Our guest today is Devin Harrison, a Canadian, originally from Montreal, Québec, who is now living on Vancouver Island.
Devin studied East Asian Studies at the U of T in Toronto (emphasis Japanese studies) and of course, came in touch with haiku at that time, but it was only much later before he started to write it. He has spent much of his life as a school teacher, working in the USA Texas and California, and later in Mexico, Thailand and Colombia. He is retired now.
Devin has been published in numerous journals, as a regular poet, but in the last 5 years, he has got into haiku. He has have never turned back. Indeed, you can find his book, published in 2017: Meeting Myself at the Gate on Amazon.
He writes haiku because there is an immediacy about it. It focuses on what is essential. “We tend to write ourselves to death,” he says, “but so much can be expressed in a few words. It is a meditation of sorts. It’s focused in the now.”
Much like myself he loves the outdoors, and whilst I hike here in Switzerland, I think of him hiking along the west coast. Maybe one day I can join him!
We will be hearing more from Devin throughout the year. He has some beautiful Haiku to share and many thoughts on Haiku that I want to explore with him.
He has some recommended reading for us too:
The Essential Haiku: Versions of Basho, Buson and Issa by Robert Hass.
A classic – The Haiku Handbook by William J. Higginson an Penny Harter.
Lastly a very useful getting-down-to-it book by Jane Reichhold: . Writing and Enjoying Haiku: A Hands-on Guide.
I’m currently reading the Jane Reichhold with the Higginson on my book stand too.
Thanks Devin, I look forward to discussing Haiku with you, over the year…
memories
boxed and moved into storage
dream clutter
