Haiku Hope

This is the third and final project I’m using to promote the COPE Campaign, helping to prove that creativity is an effective tool in supporting mental health.

Even if, like me, you feel a bit rubbish at it.

I’ve said before it’s not the complete solution, for that you need a proper assessment and diagnosis and the offer of appropriate support and medication from a medical professional.

My multiple medications do a decent job, but my paranoia, fear, anxiety, depression and panic can still appear at the strangest moments, often without warning, and spiral out of control very quickly. So I knew I had to find something to help when it happens.

I started this site as a creative venture to bolster my own mental well-being, but my amateur art and writing have taken me to places I’d never have imagined a year ago. It’s all because I started writing and illustrating and sometimes that enabled me to forget the stress around me. Even on the occasions it wasn’t successfully deployed, just trying gave me some rest from the worry. Stepping away from stress and considering it properly when you feel more balanced is often the most useful reaction.

I wanted to come up with ways that I could promote how simple creativity can be, that it can be silly, time-consuming, a long term project or just a one-off that you throw away.

The choice is entirely yours (provided it’s legal, safe and enjoyable) and you can keep it totally private if you want to.

If you never tell another soul about it then that’s absolutely fine!

To give you some ideas, spark your own creativity and look at things besides drawing, I’ve now come up with ‘Crap Poems’, ‘Weird Words’ and this – ‘Haiku Hope’.

Although it’s still writing, the haiku is (for me at least) a less engrossing subject and much easier than a 40 liner or full blown sonnet (both of which make me very uncomfortable!).

The Haiku is a Japanese style of poem and in its more modern form it there are only 2 rules to follow.

• 3 lines
• 5, 7, 5 syllable count

For example…

Clean my ageing face (5 syllables)

Many times I wipe my eyes (7 syllables)

Stubborn mascara (5 syllables)

See? Short, sweet and simple. if you fancy trying you need nothing more than the phone in your hand or a pen and paper!

So I’ll bring you a regular new Haiku to read, and I’d like to add a rule – to make them short messages of hope.

All the haikus will be posted here and on my blog, so please keep an eye on them! If you have any ideas or subjects you’d like me to try then contact me 😀.

Thanks for reading!

Haiku Hope

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