and poetry connect with people in the immediate ‘hooky’ way that great fiction pulls the reader in?