By Maggie Jackson
As Advent began this year I felt I needed something to keep me focused and not drawn into the clamour of pre-Christmas commercialism. I set myself the challenge of writing a poem a day – realising after day one that this was going to be too ambitious unless I worked with some restrictions.
I turned to the format of writing haiku (using the basic structure of simplicity, with three lines each of 5, 7 and 5 syllables), and this then resulted in a discipline of writing a triad of haiku each day to reflect and comment on aspects of my own life, events in the world (reported in news broadcasts etc), and using the week-day readings for Advent from scripture.
I have kept the Sunday reflections to free verse rather than haiku. This has become a creative process which is manageable in daily life. I hope other people might also find it helpful to try this interweaving as a prayerful exercise.