If you love haiku and the turns very near their cores, be sure to check out Michael McClure’s lovely and lively “Haiku Edge.” “Haiku Edge” is a poem of 58 linked haiku, and–chock-full of emblems, ironies, and negative dialectics–it’s also a masterclass in turns.
In the preface to Rain Mirror, the book in which “Haiku Edge” appears, McClure discusses his doing away with the overly-simplistic 5-7-5 haiku form, making special note of the primacy of the haiku’s bipartite structure:
Beat poet and the retired Buddhist abbot, Zenshin Ryufu Philip Whalen, explained to me, in the 1950s, how a haiku should be written in English. He showed me the ellipsis, the mirroring or the reflection of the two parts of the poem’s action.
Refresh your perception! Reshape the contours of your consciousness! Surprise yourself!
Structure & Surprise 