Writing Haikus from Artworks
Esme Boggis
This resource is inspired by a Write on Art workshop delivered as part of the Art Teachers Connect Residential 2024. It invites students to respond creatively to artworks, and think about the connection between art and writing, through writing haikus.
Writing can be as creative a process as making an artwork and acts as an important tool to make sense of ideas and imagery. Writing from artworks can develop students’ confidence to critically and creatively interpret what they see online and in their seen environments – a skill they can use in all areas of life to question the world around them.
What is Write on Art?
Write on Art is an annual writing programme devised by Art UK and the Paul Mellon Centre, which invites young people across the UK to write about an artwork on Art UK’s website which fascinates them. The programmes mission is to champion young people’s voices by encouraging them to explore and share their personal responses to art.
What is a haiku?
A haiku is a short poem originating in Japan that often responds to nature and in its English variant tends to be composed of three lines with this syllabic structure:
Five syll-a-bles first,
then sev-en syll-a-bles next,
then a fin-al five.
Here are some example haikus that you can share with students which were written by teachers during the Art Teachers Connect residential workshop:
Smothered and heavy,
but compacted made stronger,
to sculpt new objects
HOLD, Phyllida Barlow (1986-89)
Vast devastation,
war-strain shell blasted landscapes,
retreat to the shore
The Shore, Paul Nash (1923)
A moment of light,
windows like eyes revealing,
a glimpse or blink
Hieroglyph, Barbara Hepworth (1953)
As haikus are a short and emotive form of writing, they act as a great starting point for longer pieces of writing and for students who find writing daunting. This short form of writing also encourages students to get to the heart of what they want to convey and choose their words carefully – a great exercise for getting them to really interrogate and refine their ideas.
This exercise can work well as a class or homework task and can be used in front of artworks in a gallery or museum, or while looking at artworks online. It could also be a fun way of introducing your students to the Write on Art programme.
Materials and equipment you’ll need:
- Pens/pencils
- Paper
- Clipboards (if students are in a museum or gallery space)
- Prompts (you can either print these out from the lists below or students can select them from a screen if they are working from a computer)
- Long roll of paper
- Felt tips
Activity
- Ask students to select an artwork in either a gallery or museum space, or from Art UK’s website. Consider using a Choosing an Artwork prompt from our Prompting Perspectives resource to help them choose an artwork. As Art UK has over 300,000 artworks in their collection, it might be helpful to select a few from their website for students to choose from. You can find artworks using Art UK’s search tool. Ask students to also note down the name and artist of their chosen artwork and print a copy of the artwork (if possible) to share with the group later.
- Ask students to sit or stand in front of the artwork and write down five things they can see. This can be colours, people, animals, objects – anything which catches their attention. If students are viewing the artwork online, they can still sit or stand in front of the artwork but make sure they enlarge the image to the full size of the screen so they can see it clearly.
- Ask students to select a Looking Closely or Looking Differently prompt from the Prompting Perspectives resource. These prompts are to encourage students to experience the artwork in a different way and look a little closer, using all their senses to describe their experience of being with the artwork.
- Write a haiku. Remind students of the syllable structure of a haiku. If they are struggling to work this out, invite them to say their sentences out loud and count the syllables with them. If they are really struggling with forming the sentences, they could make a word cloud and build sentences from that.
- Sharing their haikus. Ask students to come together once they have written their haiku and write it on a roll of paper using felt tips. Here are some prompts you can use to encourage students to share their haikus verbally:
- Invite students who feel brave to read their haiku out loud to the group
- Ask students to get into pairs and read each other’s haikus to each other (without looking at the artwork each of them has chosen) and then each person must guess which artwork inspired their haikus from a printed selection
- Invite students to choose a peer’s haiku and make an artwork in response to it. This could be a drawing, sculpture, painting or performance – any form of art which they like to create. They can then compare their artwork to the one which inspired the original haiku.
- Invite other students to respond to the haikus with questions such as:
- What stood out to you?
- What did you visualise when you heard the haiku?
- What kind of artwork do you think the haiku might be describing?
- Invite students to share their experience of writing the haiku with questions such as:
- What was important for you to convey?
- What was the most difficult part of writing?
- How did you want the reader to feel when reading the haiku?
Even if students have completed the activity as a homework task, they could still come together during class to share their writing with peers.
Write on Art runs on an annual basis. If you have any questions about Write on Art, please contact Rachel Prosser [email protected] or Esme Boggis [email protected].
Image Credits:
Phyllida Barlow, HOLD, 1986-89. Image courtesy Hauser & Wirth. Photo: Alex Delfanne.
Paul Nash, The Shore, 1923, oil on canvas, 62.2 x 94 cm. Photo: Collection Leeds Museums and Galleries (LEEAG.PA.1946.0023.0001)
Barbara Hepworth, Hieroglyph, 1953, stone sculpture, 101.8 x 86 x 45 cm. © Bowness. Photo: Collection Leeds Museums and Galleries (LEEAG.SC.1968.0001)