Like Cutting a Watermelon with a Sharp Knife.

The article focuses on cultivating attentiveness and mindfulness in creative writing through the use of poetic imagery inspired by haiku traditions. Topics include the connection between inner and outer experiences in image-making, the role of immediacy in creative expression as taught by the 15th-century Japanese haiku master Matsuo Bashō and the American poet and translator Robert Hass, and the use of haiku-based exercises to train receptivity and presence in students.