Discipline Without Rigidity

Looking to Basho to help me reclaim my balance

Hello, Poetry Weirdos!

Today’s brief essay was inspired by a comment that

Brian Funke

left on my post last week about replacing self-help with poetry. He mentioned one of his mantras for the year was discipline without rigidity.

That phrase stuck with me and led me to today’s haiku by Bashō and some commentary by haiku poet, translator, and Bashō biographer Jane Reichhold.

Before we get to the essay and the paywall, I wanted to let everyone know about a new community feature I’m experimenting with today.

It’s called 52 Haiku. Each week, starting today, I will open a paywalled chat for you to share a single haiku you have written in the past week. You are encouraged to include any notes, photos, sketches, collages, or anything else that goes with it.

It’s meant to be a fun, no-pressure way to be creative, notice your surroundings, and write 52 tiny poems this year.

The great thing about 52 Haiku is if you fall behind a week or four, it’s not daunting to get caught back up.

The chat is a way for us to hold each other gently accountable and to give us all a space to wonder at each other’s work.

I will provide an option prompt each week, but you are free to use, adapt, or ignore the prompts.

I hope to see you there! You can join any time throughout the year.

This week’s prompt is a haiku about something silver.

Here’s a link to the chat thread.

And now to today’s featured presentation. 🤣

One of my children’s least favorite things to hear from me is my aphorism, “Discipline is stronger than motivation.”

They roll their eyes and tell me they know. But I suspect that they do not believe me yet. Many days, I do not believe myself when I remind my inner poet that discipline is indeed stronger than motivation.

Chasing motivation is more fun and provides an easy excuse for my failures. How could I write or draw or pain when I wasn’t motivated?