Exploring Zuihitsu
An informal style of Japanese personal essay
I’m writing this in response to a recent Haiku-related writing prompt which I was thanked, along with another writer, for inspiring.
The editor of a Haiku publication read several short posts from graffiti living, my publication, and assumed that they were poetry.
She even left positive comments on some of them and clapped for others.
This was very flattering, of course, but my knee-jerk response was to assume that she was being sarcastic. (Imposter Syndrome? Who, me?!!)
Friends, she wasn’t being sarcastic. So consider myself told. But the thing is it wasn’t poetry, just random scribblings from my notebooks.
The Japanese call it Zuihitsu. I call it the half-assed scribblings of a lazy writer who wasn’t trying very hard. *looks innocent*
I’ve written poetry, and even had some poems published (tell no-one!), but I don’t consider myself a poet.
