haikus handmade from my brain

Rachael writes haikus— haikus for individuals, for families, and for events. She portrays a scene or an aspect of your life, your family, your wedding, your Christmas party, etc. with 17 syllables. Their personal and unique nature make haikus wonderful gifts for loved ones. Interested in a personal, one-of-a-kind haiku or booking Rachael for an event? Contact her.

What is a haiku?

Haikus are poems of three lines: 5 syllables, 7 syllables, and 5 syllables. They contain elements of nature analogous to aspects of life and death.

Why write haikus?

Rachael suffers from obsessive compulsive disorder (ocd), which manifests itself in relentless, unwanted thoughts. Whenever her ocd has been especially troublesome, she finds patterns in words, both written and spoken. This is distracting and frustrating. Writing poetry, especially haikus, gives her something productive to which she could consciously shift her focus. What was once debilitating became art—or at least a fun party trick.

“I use words to sketch my subjects with only their descriptions of themselves or their loved ones to go on. It's 17 syllables of my intuition, mostly.”

—Rachael

How does Rachael write haikus?

Like a painter studying her model before brush touches canvas, she must consider her subject before she writes. She asks a lot of direct questions about the subject of the poem and takes notes. Then she writes longhand and counts the syllables on her fingers. Finally, she types it out with her antique typewriter onto a library check-out slip.