Haiku letter #1
Dec. 21, 2020
Dear Oxygen–
I began writing a haiku a day on April 2, 2020. I had very little experience, and only a rudimentary understanding of the form. In the months since, it has become my primary writing and reading practice. I consider myself very much someone who is in haiku training.

The haiku began as a bit of a lark–I sent one as a text to help cheer someone up in those earliest days of Covid lockdown. Very quickly I realized it was helping me cope (and I think it still helps the original correspondent, who continues to be the first reader). I have kept that basic format as a sort of found-poem constraint — an image that is more snapshot than photo, along with a haiku based on an observation from that day, presented as a text-message. The image and the haiku may or may not have a direct reference to each other.

Throughout this period since April 2, a few other daily routines related to the haiku have ebbed and flowed — 87 consecutive snapshots of the sunrise from my window; a daily comic I drew for a while. I hope to cultivate and share some of these activities during my residency at the Oxygen Art Centre.

The Oxygen Art Centre Residency begins on the solstice, also the day of the great conjunction. Since April, I have looked at the sky more often than I have for decades — and what a spectacular year; a comet, all the naked-eye planets –Mercury before sunrise, bright Venus for so many mornings, Mars as it went through retrograde bigger and redder than I ever remember seeing it, the great conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn. As of today, the days begin adding light. There is a vaccine for Covid — even as the virus rages on.

Here’s to Making Light: Pandemic Winter.Love,
WMG

Haiku letter #2
Dec 28, 2020.     
Dear Oxygen—

Here are the haiku from the past week.

In the so-called festive season, the feelings engine seems to work overtime cranking out anxiety ions. So many highs and lows for so many reasons.

Keep thinking I should re-read Daniel Defoe’s “A Journal of the Plague Year.” Then I just live it instead.

It’s a bright sunny day; the neighborhood crows and magpies are busy, both foraging and keeping a truce.

Love

Mark

Haiku letter #3

January 4, 2021

Dear Oxygen—

Here are the haiku from last week.

“Happy New Year,” we say to others and ourselves. The passing of one year and the beginning of the next is rarely a “happy” time for me. It’s not exactly “sad” — But my mood at this time of year is often unsettled.

The police helicopter is carving circles in the sky over my neighbourhood right now, beating at air.

Love

Mark

Haiku letter #4

January 11, 2021

Dear Oxygen—

Here are the haiku from the past week.

“Poetry makes nothing happen,” Auden slyly observed. I have been learning these past months that haiku slyly makes nothing happen — takes moments of nothing(ness) and  activates them — verbing the nouns of observation and experience.

But then again, nothing happens. Seventeen (or fewer) syllables seem inadequate to confront violences, injustice, malevolence, tyranny — or disease and despair.

A dog lives nearby (near enough to hear but not so near that I can determine with any precision where it lives) whose high-pitched and ringing bark sometimes sounds mechanical, like the way a steel cable zings when tension is released.

Love,

Mark

January 18, 2021

Haiku Letter #5

Dear Oxygen—

Here are the haiku from the past week.

The sky is an unbroken blue this afternoon. January has been very mild, and it’s pissing me off. Not that I want the winter deep freeze that is sure to come here in Calgary. But January is often a a month when I bristle with even more irritability than usual. And nice weather gets in the way of that.

There is a haiku by Kobayashi Issa:

     Today, today too,
     somehow getting by these days, still
     living in a haze

This is a translation by Sam Hamill that is decidedly more melancholy than others of the same poem.

It matches my mood. A haze. Somehow getting by. Many are the days I think haiku-schmaiku.

A cold snap is coming. I hope it snows too.

Love,

Mark

January 25, 2021

Haiku Letter #6

Dear Oxygen—

Here are the haiku from the past week.

Hooray! Like everyone in the norther parts of the northern hemisphere, I am feeling a sense of relief as the days lengthen. Not exactly ecstatic joy; but I’m ok with incremental relief.

It got cold here in Calgary. Windchill near -25 Celsius. Ice fog. The thin blanket of new snow and hoarfrost has created a veneer of clean. I don’t hate it.

Love,

Mark

Haiku Letter #7

Feb 1, 2021

Dear Oxygen—

Here are the haiku from the past week.

This week I wrote the 300th daily haiku. I began the project on April 2, 2020, as some sort of pandemic response. I thought that would be short-term. Remember when all this began and there was a kind of an attitude “This’ll all be figured out by fall.” Hah! It was around Sept 1 that I decided to keep it going for a year. We’ll still be wearing masks if I get to 365.

It’s bright and blue here. I saw some sort of warbler today which must have overwintered — a flash of yellow. And a raven on a nearby powerpole. I looked at it through my binoculars and thought, “that’s a big crow.” The it showed me its hooked-beak profile and spread its wings. “Ain’t no crow!”

Love,

Mark

Haiku Letter #8

Feb 8, 2021

Dear Oxygen—

Here are the haiku from the past week.

So much time in the pandemic to let the mind wander, to fall down internet rabbit holes “researching” the topography of Wales or the technology of the boomerang in pre-contact Australia. Or to think about how the marketplace discounts (ethically and economically) both history and futurity — in regards to energy and climate change, racism and colonization, profit and bailouts. Cui bono? Who benefits? Those in the k/now of the marketplace.

This week while making some notes about poetry I wrote “mystic” when I meant to write “mistake.”

I’m still watching the birds, still waiting for the waxwings in the neighbour’s yard. Windchills the same in either temperature scale. I wait. For now.

Love,

Mark

Feb 15, 2021

Haiku Letter #9

Dear Oxygen—

Here are the haiku from the past week.

“Ennui.” I don’t precisely remember the first instance of reading that word — probably somewhere in my teens. I’d never heard it spoken, so I thought it was pronounced <n-u-i>. I don’t remember who corrected me when I first tried it aloud. The fact is, as many who know me can attest, I still mangle pronunciation of many words all the time. So while I have learned to say <on-wee> (or even with a bit of a gallic <on—nwee’>) I still often think of it as <n-u-i>. Lots of n-u-i these days as the bitter cold and pandemic bear down. Not really feeling too many haiku-able “ahas!” these days. Or feeling much of anything else.

This past week of arctic vortex-ness, a pair of ravens have been swooping about the neighbourhood, surfing the brisk breezes. The magpies are not amused. The cold snap is lifting as I write these words, and the days are longer and brighter.

Love,

Mark

Haiku Letter #10

Feb 22, 2021

Dear Oxygen—

Here are the haiku from the past week.

The grind. The productivity fetish. When does what seemed like a liberating practice — making daily haiku — become just another form of drudgery? Day 327? These days, I can’t pay attention to a moment, let alone uncover seventeen syllables or less about that moment I can’t pay attention to.

The weather has warmed. That’s not nothing. My continuing gratitude to you beautiful people @oxygen.art.centre for helping me pull through this season.

Love,

Mark

Haiku Letter #11

March 1, 2021

Dear Oxygen—

Here are the haiku from the past week.

This has been a week of troubled sleep and dreams. Not fighting-with-the-devil dreams. (I have in my lifetime had two memorable dreams where I did combat with actual devil — and I slew him both times.) No, these dreams lately are notable for the lack of drama. In one I had to draft a set of bylaw amendments for a community organization and present them in a Zoom meeting. If you’ve ever tried to write in your dreams you might guess how frustrating that was. Then doing dream-logic documentation version control. And then trying to get the Zoom meeting to work. Whew! I woke up feeling drained.

I grow impatient for the real signs of spring. This morning I thought I saw a pair of robins digging at the south-facing base of a crabapple where the snow had melted away. As I got near I saw they were a pair of flickers. Slight disappointment — but I watched them work until one suddenly sounded the alarm and they flew off, low to the ground. My continuing gratitude to @oxygen.art.centre for helping me pull through this season.

Love,

Mark

Haiku Letter #12

March 8, 2021

Dear Oxygen—

Here are the haiku from the past week.

The pharmacist recognizes me even with a mask and a hat. Which, of course she does. I forgot to wear a mask before leaving the apartment to walk old dog. Then ran into a neighbour at the elevator and felt awkward— then remembered later that’s the neighbour who never wears a mask. Ever. The first time I saw an abandoned mask on the street last year I took a photo, as if it were a rarity. How quaint. I imagine I’ll keep wearing masks in public for a very long time.

A dozen days to the equinox. Spring is actually arriving. The birds, the light, the air. My spirits are still a little glum. My continuing gratitude to @oxygen.art.centre for helping me pull through this season.

Love,

Mark

Haiku Letter #13

March 15, 2021

Dear Oxygen—

Here are the haiku from the past week.

The spring equinox arrives on Saturday so I suppose this is the last full letter to you wonderful folks at Oxygen. I’ll send a half letter on Saturday. One full season of daily haiku and un-haiku. A winter of dis/this content. Perhaps it’s appropriate too that I get my first vaccination shot tomorrow. Is this whole pandemic spectacle coming to its final scenes? I’m sensing these scenes will drag on to an even longer denouement. I’m ready for the next story.

I have watched the sky a lot this week. A lot of different blues. Blues as in colour fields, And yes those other blues too. The grass and trees are still stubbornly grey. But the greening will arrive soon. I look forward to ha(l)ving the greens.

My continuing gratitude to @oxygen.art.centre for helping me pull through this season. It has been strangely humble to see my words appear as if from another source, and to have them read by people who would otherwise not have seen them. It has been the encouragement I have needed as many days I began to flag at the simple prospect of seventeen syllables.

Many, many thanks.

Love,

Mark

Haiku Letter — Coda

March 20, 2021

Dear Oxygen—

Here are the haiku from the past few days, taking us to today.

This is the end of “Making Light: A Pandemic Winter.” My profound gratitude goes out to @oxygen.art.centre. The opportunity to share my haiku learning curve with you and your community has meant a great deal. You were all partners in my daily witness to the winter season’s gradual brightening — and to the flux of feelings of the ever-present pandemic.

The first day of spring in Calgary is terrific. It’s mild, and the cool afternoon breeze feels just right. Fluffy clouds. Birds of many breeds racketing and moving tree-to-tree. A chainsaw. Voices lifting from the streets. I got my first vax-jab this week, had a couple of days of side effects, recovered. I’m tired — attenuated, like a spring being pulled from both ends. But for the first time in a long while I have hope that the tension will ease, and my mor(t)al coil will resiliently assume a recognizable shape.

My daily haiku will continue on my IG @w_mark_giles_haiku — but only for a few days. April 2 will mark the one-year anniversary since I wrote my first haiku. And while I have no intention of abandoning the form, I do intend to take a hiatus from all social media for a few weeks. I will return in May.

Once again my many many thanks.

Love,

Mark

[view all of Making Light: Pandemic Winter, W. Mark Giles via Oxygen’s Instagram page]

Bio: W. Mark Giles

I live on Turtle Island, at Mohkinstsis, on the traditional territory of the the Kainai, Piikani, and Siksika Nations of the Blackfoot Confederacy, and also the traditional territory of the Tsuu T’ina and Stoney Nakoda First Nations. One might also say I live in the neighbourhood of Garrison Woods, in Calgary, Alberta, Canada, North America — but people were here a long time before I showed up, and the land sustained and taught them. Treaty 7 was signed at Blackfoot Crossing in 1877 and now encompasses the traditional lands of these First Nations. That’s where Calgary is now. My (his)story of colonial settlement cannot overwrite the(ir) story of continuous habitation. It is our story now. In _The Making Treaty 7_ project, the late Narcisse Blood and the late Michael Green shared the belief that “We are all treaty people.”

I offer acknowledgement to the original dwellers and keepers, and my gratitude. I hope I can learn to learn from this land too.

I have written two books of fiction, _Knucklehead_ and _Seep_, both published by the amazing Brian Kaufman and his gang at Anvil Press in Vancouver. _Knucklehead_ won the W.O. Mitchell City of Calgary Book Award, and was nominated for the Howard O’Hagan Award. _Seep_ was nominated for the Amazon First Novel Award. About _Seep_, E.H. of Kelowna, B.C., had this to say: “I read the scene with the dog on an airplane and got the stink eye from my seat partner.” I have published stories and poems, presented visual poetry, and performed theatre in venues in Canada and the U.S.A.

Links:
website: https://writingmarkgiles.com
anvil press: https://www.anvilpress.com/authors/W-Mark-Giles
Instagram: @w_mark_giles_haiku